Great, looking forward to reading the test results.

Have you tested that the Mini actually supports DTS? Mine doesn’t support DTS, only Atmos. It has SW version 1.0.92.

Dec 06, 2023 04:05 AM By Arnehold

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Have you tested that the Mini actually supports DTS? Mine doesn’t support DTS, only Atmos. It has SW version 1.0.92.

Hello Arnehold,

Following your comment, we retested the Ambeo mini’s audio support for DTS content (including DTS:X, DTS-HD-MA). In our initial testing, there were no problems with any type of DTS audio. However, when we tested it again, this time on a different TV, DTS:X and DTS-HD-MA were being downgraded to regular DTS 5.1. It may that the bar only supports some audio formats depending on the TV you have. To assess the validity of this, would it be possible to send us your TV model?If we have it here, we could see if we are able to reproduce the results on your end, which would give you an answer and allow us to determine if this is something we need to investigate further.

Thank you.

Hallo! I just wonder why nearly all other reviews state that the mini is far better than Sonos beam, especially in Atmos effect. They all concluse mostly the opposite to the rtings test….

Dec 13, 2023 04:25 PM By Robin77

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Hallo! I just wonder why nearly all other reviews state that the mini is far better than Sonos beam, especially in Atmos effect. They all concluse mostly the opposite to the rtings test….

Hi there, thanks so much for reaching out.

I’ll link to a side-by-side comparison of the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) and the Sennheiser AMBEO Mini Soundbar. If you scroll down to the Atmos section, you can see that these bars perform pretty similarly overall in this regard. The real difference that we noticed came in terms of the soundstage. The Sonos does a better job pushing sound past the edges of the bar itself, which creates a wider and more immersive sound. The tough thing about testing and reviewing sound is that it’s all very subjective—what you prefer may be different from what I prefer, so not everyone will like this feature, for example. Still, we found the Sonos to be the better value buy overall.

Dec 12, 2023 02:53 PM By  Raphael Boyer

Hello Arnehold, Following your comment, we retested the Ambeo mini’s audio support for DTS content (including DTS:X, DTS-HD-MA). In our initial testing, there were no problems with any type of DTS audio. However, when we tested it again, this time on a different TV, DTS:X and DTS-HD-MA were being downgraded to regular DTS 5.1. It may that the bar only supports some audio formats depending on the TV you have. To assess the validity of this, would it be possible to send us your TV model?If we have it here, we could see if we are able to reproduce the results on your end, which would give you an answer and allow us to determine if this is something we need to investigate further. Thank you.

Thanks a lot for your thorough reply! My TV is Sony XR48-A90K. The firmware version of the Ambeo Mini is 1.0.92.

Dec 14, 2023 03:06 PM By  Becca Fischer

Hi there, thanks so much for reaching out. I’ll link to a side-by-side comparison of the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) and the Sennheiser AMBEO Mini Soundbar. If you scroll down to the Atmos section, you can see that these bars perform pretty similarly overall in this regard. The real difference that we noticed came in terms of the soundstage. The Sonos does a better job pushing sound past the edges of the bar itself, which creates a wider and more immersive sound. The tough thing about testing and reviewing sound is that it’s all very subjective—what you prefer may be different from what I prefer, so not everyone will like this feature, for example. Still, we found the Sonos to be the better value buy overall.

Thank you for the comparison! The high-frequency extension of the Sonos is noticeably lower than Ambeo Mini’s. Have you noticed any audible difference in the high end between these two?

Dec 16, 2023 07:11 AM By Arnehold

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Thanks a lot for your thorough reply! My TV is Sony XR48-A90K. The firmware version of the Ambeo Mini is 1.0.92.

You have tested the 42 inch A90K and I believe the two sizes behave the same way.

Dec 14, 2023 03:06 PM By  Becca Fischer

Hi there, thanks so much for reaching out. I’ll link to a side-by-side comparison of the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) and the Sennheiser AMBEO Mini Soundbar. If you scroll down to the Atmos section, you can see that these bars perform pretty similarly overall in this regard. The real difference that we noticed came in terms of the soundstage. The Sonos does a better job pushing sound past the edges of the bar itself, which creates a wider and more immersive sound. The tough thing about testing and reviewing sound is that it’s all very subjective—what you prefer may be different from what I prefer, so not everyone will like this feature, for example. Still, we found the Sonos to be the better value buy overall.

Thanks for the answer! I didn’t want to criticize as I like your reviews in general. I’m just interested in buying the Sennheiser and selling my Sonos. And specially regarding the soundstage all other reviews found the Sennheiser here miles better than the Beam. Maybe I’ll buy Sennheiser for testing myself in this case.

Dec 19, 2023 09:01 AM By Robin77

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Thanks for the answer! I didn’t want to criticize as I like your reviews in general. I’m just interested in buying the Sennheiser and selling my Sonos. And specially regarding the soundstage all other reviews found the Sennheiser here miles better than the Beam. Maybe I’ll buy Sennheiser for testing myself in this case.

I’ve tested both at home and I liked the Sennheiser better.

Dec 16, 2023 07:11 AM By Arnehold

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Thanks a lot for your thorough reply! My TV is Sony XR48-A90K. The firmware version of the Ambeo Mini is 1.0.92.

Hello Arnehold,

As was mentioned in the previous comment, we tested the Ambeo Mini’s DTS capability with the A90K TV. Using a blu-ray player as the source, the bar had no issues playing all DTS content, including DTS-HD-MA and DTS:X. Here’s a quick video of the test: https://www.rtings.com/videos/pages/XU980pJw/dts-support.mpd?autoplay=false&autoload=false

I can also confirm that our bar is on the same Firmware ID as yours (1.0.92). It’s possible the issue may be with your particular unit. I would inquire with the manufacturer or the retailer to troubleshoot the issue.

Dec 19, 2023 05:44 PM By  Raphael Boyer

Hello Arnehold, As was mentioned in the previous comment, we tested the Ambeo Mini’s DTS capability with the A90K TV. Using a blu-ray player as the source, the bar had no issues playing all DTS content, including DTS-HD-MA and DTS:X. Here’s a quick video of the test: https://www.rtings.com/videos/pages/XU980pJw/dts-support.mpd?autoplay=false&autoload=false I can also confirm that our bar is on the same Firmware ID as yours (1.0.92). It’s possible the issue may be with your particular unit. I would inquire with the manufacturer or the retailer to troubleshoot the issue.

Hi Raphael, Many thanks for making this investigation! The video is very informative. Your result is convincing and shows that there must be a problem with my particular unit. So i’ll do as you suggested.

Dec 16, 2023 07:31 AM By Arnehold

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Thank you for the comparison! The high-frequency extension of the Sonos is noticeably lower than Ambeo Mini’s. Have you noticed any audible difference in the high end between these two?

We didn’t notice an audible difference between the two. The higher end of the treble range is something that you tend to “feel” more than hear, especially since most of us lose our sensitivity to these higher frequencies as we age.

Dec 20, 2023 08:17 AM By  Becca Fischer

We didn’t notice an audible difference between the two. The higher end of the treble range is something that you tend to “feel” more than hear, especially since most of us lose our sensitivity to these higher frequencies as we age.

👍😁

Dec 19, 2023 09:01 AM By Robin77

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Thanks for the answer! I didn’t want to criticize as I like your reviews in general. I’m just interested in buying the Sennheiser and selling my Sonos. And specially regarding the soundstage all other reviews found the Sennheiser here miles better than the Beam. Maybe I’ll buy Sennheiser for testing myself in this case.

There is a fundamental difference between the construction of the Sonos Beam and Ambeo Mini. The Beam has one tweeter in the center of the front grille and four full range drivers symmetrically towards the sides. The Mini has no center driver but, rather, four full range drivers symmetrically towards the sides with those two closest to the center pretty far apart from each other, plus two bass drivers firing upwards. The Beam’s center tweeter may, for sound material having lots of high frequencies, make the soundstage sound narrower than that of the Ambeo Mini. On the other hand, if the material consists more of mid and low frequencies such as the beginning of the movie Blade Runner 2049, the result may well be the opposite.

One question: can I use the equalizer settings from „Stereo Frequency Response With Preliminary Calibration“ with Atmos too, or will this lead to „wrong“ sound as this setting is meant for stereo?

Jan 05, 2024 06:29 PM By Robin77

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One question: can I use the equalizer settings from „Stereo Frequency Response With Preliminary Calibration“ with Atmos too, or will this lead to „wrong“ sound as this setting is meant for stereo?

These settings are meant for stereo sound. You can always try them out with Atmos content to see if you like the sound!

After using the Mini for a few weeks now, I noticed that the Movie and Adaptive mode have way too high bass with default settings in equalizer (the soundbar is calibrated). Every bass in background music in normal tv watching (like discovery channel, vox,….) that should be very subtle, is much too loud and doesn’t sound clean. It sounds really wrong.

I bought just for testing the Ambeo Sub. With the Sub this problem doesn’t exist with same settings. With the sub the bass is much more subtle and sounds as it should. The problem is, that fixing this without the sub needs to lower the equalizer bass settings to lowest level, what makes other things like voice also sound bad, because the foundation then is missing.

I’ve a big living room, don’t know if this is the problem. What fixes this also completely is using neutral soundmode, which in general sounds better at normal tv (more natural voices). Only watching movies isn’t as punchy then.

Can anyone confirm this? Maybe it’s because of the actual firmware update (1.0.92), which lists this in its changelog: Improved bass management for very low frequencies playback I don’t think that noone noticed this….