Soundbars/Soundbases

It’s a curious irony that soundbars have been shrinking. Originally created to compensate for the thin audio produced by slim TVs, today’s mainstream models are now almost as thin as the screens they aim to support. Boston Acoustics’ TVee Model 30 is different – a heavyweight enclosure weighing 3kg and running almost 1m wide.

As befits its girth, the TVee Model 30 creates a big, meaty soundstage. There are two DSP modes, music and movies; the latter is particularly effective, offering a sense of enveloping spatial surround that’s rarely heard from 2.1 systems.

The wireless sub lacks slam but offers real depth, reaching down to around 30Hz. The soundbar, which utilises six drivers, works from 100Hz up. Build quality is excellent.

No remote control is supplied. You’ll need to partner one from another device using the system’s learning functionality, or fiddle with controls tucked under the bar’s grille.

There are no HDMI inputs provided, just digital audio and phono stereo. The optical input works well with a Dolby Digital 5.1 sound source, but falls silent when fed a DTS bitstream. The solution was to have my connected Blu-ray player convert to PCM.

Boston Acoustics TVee Model 30
Price: £450 Approx

Overall: 4/5