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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
The beauty and the beast
By error
The beauty:-Absolutely amazing sounds. It's HD quality and beyond. Very rich bass (without subwoofer) and crystal clear highs. No distortion noted at high volume or movie scenes with a lot of different soudns. Sporting events (my favorite) truly feel like you're right there. HD movies are as good as a movie theater.-Easy and clear setup. Took me about 1-2 hours, but a lot of that was: "no it looks better over here" vs. "it needs to be here for good sound"...you know how that goes. Then another 30 minutes of tinkering with the bar and tv to get the sound just right.-Excellent cosmetic designThe beast:-This thing is completely gigantic. If you're looking for an indiscreet sound system or one that will go well with the decor, well you may have problems with this. Remember, you have to place the sound bar only at appropriate spots based on the design of your room, where the television sits, where the audience sits, and so on. This limits a lot of options, so think long and hard if this will actually "fit-in".-Heavy. Two person install minimum if you want it up on a wall.-Expensive, but may be completely worth it if your TV/home theater room is in a small/medium, closed off (i.e no open walls) space with the soundbar directly opposite of where you sit, then this will be MORE than enough to suffice for amazing surround sound without a subwoofer and only costs around the same amount as a good multi-piece surround sound system.Overall, this is not my first ATechnology product and i have been very impressed by this company's sound system. Honestly never heard of them until recently but would whole-heartedly reccomend this to anyone.The only thing left to see is really, how long this holds out over time. It's expensive, and so I hope it will be years before I encounter problems.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
At last - I can actually hear what they are saying!
By Jerry Saperstein
It took me a while to install this unit. It's big - 42 inches long, about 7 inches high and wide. It weighs 20 pounds. I envisioned a laborious effort to install it - and avoided installing it. In the end, it was up and running in less than 20 minutes and that included taking down a previous sound bar and moving a collection of stuff around. My reward? For the first time in years, I understand the words being spoken the first time around. No more turning on the subtitles, rewinding or asking "what did they say?". In my opinion, the H-PAS PowerBar 235 ranks right up there with sliced white bread as a great invention - and, no, I am not joking. One of the many things that comes with old age for many is hearing loss. I am not deaf, but distinguishing words is no longer a major talent of mine. With this unit, as I'll explain in a moment, voices are literally pushed out front of the background making understanding dialog and narration a snap. Despite its size and weight, installation is very simple. Attach the power supply and plug in the audio connection of your choice: 3.5mm (on the front), optical cable (two inputs provided), classic Analog RCA plugs or digital coaxial. That's it - takes a couple of minutes at most. You can mount the unit on a flat surface, for which they supply adhesive feet including a pair to angle the speaker grill upwards. Or you can mount it directly to a wall (be careful!) or a bracket. A very nicely produced template for wall and bracket mounting is included. All the connectors and controls are contained in a "pod" on the top of the unit. However, the manufacturer recognizes that you may want to mount the unit upside down if you mount it above the television, so they include a label you can use to provide proper orientation of the control markings and permit you to switch the front grille around for proper logo orientation. There are touch controls on the pod, but I would imagine that nearly everyone will use the supplied remote control or a remote of their own choosing. Atlantic Technology provides (a cute little) remote or, because they used Marantz coding, you can program a universal remote. Describing the remote also describes the functions of the unit. There is a power/standby switch and a mute button. (By the way, remember to disable or mute the audio of your television when you use this speaker.) There is a Source button to choose your source from those listed above. There are Bass, Treble and Volume controls. Then there is the Mode button. There are four modes. 2C is traditional right/left channel output. 3C blew me out of my chair. It adds center channel that renders vocals with amazing clarity. As the manual puts it: " 3-channel mode has no virtual surround effects and strong vocals. Use this setting if vocal clarity is very important to you." 3 channel sound is something I've never encountered before - and it makes a world of difference. 5C promises moderate virtual surround effect and moderate vocals. The manual says most people prefer this setting for most program material. I can attest to there being a virtual surround effect. 5E is 5-channel Expanded with "strong virtual surround effect and moderate vocals. Many people prefer this setting when watching movies." I'm not an expert on virtual surround, but I can tell the effect is there. Finally, there is Speech Enhancement Mode which "boosts the frequency range where human voices are reproduced and directs more of these frequencies to the front center image". The manual explains "[t]his effect gives you the ability to boost intelligibility of speech in situations where there is a lot of background noise such as those generated by a running air conditioner or dishwasher". The Speech Enhancement Mode does indeed work. You can add a sub-woofer, if you like, but I see no reason to. I am not an audiophile, but the sound emanating from the H-PAS PowerBar 235 is excellent, far fuller and richer than what comes out of the television speakers. I tried several action movies with lots of gunshots and explosions and they were delicious. Symphonic music reproduced quite well. But the most exciting aspect of this speaker remains what it does for voice - I can hear every word with crystal clarity - and I love it. The unit is capable of producing substantial volume as well. The manual is short and unusually well-written. The few illustrations required are expertly rendered. The manual also contains a surprise on page 15. If you register the unit within 30 days of purchase, the 90 day warranty is extended to 1 year for powered speakers. I can see where Atlantic Technology could have a problem in convincing people, sight unseen so to speak, of the value of this sound bar. I suspect that part of the solution could be videos of satisfied users explaining why and what they appreciate about the H-PAS PowerBar 235. I know that I'm a believer. Once I turned on the 3-Channel Mode and understood every word of dialog without strain or frustration, I became a believer - and will remain one. This is an excellent, excellent product.Jerry
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
A sleek soundbar with amazing sound!
By D. P. Taylor
Okay, so this large heavy box arrives and sits for a while because I got busy with the holidays. My loss! I read the amazon description and the reviews and had already determined the placement before we took it out of the box--actually didn't have much choice for my particular living room arrangement. The setup was fairly straightforward and then we just had to tweak the settings to get everything balanced just right. The final verdict:This thing is amazing! Our 47" LED Smart TV has lots of cool features, but great sound was NOT one of them. Since hooking up the PowerBar it's like we have a super high-end television. No more "vibration" sounds, very clear dialogue--great for my slightly hard-of-hearing spouse--and wonderful high-fidelity sound. In fact, we no longer have to watch everything either quite loud or in close-captioning since dialogue is so much clearer. Since we have a smallish living room I love not having to hookup a subwoofer and still be able to get deep bass sounds; I don't need to have it SO enhanced that it makes me jump out of my seat, just rich and distortion-free, and that's what this delivers. We haven't tried to set it up with our universal remote; for now, using the remote that comes with it is fine since it's pretty simple. I didn't even know what multi-channel DSP was until we got this, but my spouse did and it's just amazing--I love my television viewing so much more now.I also really appreciate the styling of the PowerBar. It's pretty unobtrusive, just a single sleek bar with a small LED display that is not distracting. Although our TV is not wall-mounted I think it would be great to have it all on the wall (TV and SoundBar) and we may yet do that, especially since this thing can be flipped upside down. How cool is that! I really appreciate the simplicity of this thing--I just wasn't interested in a system with many little speakers and a subwoofer--this fits our needs exactly, and with awesome results!It is expensive and hopefully it will last for many years. I will be back to update this review as we continue to use it.
See all 9 customer reviews...
First Look...
disappointed
Not a good Soundbar
