Michael_V
Second Unit
- Joined
- Oct 30, 1999
- Messages
- 323
When my seven-year-old plasma TV died and I had to replace it with an LG 4K OLED, my ability to keep using my beloved Bowers and Wilkins Panorama 2 went out the window thanks to its inability to pass 4K through HDMI.
Man, that bar sounded good!
I have the matching PVD1 subwoofer, which is incredibly musical and aesthetically perfect for our living room, and I really really want to keep using that.
So this is what I’m looking for: a high-end replacement standalone sound bar—not a package—on par with the Bowers and Wilkins that looks good and has a wired subwoofer out.
I picked up the new Formation bar yesterday, which does not have a dedicated subwoofer out. Sounds great but lacks the simulated surround that the panorama did so well. Also limited to old lossy audio formats through optical, which is very weird.
I’ve also been looking at the Ambeo as that seems to check all the boxes, but it’s incredibly expensive and seems to have some stability and/or compatibility issues? I will be getting almost all of my content from an Apple TV 4K and a Sony 4K disc player. No cable.
Anything else I should be looking at?
(As an aside, I once had a dedicated home theater with an anthem processor, various speakers from energy, paradigm, and dynaudio, and subwoofers from SVS and JL audio but we moved to a beach house in Hawaii 7 years ago and that is no longer an option... but I do know good sound and appreciate the input! Seems like sound bar packages these days have gone the way of the HTiB!)
Man, that bar sounded good!
I have the matching PVD1 subwoofer, which is incredibly musical and aesthetically perfect for our living room, and I really really want to keep using that.
So this is what I’m looking for: a high-end replacement standalone sound bar—not a package—on par with the Bowers and Wilkins that looks good and has a wired subwoofer out.
I picked up the new Formation bar yesterday, which does not have a dedicated subwoofer out. Sounds great but lacks the simulated surround that the panorama did so well. Also limited to old lossy audio formats through optical, which is very weird.
I’ve also been looking at the Ambeo as that seems to check all the boxes, but it’s incredibly expensive and seems to have some stability and/or compatibility issues? I will be getting almost all of my content from an Apple TV 4K and a Sony 4K disc player. No cable.
Anything else I should be looking at?
(As an aside, I once had a dedicated home theater with an anthem processor, various speakers from energy, paradigm, and dynaudio, and subwoofers from SVS and JL audio but we moved to a beach house in Hawaii 7 years ago and that is no longer an option... but I do know good sound and appreciate the input! Seems like sound bar packages these days have gone the way of the HTiB!)
