Philips HTL5140B/12 2.1 Channel Soundbar Speaker with Wireless Subwoofer - Black

PROs: For a bar of that price range it is unbeatable. It renders sounds for both lower and higher frequencies very well and works very well also at lower/normal volume for both movies/series and news channels. It was easy to install and the wireless sub-woofer is a nice addition and reasonably easy to synchronize with the base unit. The remote doesn't have an unnecessary amount of options and choices. The sound bar looks good, it's not too small nor to big and fits perfectly under a 50"-55" TV. CONs: HDMI connectors on the back of the sound bar were a little difficult of access/install. The Sky Box for the UK market interferes with the start of the unit. Subwoofer could be a little more responsive at lower volumes even at maximum bass settings. Could have made the most important + and - volume buttons on the remote a little larger/more obvious. Still noticeable performance difference with a high end full 5.1 sound system but we are not comparing apples to apples anymore. CONCLUSION: I would buy it again and would recommend it to anyone that is looking for a 2.1 sound bar system in that price range. Even much higher priced sound bars units I explored were far from to the performance of this one.

Trying to match a soundbar to my late model Panasonic Plasma took me to several dead ends. Especially with the Panasonic range, which I hoped would interact with the TV easily, but I could not find one of a suitable quality and value. The good reviews for the Philips HTL5140B finally made my mind up and was just inside the budget I had set for this accessory. Amazon's delivery was amazing! Ordered Sunday morning, delivered within 24 hours. You have to be careful screwing the unit together. The screws are tiny and could cross-thread (small flat-head screwdriver required), but with care it went together in a couple of minutes. I used the HDMI ARC socket and hoped the soundbar and the TV would relate. No problems there, I went into the Panasonic self-testing menu and it recognised the soundbar as a Home Cinema System. This meant I could alter the volume with the Panasonic remote and only use the Philips' one for fine tuning. At first I thought the wire-free sub-woofer was not working, until I put on a recording of a war film. The bombs sounded very real and nasty! To get full value from the soundbar I wanted to use it as a music system for my classical collection. A Blu-ray of a concert performance revealed instruments I had never heard before - good start. The Bluetooth connected at once with my Dell laptop, which I use for storing recordings, including live ones in WAV format. Again an excellent sound. I have to keep the sub-woofer on minimum setting, otherwise my neighbour's ornaments could start falling off their shelves. With using the ARC socket I needed an extra HDMI lead to feed back into the TV. A medium priced one was fine and I linked it with my Freesat player which did not degrade the HD picture. All good so far! MAY 2016 I had some trouble with a poor signal, which turned out to be the HDMI cable being bent in the small plugin space under the soundbar. Fixed with a thinner cable. At the same time I found that on turning on from standby the unit went to full volume. My query to Phillips customer support brought me a reply I hope was a translation from Swedish or a similar language, as it was virtually unreadable. Basically it was saying either do a reset or download a software update. I have tried neither and now quickly turn the volume down before the sound comes on from the TV. The comments I made in the original review still hold, but I would say try to get a longer guarantee than one year, so you can replace it if a similar fault appears. As to Phillips customer service, I will not be buying any of their other products!

I have had to re-write this review after Colin pointed out why my 3rd unit appeared to be faulty. I hadn't had much luck with the first two units. The first had a faulty HDMI input socket so had to be returned. Great sound through the optical input though. Trouble-free replacement arranged by Amazon. The second unit had a faulty crossover unit, so all frequencies were played through both the sub-woofer and the soundbar producing a really weird sound. I had though been really impressed with the sound of the original unit and requested a replacement unit, thinking that as the two problems were unrelated I had just been very unlucky. However Amazon advised that due to a lot of reported problems with this item they were replacing all existing stock with a new batch, which would not be available for several weeks so I had to return it for a refund. This didn't automatically occur - I had to chase them when it didn't appear in my account- make sure you hang onto your collection slip if you ever have to return anything. Once I had given them the details from this the refund was processed within minutes. Thinking there would be no problems with the new stock I ordered a third one a few weeks later which was great - until the sub-woofer wireless connection kept dropping. This occurred no matter where the unit was placed - and I tried numerous places and distances from the soundbar. The comment by Colin identified the cause of the problem. Although I had moved the sub-woofer around, I hadn't moved the soundbar, and this sat immediately above the wireless router on the shelf below. Moving the router resolved the problem. Am now very pleased with his unit. There is a tendency for the bass to be a bit boomy at times, but this is resolved by turning down the bass.

I purchased this product like many others after reading the what hi fi review rating it the best sound at under £300 firstly the positive it sounds great playing music via a Bluetooth device (iPad or phone etc) the sound is loud clear and has good bass the unit looks good with the bar being compact and stylish looking I havent mounted my bar on the wall but I can see how it could droop at the ends as mentioned in previous reviews. What is slightly less good is the sound when using it with the tv it isn't as loud or a good quality as from an external Bluetooth source but it still is a good improvement on the tv speakers it can also be very bass heavy on programs where you really don't want it for example if you are watching a programme with a male voice narrative the low voice notes are very bass heavy and muffled even with the bass turned to minimum and night mode on it doesn't get to a level where it is acceptable to listen to so I have ended up unplugging the sub unless I am watching a film or listening to music. The worst part of the soundbar by far is the lip sync problems as reported by others, when I first set it up I had an optical cable from tv to soundbar and an hdmi from Sky box to tv and the sound and vision were so far out it was unwatchable, I changed it so the optical cable is now directly from the Sky box into the soundbar and it has improved it a lot but when watching some channels and particularly recorded programmes on sky+ It can get quite bad im not sure if connecting to the soundbar with an hdmi arc cable will sort the issues but my tv doesn't have an hdmi arc out so I can't try it. So in conclusion good sound but flawed in other ways hence 3 stars (if I hadn't improved lip sync by direct connection to sky it would be 1 star and going back to Amazon) so buyer beware

I had high hopes for this unit from the HiFi Magazine review. What a mistake, the sound although not to bad wasn't very good at all in the end, The voices are hidden unless on clear which ruins the rest, it does come with two English mains leads now I can confirm. The display at it brightness cannot be seen from 10' away, so no idea what you are on, Bass is there when at maximum (+4 setting), but isn't clear, its very muddled, there is no surround sound of any description that works and this is really a purely Stereo 2:1 unit, which is better than TV sound, but I thought in the end a waste of money. I sent it back yesterday and have had a different set sent out. It went faulty after a few days, cutting out, turning itself off and other wrong faults so sent back for refund. You don't have to fit the three sections together, but if you don't there is no centre sound. If you are putting on wall, a warning the sections droop into a moustache type look even with the six supplied screws. I have now had delivered today, 24/12 the Yamaha YSP-2500 and on first sounds knocks the Philips out of the water. It also does give a true surround sound if you set it up with the microphone and leave room. Now this is proper sound, Wow. Thanks Amazon for changing on Christmas Eve and so quickly, great aftersales, shame it went faulty but couldn't have lived with that muddled sound. Whatever were the reviewers listening too?

Positives: The sound quality was good, with plenty of bass, although often too much, drowning out dialogue Good adjustability with sound profiles and bass/treble adjustment The Bluetooth functionality was useful Nice-looking unit, blends in well with TV and furniture. Negatives: Through HDMI, the sound would often not quite sync with the TV, meaning much time fiddling with the sync adjustment setting. Connecting via optical sorted this I experienced the subwoofer losing connection and cutting out fairly regularly, as other reviewers have mentioned It stopped working completely after 12months and 2 weeks. Phillips wanted £140 for an out of warranty repair. I'll give a competitor's product a try instead.

a previously owned unit was delivered this morning and looked brand new. it took 10 minutes to set up and the sound is so much better than my samsung pimmy tv speakers. i have no issues with the woofer dropping out and it all connected so easily. people have said the bass drops out but so far it hasnt for me. sometimes there are so many devices connected - whether remotes, bluetooth, wifi, sky boxes etc its hardly surprising that one device or another conflicts with another as most are based on 2.4ghz send/receive technology. it connected easily via optical/toslink, the woofer recognised everythimg immediately and the platform is easy to use. the sound is awesome as long as you keep it sensible. i read the what hi fi appraisal of this unit and can understand their 5 star rating. i bought an LG soundbar last week and returned it as it was rubbish, i bought a sony 'do it all' amp and cinema system the week before and it created more cables than it was supposed to replace and so difficult to sync each device i have. this is without doubt the best of both worlds and the best compromise i have found. yes the cables are a bit cramped, but does that really matter when its installed. my advise is use an optical cable input. mute or turn your tv sound to zero and everything else falls into place. I paid £218 for this unit, half the cost of the sony system amp, got rid of all the wires and spaghetti from 5:1 speakers and enjoy less clutter and great sound. it is also 320w rms and not a spurious marketing number sometimes advertised as more but less.

This may be a budget price, but it's certainly not budget in terms of quality. I spent a while reading reviews online including the What Hifi recommendation, and decided that I'd need to pay a lot more money to get a different model with the same features. The fact that this unit has HDMI-ARC means that I can turn my tv, soundbar and sky box on with the press of a single button, it has Bluetooth and NFC both of which work well, and the overall sound quality is amazing - with these modern TVs you can easily lose out on sound quality without realising. Hook one of these up and you'll be firing on all cylinders again :) The sub is wireless and I have it positioned at the rear of the front room all ok; this also switches on and off with the rest of the system but you do get a flashing white LED for about a minute after turning it off whilst it tries to reconnect. (Not a problem unless you're sitting in a dark room) The best bit for me is the physical size of the main soundbar - it's very small in height and depth meaning it fits perfectly between my tv panel and the tv stand legs - I have a Samsung 49" KS8000 and the bar is slightly shorter than the tv is wide too. This is supplied by Richer Sounds and although quoted delivery of 5-6 days, turned up just over 24hrs after ordering - great service :)

La barra viene en 3 piezas más el subwoofer. Hay que montarla a parte, pero no es nada difícil, sólo lleva 10 minutos más instalarla como muchísimo. Es bastante larga, de hecho es casi tan larga como la tv de 50" del salón, tenedlo en cuenta a la hora de colocarla en el mueble.Tiene display y hdmi arc, por lo que cualquier cosa que conectéis a la tele, el sonido saldrá por la barra, permitiendote subir o bajar volumen con el mando de la tv también. Muy buen sonido para el precio que tiene. Sin duda lo recomiendo. Y ahora quiero hacer una crítica al servicio dado por Seur, LAMENTABLE. Reparto a partir de las 11 de la mañana, fin del reparto sobre las 6:30. Para la gente que trabajamos difícil por lo que tuve que presentarme en Seur para recoger un paquete que precisamente no era pequeño. Debería poder elegirse la empresa de envío porque el servicio es penoso. Por parte de Amazon ninguna pega, rápidos y efectivos, como siempre, pero estos detalles hacen que te quedes con mala opinión.

j'ai acheté cette barre son car je n'étais pas content de la qualité sonore de ma nouvelle tv Panasonic. N'ayant pas de place pour un kit 5.1 , j'ai donc opté pour cette barre son. Je suis vraiment content des details qui font que ce produit se démarque de la concurrence : - sortie HDMI ARC, qui permet surtout de n'avoir qu'un seul cable entre la barre son et tous les appareils (PS4,PS3, lecteur DVD,etc...) - le Bluetooth par exemple pour écouter des MP3 à partir d'un GSM ou écouter une web radio. - le caisson de basse : très difficile d'en trouver un dans cette gamme de prix de barre son. Le son est vraiment bon que ça soit pour des films, ou même pour les consoles de jeux.

Wir haben uns nach langem Vergleichen gegen eine Surroundanlage und für diese Soundbar entschieden. Bei vielen Soundbars wird berichtet dass ein "Knacken" zu hören ist beim Umschalten, was bei dieser Anlage nicht auftritt. Bei zB Teufel etc. ist das der Fall. Nachdem sie ankam und alles zusammen gebaut war, fiel die erste Inbetriebnahme sehr leicht. Sobald man sie anschaltet findet die Soundbar direkt den Subwoofer und verbindet sich damit. Fertig =) Alle Einstellungen sind sehr leicht zu überschauen und der Klang ist super! Auch der Bass ist druckvoll und je nach Einstellung trotz des kleinen Subwoofers sehr präsent. Der Klang leidet auch bei voller Lautstärke nicht, ist immer sehr klar und sauber. Alle Eingänge (USB, HDMI, AUX etc.) funktionieren super und werden direkt erkannt. Einzig die Fernbedienung könnte schöner gestaltet sein, aber das ist Gejammer auf hohem Niveau. Klare Kaufempfehlung wenn man eine gute Preis/Leistung möchte. Es gibt sicher bessere Anlagen, aber nicht zu dem Preis!

Chiaramente non paragonabile a un 5.1 però veramente un ottimo prodotto. Buonissimo rapporto qualità prezzo , potenza 320w . Ottimo sound , bassi molto potenti e suono caldo e avvolgente. Collegato alla tv con cavo ottico dà risalto ai film blu ray e ai film trasmessi da Sky hd con audio dolby. Design bellissimo , si integra alla perfezione col mio philips 7008 55". Articolo consigliato. Ottimo amazon sia nell'imballaggio che nella comunicazione col servizio clienti. Peccato solo aver pagato l'articolo 297,00€ e il giorno seguente averlo ricevuto ritrovarmelo in vendita a 228,00€.......

Después de buscar y escuchar muchas barras de sonido dentro de un rango de hasta 300€, esta sin duda es la mejor, "Fue premiada por más de una web especializada como la mejor barra de sonido dentro de su rango". He escuchado muchas marcas, y todas se oyen o muy enlatadas o con graves que se quedan a medias. Sin duda esta Philips HTL5140 impresiona. No me esperaba que sonara tan bien, está totalmente equilibrada en sonido, agudos, medios y graves suenan de cine; eso sí, hay que tener cuidado con el subwoofer, ya que es atronador, se nota que es un 8", por suerte se puede graduar su intensidad con el mando a distancia. El bluetooth funciona correctamente, al igual que el NFC. También decir que la barra es elegante y a la vez discreta. En definitiva mejor de lo que me esperaba, el envío fue rápido, 1 día y medio, y todo en perfectas condiciones.