Atlantic Technology PB-235 Installed

One of the lasting impressions from CEDIA was hearing the PB-235 soundbar at the Atlantic Technology booth. Even in the less than ideal show acoustic environment, I was very impressed with the demo presented, both music and movie soundtrack... impressed enough to order one for a simple man cave I was setting up. Got it installed last weekend atop a 60" TV and began my evaluation. I expected that it would perform better in the "cave" than at the show, and it does. The sound field modes work well and the bass response is surprisingly full and tight. My installation does not couple acoustically to the wall. I assume if it were wall mounted, that bass response would be even better. I would rank it as very satisfying, and it does fulfills its goal of full-range sound without a separate sub. I don't feel like I am missing anything on the bottom end.

As an experiment, I also connected the Atlantic SB-900, a small powered subwoofer, to compare with and without the sub. The SB-900 fills in the bottom octave and when there is good content there... you can tell the difference. The soundbar's crossover does a good job of limiting the sub to only the very low frequencies and there is no loss of definition or muddying of vocals when I switch it in. I'll probably leave the sub connected, but not as a necessity.

Overall, it's a remarkable system that performs beyond it's size, cost, and my expectations. Knowledgeable visitors to my cave have likewise been very surprised by the sound quality, both music and movies. It's a real find.

Jonathan Sisk, CEO
Audio Authority Corp
Lexington, KY

The 2-channel to 3 is fairly dramatic. The 5-channel and 5-channel enhanced are more subtle, but as effective as I have heard from a soundbar. The "speech" button appears to provide increased gain in the frequency range of voices. It is effective but noticeably louder. For general listening, I prefer the 5-channel setting.

This system is doubling for audio from MP3 library. Some systems seem to work OK for movies but really are not very natural for listening to acoustic music. This system sounds great with music.