Sky is on a bit of a roll at the moment. Not only has the TV giant changed the way we think about mobile phone contracts with their innovative mobile network (data rolls over, and can be shared between family plans), but it’s trying to reward its subscribers with monthly rewards in a VIP scheme. This kind of brand loyalty is being rewarded once again with the Sky Soundbox – a soundbar made by the high-end audiophiles at Devialet and provided at a discount to Sky customers. A big discount.
So while the Sky Soundbox will cost £799 to regular Joes, Sky customers can get one for £299 when it launches. And if you’re signed up to its all-singing, all-dancing Sky Q multiroom service, then it’s even cheaper at £249.
At an event held in a central London hotel room, we were able to go hands-on with the new Soundbox, and our impressions were pretty damned positive. At the full price of £799, it’s not the best TV audio setup we’ve heard, but at the discounted rate it’s as close to a no-brainer as a piece of consumer tech costing hundreds of pounds can realistically hope to be.
Sky Soundbox: Design and features
There’s a cap on how appealing a soundbar can look. By their very nature, they tend to be ugly black boxes that sit under your TV. Still, the Soundbox does a reasonable job of blending in.
It’s slightly larger than a standard Sky Q box in terms of footprint, but is significantly taller. It’s worth noting that if your TV isn’t wall-mounted, you might have to pop the Soundbox on a lower shelf of your AV rack or raise your TV a touch to keep the speaker from impinging on your view of the screen.
As for the rest of its features, the Soundbox is a bit of a mixed bag. It has only one HDMI and one HDMI output and one optical S/PDIF input, so connectivity is a bit limited and there’s oddly no direct support for Dolby Atmos, despite its recent introduction for Premier League matches. However, I hasten to add that this doesn’t unduly affect the sound quality.
Sky Soundbox: Sound quality
For its size, the Sky Soundbox delivers a punch, with surprisingly wide and deep sound. The bass, despite this being a standalone speaker with no separate subwoofer, offers plenty of punch and it’s a world away from your regular TV speakers. If you’ve lived this long without any external audio setup, the payback will be instant and very impressive.
We were shown a number of demos to showcase the sound, and they were all pretty impressive in their own way. The Soundbox can’t compete with a full surround sound in terms of immersion, and it’s obvious the sound is coming directly from in front of you. But, y’know, it is, so that’s fair enough.
Plus, there’s more than enough going on under the hood to keep the audio sounding awesome. The speaker’s automatic volume level (AVL) algorithm keeps voices intelligible, subtly rolling off the intensity as soon as big action scenes kick in, and adjusts it back up again during quieter scenes. It’s effective, but can’t be disabled so, if you’re annoyed by this kind of inauthentic tweaking, the Soundbox probably isn’t for you.
The speaker’s “Q Sound” feature also adapts itself to different types of content, playing up the surround elements in football matches to “put you in the scene”. A clip from the recent Manchester United versus Everton fixture proved that the crowd really does feel quite lively, and while the commentary on the Grand Prix sounds a little muffled and enclosed, the engine noise is nicely heightened.
In total there are seven different Q Sound profiles: music, cinema, F1, football, cricket, golf and boxing, though note that these will only be available to content piped to the speaker from your Sky Q box. The Soundbox falls back on its default profile for any other content.
Not that this is a particular problem because, although this is predominantly built for TV, it sounds great with music too, either via the speaker’s native Bluetooth connection or the optical input at the rear of the box.
The sound quality is very detailed, vocals stand out brilliantly and it’s perfectly balanced too. The only slight black mark is the really deep sub bass – compared with a proper subwoofer, it doesn’t go quite as deep, rolling off at a quoted 35Hz.
What bass there is, however, is nicely agile and very well controlled. In other words, it’s unbeatable sound for the Sky subscriber price, but a lot less clear-cut if you’re a non-Sky subscriber stuck wondering whether to pay full whack.
Sky Soundbox: Early verdict
Basically, that last line sums it up. The Sky Soundbox is a very good TV speaker indeed, and if you’re a Sky subscriber stuck using your built-in TV speakers, then this is about as easy a recommendation as it’s impossible to give. Go ahead and preorder it right now.
If you’re not a subscriber, it’s not quite as clear-cut. While it’s as good a speaker as ever, it’s more what you would expect for the price point, and other competitors come into play quite sharply – particularly the superb Samsung HW-K850, which, unlike the Soundbox, comes with a separate subwoofer, a broader selection of connections and Dolby Atmos support.
That isn’t to do down the Sky Soundbox at all, though. This is a brilliant first audio product, and Devialet – which has never partnered with another brand before – has delivered the goods in stupendous fashion. For Sky subscribers, it’s a bargain of immense proportions.
Source: alphr.com