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Soundbars have grown in popularity based on their convenience and ease of use. But when it comes to the crunch, they need decent sonic credentials

as well — otherwise you’re simply replacing your bad TV sound with bad soundbar sound. Boston’s TVee 26 combination of soundbar and wireless subwoofer needs make no excuses on this front. It’s compact, but sounds great.

EQUIPMENTBoth the soundbar and subwoofer are clearly designed to be as visually discreet as possible. The bar is a fraction under 80cm wide at its front, flaring out from a 68cm rear panel which includes large ‘keyhole’ hooks and bumpers to make wall-hanging of the bar an easy option (as pictured above), with a drilling template provided and just enough space left behind to allow cables to turn down or up into a cable management system. The radiusing is quite tight on an optical cable, but Boston includes a thin flexible one to achieve this.

If you choose instead to place the soundbar on a table or entertainment unit directly in front of your TV, do some height calculations in advance — the soundbar stands 83mm high; so your TV’s infrared receiver needs to be higher than that, otherwise remote

A soundbar by your telly, and a wireless subwoofer nearby — is this all we need to fix the poor sound on today’s flatscreen TVs?

control operation may be blocked. We had no problems with one tall-legged Samsung TV but could not, for example, use the Boston in front of the low-sitting Sony X67 Bravia.

Input connections can be analogue or digital — there are two minijack analogue inputs, one with a useful three-position trim switch, plus that optical input which will likely be the simplest and best option for most users. The Boston does have onboard Dolby Digital decoding and a form of virtual surround processing available, but it’s essentially a stereo system (or 2.1 including the wireless subwoofer), the bar hosting just one pair of racetrack-shaped drivers measuring 13 x 5cm. Boston describes these drivers as low-distor-tion wide-bandwidth HHRTs (Hyperbolic High Rigidity Transducers).

The driver in the wireless subwoofer is a 165mm (6.5-inch) woofer which fires downwards into the gap beneath the slightly trapezoidal cabinet (its top is a 243mm square, its base a 264mm one, and height is about 23cm including the feet). It’s surprisingly light at just 3kg, and ports downward as well as firing that way, so there’s no limitation on corner placement. Both units use Class-D amplification — Boston offers only a figure of “combined 150W peak system power”.

PERFORMANCESet-up proved wonderfully simple. We gave the soundbar its mains connection, then an optical input from our TV, and lastly a minijack extension cable into one of the analogue inputs to allow easy ad hoc connec-tion of a smartphone and other devices as music sources. The subwoofer requires only the mains cable; it arrived already paired with the soundbar via a 2.4GHz frequency-hopping wireless link, which connected instantly and remained flawless in operation throughout the month we had this soundbar in operation. Re-pairing is also simple, should the two ever become somehow disconnected.

The final set-up task is to have the soundbar learn the commands from your existing TV remote, although Boston does include a mini remote of its own as well. The learning is an easy process assisted by the well-written user manual — the bar learns power (toggle on/off), volume up/down and mute, and can also learn ‘Input’ and ‘Music/Movie mode’, although you’ll have to decide and remember which buttons on your TV remote can be assigned to these last functions without also changing things on your TV.

Meanwhile you should enter your TV’s menus and turn off its own internal speaker,

Boston Acoustics TVee 26 soundbar Price: $499

BOSTON BAR

“soundbars need decent sonic credentials

as well — otherwise you’re simply replacing your bad TV sound with bad soundbar sound...”

Especially when it does so well with movie and TV content. Unlike some rivals with bigger subwoofers, the bass is not distracting when simply watching TV — indeed it sometimes surprises in its level of engagement as you’re casually watching Home & Away or The Amazing Race and some effective soundtrack work leaps forward to grab you. Meanwhile with full-blown movies it brings a level of dynamics and impact that is highly impressive at the price. The often dramatic soundtrack of Battlestar Galactica slams away, its female vocal theme rich and resonant, the closing drumming tense and tight. Dialogue-led movies are kept clear and crisp; if the goal of a soundbar is to fix the weaknesses of flat-panel TV sound, the Boston fills the brief brilliantly at its price point.

The switch between ‘movie’ and ‘music’ sound modes doesn’t make an extreme differ-ence for movies — ‘movie’ mode seems to invoke a little bit of widening effect but not so much as to be accompanied by the usual detri-mental softening of central dialogue that such processes often induce. So in movie mode cricket crowds were slightly more immersive, effects slightly wider, soundtrack music slightly edgier. With stereo music through the analogue inputs, the difference was more pronounced and we’d definitely give our usual advice of sticking with the ‘flat’ music mode. But otherwise try them out, see what you like for the content you’re listening to.

CONCLUSIONThis is a well-priced and unobtrusive soundbar solution, versatile in its easy wallmounting and simple to install thanks to its wireless subwoofer and remote-learning capabilities. For sure you could get more power and a

assuming it allows this. If it doesn’t, you might be better using its analogue headphone output (if it has one) into the soundbar, keeping the wick up high on the Boston and controlling TV volume with your usual remote.

A month is a long time for us to leave a soundbar in position — particularly such a reasonably priced one as this. The reason was its impressive performance, combining an enjoyable overall balance with good voice intelligibility, this last often proving the bugbear of some lesser soundbar designs, which can make lots of noise but fail to deliver clear dialogue over the top.

The level of bass from the subwoofer is controlled via a knob on the back of the subwoofer itself. Avoid the temptation to crank it too high — we kept it dead centre for most of our listening while giving it a near-corner position to benefit from wall reinforcement, and found this integrated well with the soundbar. Being a small sub with a relatively high crossover, there was some ‘pull’ of low frequencies towards the sub’s position, most notable on music where sometimes a bass guitar would appear strangely panned hard left to the subwoofer position. The closer you can position the sub to the soundbar the less noticeable this becomes, and this in combination with the advantages of corner placement make the TVee 26 best suited to medium rooms or those of limited width.

Sonically this Boston bar’s main talents lie in movies; with music the results are quite enjoyable for casual listening, and never offensive, while the subwoofer can bring a fair degree of depth to tunes. But hi-fi fans will judge it a rather soft bass, while the two soundbar drivers deliver a clear but boxy midrange and treble that feel somewhat divorced from the low end, with little in the way of sparkle.

It should be remembered, of course, that the price here is $499 for an entire sound system — amps, speakers and clever wireless tech — it might be churlish to expect more.

bigger sound by spending significantly more money, but at $499 we’ve not heard a better combination of clear and intelligible dialogue together with enjoyable movie impact — it’s a great fix for flat flat-panel TV sound in a medium-sized room. And since it’s a Boston bar, we should probably celebrate by saying ‘Cheers!’ Jez Ford

SOUNDBAR

Boston Acoustics TVee 26 soundbar and wireless subwooferPrice: $499

• Great for the price• Impact plus intelligibility• Simple set-up

• Low frequencies can pull to the

subwoofer position• Could block some TV IR receivers• More for TV than music

SOUNDBARDRIVERS: Dual 2-inch x 5-inch HHRT (Hyperbolic High Rigidity Transducer) INPUTS: 2 x minijack analogue; 1 x opticalDIMENSIONS: 83 x 800 x 73.5mmWEIGHT: 2.1kg

WIRELESS SUBWOOFERDRIVER: 6.5-inch wooferDIMENSIONS: 238 x 266 x 279mmWEIGHT: 3kg

SYSTEM POWER: 150W peak total, no specs quotedWARRANTY: Two years

CONTACT: QualiFi Pty LtdTELEPHONE: 03 8542 1111WEBSITE: www.qualifi.com.au

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