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Soundbars are interesting. On one hand, we have people who wonder who buys them anymore, and on the other, we have the ones who are willing to spend a chunk of their hard-earned money on a soundbar that will bring the theatres to their homes. Having spoken to industry experts over the last year and a half, it is very clear that the number of people belonging to the second section is in plenty. Thus, brands have been scrambling to get their share of the market. The mid-range segment of the market, with soundbars between 30-70K seems to be the one in focus as there are plenty of brands, including Philips, whose soundbar I will be talking about today, that are filling in all the gaps in the pricing.
Philips released their Philips TAB8967 soundbar (please give it simpler names 🙂 ), earlier this year, and I got a chance to spend some time with it, here at the Digit Test Centre. Priced at ₹44,990 at the time of writing, the soundbar made an interesting case for itself. It pleased me with its looks and sound, but there were some gripes that I had with it that I believe could be fixed by the brand in the next iteration. As it is with any product, I did the due diligence to put it through its paces. I watched movies, played my favourite tunes, and played a few games as well, and here’s what I found out –
The design of the Philips TAB8967 soundbar is something that immediately stood out to me once I pulled it out of the box. Most manufacturers these days go for a black finish on their bar with rounded corners and a design that has now been templatised to a certain extent. But Philips has gone out of their way to give this soundbar a standout look with the sharp angular design on the soundbar and a silver finish. Now, depending on your taste, this might be something that you would either love or hate. But for me, it was a breath of fresh air. The same colour finish continues on the subwoofer and the satellite speakers as well. The subwoofer has a more squared-off design though, with a fabric mesh covering the side cavity.
As for the materials used, Philips has gone with a metallic face plate for the soundbar, with the rest of the body being polycarbonate. This, again, is something that I love! There is a nice heft in every part of the setup that you get – the subwoofer and the soundbar itself. The feet on the soundbar and the subwoofer also do their job well in reducing the rumble when you are playing back audio at high volumes. If you are on a slightly slippery surface, like a tiled floor, there is some amount of rumble that can be felt in the subwoofer. However, for the most part, you should be fine and not worried about the bar falling off your TV rack.
In terms of the features, there is not a whole lot to talk about. Around the ₹50K mark, you will get a certain number of features on the bar, but don’t expect brands to include the best of the best there is in the market at this price. Same is the case with the Philips TAB8967. The soundbar comes packed with basic features like connectivity to voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant, which will be great for all the fans of home automation and these AI assistants. You can stream content to the soundbar from your devices using Chromecast, Apple AirPlay 2 or Bluetooth. And then there is Dolby Atmos, which I will be talking about in the next section. I would love to see an app with the bar to make the experience a bit more complete for the end user. But that is something that I would leave for the execs at Philips to decide. Just saying, they have a great development team as we have seen with their Hue products. Different category, but there is scope.
Note: The Philips TAB8967 unit at the Test Centre had only the soundbar and the subwoofer. So, the opinions of the author are based on their experience with these two components. Your experience with the satellite speakers added in might vary.
Philips TAB8967 is a powerful package. This is what I would say if someone asked me to summarise my thoughts about its performance. Be it watching movies, playing video games, or listening to music, the soundbar will serve you well. In movies, there was enough detail in the positioning of the sources and the same carried over in games as well. I am a fan of racing games and movies which have a lot of gunfire and action in them, so in either of these, what I would consider fairly challenging cases, the soundbar held its ground. There was enough details in my Top Gun: Maverick test, which I love doing across soundbars. And my game of choice is Formula 1. Considering that the primary source of audio was in front of me, with Dolby Atmos trying to mimic additional speakers, the positioning of the audio, and the clarity from the real and virtual channels was something that I have rarely seen in soundbars that are in this price range.
If you are listening to music, I would say that you should try this out for yourself, depending on the genres you love. Fans of pop, Bollywood, and hip-hop music, look no further. The bass is there to rock the inner music aficionado from you. If you are a fan of heavy metal music or are someone who listens to a lot of podcasts, then the lack of clarity in the mids due to the bass boost out of the box might be off-putting for you. You can tune the audio to your liking, but out of the box, the sound is a bit too heavy on the bass. Now, when watching movies, this is somewhat apparent in the dialogue-heavy sections too. But, the way the audio is mastered in movies, there is not much of a detail loss that you would notice.
The Philips TAB8967 is the only soundbar from the brand that is available in India. And, if I were managing the business at Philips, I would be happy with what the brand has brought into the Indian market. The nature of the content that is majorly consumed in India, suits the sond signature of this soundbar. The bass from the subwoofer is something that would be a major factor which draws people towards this bar.
Couple that with great build, a limited, yet solid selection of features, and you have a great product. If Philips can iron out whatever creases there are, add an app, the Philips TAB8967 would be a blind recommendation. For now, it still is a winner, but there are others within striking distance, and based on who the referee is, they might crown some competition from JBL, Sony, and Samsung as their winners too