Philips - B8905 / TAB8905/37

Mine has arrived with two dents on the top. While the set up was a bit finicky, it otherwise works fine for the price.

I'm going to keep it. Idk if it's worth the hassle to try and get another one in good condition. Who knows, the following set could pick up another ding on the way here. I'm coping, but I'll forget about it eventually as it sits in the shadow of a tv.

I'm returning it for this reason. The low end is horrible. I didn't expect perfection but that crossover point is a joke.

The crossover really is in a bad place. Because the sub goes up to 160hz I get constant low-mid rumbling whenever anything happens on the screen. And the sub doesn't go low enough so when I up the sub to +5, that rumbling gets worse and worse. I see you can drop 150hz in the app EQ but I'm assuming if I drop that low, anything below 150 will get lowered as well.

It's pretty good for movies. For music, no. If they didn't have the crossover set at 160hz it would be a different story.

The setup/update process really is awful.

It's not an upgrade.

It's definitely better than TV speakers. Have the same TV and those speakers leave much to be desired.

Alright, this thing is a bit fucky. I tried the music preset yesterday and it did turn off the sub. I tried it today with different content and the sub stayed on. Do you recall if the content you were watching/listening to enabled/disabled dolby codecs? Does it change anything when you turn on/off dolby with the remote?

No, haven't had time to try anything other than 150hz@-5 and sub@+5. The rumbling was still there. I think I'm just gonna leave it as is. I am having issues with the update though. The music app says there's an update for me in the entertainment app but when I launch that, there's nothing there. I was going to say the soundbar is fine cause it's only $90 but honestly, it's not.

If you already have the bose there's no reason for you to think about the philips.

I've tried both. Surround on seems more colored, "fuller". Might play with sub placement as well. Sub being off when you select the music preset is a headscratcher.

It might depend on the content or codecs but my experience has not been the same.

I'm on 76.

The directions themselves were a bit misleading in my case. I finally got wifi to work by skipping all the way to the end of the on-screen prompts and then just pushing the wifi button on the back of the soundbar til I heard 2 "beeps". After that it popped in my wifi list and it worked from there. it connected to my 5Ghz by default I'm pretty sure. I did have issues with updates. 1st one completed but then said failed. Then I couldn't restart it. Then it hung on install but when I checked it was finished. The 2nd update from the ent app was a pain too. The app wouldn't initiate the update for a few hours then it just showed up and went through.

Same here. Tempted to buy a second one for my other TV

Sounds pretty good too. Does exactly as I wanted i can hear dialog just as good as the crazy loud parts

I did the same. Arrives next day with free shipping. Tired of how the TV is so quiet when they talk and super loud any other time

I'm not suprised considering they just chucked it on my porch. It only had 200ish miles to travel to my house but it looks rough. Oh well still sounds good

For me it was. Wish I had bought 2

I haven't messed with the settings much. My TV outputs dolby atmos ao I've let it do it's thing

Interesting review. The spec page on philips tells a bit more. Soundbar frequency only goes as low at 160hz which is fairly pathetic. And the sub is expected to cover 40-160hz. This is likely in large part why the bass performance is so weird as most systems have a crossover at a much lower frequency so the sub isn't having to cover such a high frequency with regularity. Vocals can be found above 100hz. So asking the sub to cover vocals is an odd choice. Philips also lists the THD @ 10% which is HIGH. At this price it's a deal, but not without compromises.

Reviews at 450? Doesn't really matter at the price point Edit: To follow up, these destroy anything in the $100 price range.  I'm happy with the KEFs I bought a few weeks ago and I'll be adding these to the system.

Except it isn't. Was 450 at launch, it's an older model. List price was still 300 on amazon until clearance.. It's a solid deal. Not going to expect anything amazing for $100, but I guarantee you'll have a tough time finding a competitor at the price until stock runs out.

I am most definitely going to use it as a computer speaker. 60" length of desk space beneath my mounted monitors. It's actually gonna be pretty perfect. My current speakers are not bad, but there's no ideal place for them to be placed due to the monitors not being high enough.

Let me know if you are able to fix the sound profile. I really don’t like how the lows are everywhere and out of place. Also if you switch the profile to Music it entirely disables the sub.

Let me know if find one, the sub of this thing is everywhere. I can’t stop hearing the rumbling even with classic music. It’s a poorly optimized one in terms of sound balance.

I’m glad you also noticed the same. I’ve been testing all day and it sounds better with surround off

This is exactly what I did. Turned the surround off and decreased bass to -2

What I noticed is that music present ONLY with surrounding on turns off the sub. I just opted for keeping the surround off and using the movie preset, while decreasing the bass to -2 and increasing treble to +3. I’m not an expert but for me with surround on the sound is hollow and lacks depth.  Edit: this is ONLY for music with Airplay 2. Once you switch to the ARC input it will automatically turn on the surround feature and I don’t know how to fix that. 

Edit: also even if you turn surround off for the ARC port, it will turn back on after you exit an AirPlay session. The software is messed up, on top of a messed up hardware. This is not even $50 soundbar, I’m not surprised they wanted to clear the inventory up.

Put the bass on -3, movie preset and just forget about it. Return it if you are like me, paranoid about the bass. 

My unit got stuck during a firmware update. Display Reads "UPG50" and no longer receives signal from remote, or buttons. Too scared to unplug, but if its bricked that's a return from me I guess.

Yeppp was watching linus tech tips and even his voice would rumble at time- Linus's voice should NOT be rumbling like at all lol

Went ahead and pulled the trigger, if anyone wants to give me a reason to cancel/return feel free to lol

Yup same here, glad I kept checking the thread

Fuck it in for 2

I’m ngl this setup is a little aids. You need to download a music app to get it connected to WiFi then an entertainment app to finish updating it and to configure it. Can’t seem to find a way to rename it yet which sucks bc I bought 2. Edit: Incredible for $97, not sure if I'd be as happy as I am at $450 or what it's currently listed at for $300, but it's waaaay better than my TV speakers. Second one I ordered came in a separate larger box, upon opening found the packaged box was ripped in half and the soundbar was basically just loose in the box which is fun. Haven't tested it yet but this thing is built pretty well and it didn't appear to be damaged so not too worried.

Site said 30 day returns

I ordered 2 and they sent 1 in the regular box it's packaged in and another in a fedex box and upon opening it found the packaging box was ripped in half and the soundbar was just loose in the bigger box

Holy shit huge. Thank you!

Yeah, but tbf once it was updated it works pretty well.

So that was the worst part for me lol. I unplugged my HDMI from it, restarted it, and then held down the blue wifi button in the back until my phone connected to it (tbh I think I held it until it was connected to my wifi). You have to hold it so that the amber light in the front is slowly pulsating, it might beep twice, might beep once, you’re probably gonna have to try it a few times bc that’s what I had to do. If it’s consistently not working, restart it by unplugging it and try again. Godspeed bröther 🫡

Seems it was 450 at one point but it's an older model. When it was reviewed a couple years ago at $450 it was supposedly a good value. Can't see why it's a bad alternative to TV speakers at this price.

imo, it's probably not as loud as rear facing tv speakers you have to crank to hear from your couch

I don't need it but ordered. If it's better than my Edifier R1700BT it can go on my pc and if it's not it can go on the bedroom tv or somewhere in the house as a streaming bar. It was delivered today and I'm pretty happy with the purchase. I ended up putting it on the bedroom TV instead of my PC but I may move it over later.

When I refreshed the page it was $85.38. I've never used anything but the default speakers on TVs before and was always curious about home theater surround sound setups. I decided this would be a good compromise that wouldn't break the bank and went ahead and bought 2.

I've had a Sony A90K for about a year now and figured that if I end up hating these or want to upgrade in the future it'd be easy to regift and buy something like the bravia quad or HT-A9 instead. I'm pretty convinced that these will be a huge upgrade over the tv speakers for just $85, the real question is how much better would a proper surround sound setup be vs this soundbar, and is that improvement worth the $1k+ price tag.

Ordered first, asked permission from wife second. I survived this round. Do not make the same mistakes as me. I am excited for this sound bar though.

Got mine delivered by fedex and it is damaged out of the box (dents on top). Not sure if it was a previous return or damaged by fedex. And stupid walmart only offer in store return for this. What a hassle...

Actually same numbers of speaker/channel. The bar in the OP has two height speakers (3.1.2) comparing to the 2 rear speakers in this one (5.1). Depending on your setup and things you watch, it is hard to say. I personally prefer to have both (height and rear) and I already have such a setup, but I bought the OP one since it is easier to setup for another tv.

You could use optical or RCA, but why bother? The advantage of this soundbar is the support of Dolby Atmos and height channel, and you need hdmi for it. Also, this is huge for PC use. There are tons of soundbar intended for PC with smaller size.

Right on the product page, 44.09 x 4.45 x 2.52 Inches

It is a third party seller.

LOL...are you going to keep it? It took me 30 mins on the phone to have a walmart rep agrees to send me a return label.

I just returned mine. It was a hassle but given it also has the design flaw of base issue other people are complaining, I decided not bother with it.

I initially ordered at the $97.xx price and later went back to look, and saw it had dropped to $85.xx. I messaged customer service to ask if I can get a price adjustment, they apologized and said they couldn't, but they could provide a $25 promo code. Ordered a second at the lower price +$25 off. Now I have 2 of these soundbars waiting for me at home. 😆

It's even cheaper now. I went back to check order status, and new price was $85.38.

Ordered a second one at the $85 price in case one of them that s**** the bed or I get the bad subwoofer like some of the reviews mentioned I'll just return the other one which will certainly be the $97 one;-)