radiogaga
Member
TechRadar ran the Ultimea Poseidon D60 through a few days of testing and the verdict is roughly what you would guess for a 5.1 system under 200 dollars: the surrounds do real work, dialogue comes through clean, and then the bass turns out to have no bite and there are no upfiring drivers at all. It supports Dolby Atmos in the sense that it accepts the signal. It has no height channels to put anything into.
That is the bit I want to sit on, because it is the same trick as a 200 dollar projector claiming 4K support when it decodes 4K and panels a much lower resolution. Accepting a format is not reproducing it. Ultimea is not the only company doing this and the badge is now close to meaningless at the bottom of the market, which is a shame, because the actual product here sounds fine for the money. Real surround speakers in a room beat virtual surround from a single bar every single time, and that is worth more than a height channel most people would have mounted wrong anyway.
The setup detail that would annoy me daily: the sub is wireless and pre paired, but the rear speakers run on RCA cables back to the subwoofer. So wherever the sub goes, two long cables go too. The reviewer preferred the arrangement on the Majority Bowfell Halo Atmos, where the rears wire to each other and only one runs to power.
If you have 200 dollars and a rectangular room, would you take real rears with no height, or a single bar with virtual everything? I know which one I would pick but the market keeps voting the other way.
That is the bit I want to sit on, because it is the same trick as a 200 dollar projector claiming 4K support when it decodes 4K and panels a much lower resolution. Accepting a format is not reproducing it. Ultimea is not the only company doing this and the badge is now close to meaningless at the bottom of the market, which is a shame, because the actual product here sounds fine for the money. Real surround speakers in a room beat virtual surround from a single bar every single time, and that is worth more than a height channel most people would have mounted wrong anyway.
The setup detail that would annoy me daily: the sub is wireless and pre paired, but the rear speakers run on RCA cables back to the subwoofer. So wherever the sub goes, two long cables go too. The reviewer preferred the arrangement on the Majority Bowfell Halo Atmos, where the rears wire to each other and only one runs to power.
If you have 200 dollars and a rectangular room, would you take real rears with no height, or a single bar with virtual everything? I know which one I would pick but the market keeps voting the other way.
