Sennheiser Ambeo Mini

The Sennheiser Ambeo Mini is ideal in many ways. It’s usefully small, but sounds much bigger than it looks. It has punch to go with its sonic precision, it has a full suite of excellent control options, and it looks and feels like a quality item. It’s even pretty good at opening up non-spatial audio soundtracks. If it just sounded a little taller, or cost a little less, it could be ‘ideal’ full stop.

Sennheiser’s Ambeo range has set high expectations, but the Mini fails to meet them.

The Sennheiser Ambeo Mini looks quite expensive for the amount of stuff your money buys – the same amount put the way of quite a few alternative brands will get you a bigger soundbar and maybe some rear speakers or even a wireless subwoofer. But if small means beautiful as far as you’re concerned, you won’t buy a bigger, punchier or more energetic sound from anything as compact as the Ambeo Mini.

There’s a lot to admire about the Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Mini but at this price its spatial audio needs to be more convincing.

In isolation the Ambeo Mini is an excellent soundbar - and it remains excellent in many ways even when put into context. But there’s just a slight disconnect between the way it performs and the money it will cost you.