Review: Sky Soundbox, you thought your TV speakers were good

You ain’t heard nothing yet

When people are looking to buy a new TV these days mostly they are looking for the best screen they can get for their money, sound and audio quality never really crosses their minds. In fact most TV’s do a pretty decent job of relaying audio to our delicate ears. It is only when you try out any number of sound bars do you suddenly realise just how crappy TV speakers are in comparison. In fact one TV maker Cello who I reviewed a TVfrom recently knows this and builds multi-speaker soundbars into their TVs.

Sky have released what they are calling the Sky Soundbox, a hulking black slab of acoustical quality for their customers. Teaming up with high end French manufacture Devialet to create it. Devialet are no strangers to sound, in fact their Phantom Gold which costs over €2500 has been described as the best sounding speaker of this time.

The idea behind the Sky Soundbox is that it will create 360 degree sound by bouncing the audio waves of walls, and other hard surfaces in the room. So this means that you can’t just hide the speaker behind your TV, you will not be doing it any good. The speaker comes with Dolby Digital Plus, not Atmos unfortunately, but for most Atmos would be overkill anyway. Inside the Soundbox you’ll find six 3 inch woofers which are configured in the same dual push-push manor as Devialet’s Phantom series. There are also two full range drivers setup in a 120 degree configuration which helps with the creation of fake but realistic surround sound.

In the box you will be getting a pretty nice rounded remote which has everything that is needed to control your Sky Q box and the Soundbox itself also comes with Bluetooth so streaming your music to it is very easy. In fact the entire setup take no more than 10 minutes. In terms of I/O, you have tucked away on the back, a power port, Optical In, HDMI In and HDMI Out along with a USB port which is not available for customer use. There is no HDMI ARC which I think may have been a better option here or a 3rd option at least.

Sky Q customers are also getting a few extra features over normal Sky Digital users with the Soundbox such as Q Sound which is a dynamic volume management feature. This means that as Sky sends the encoded sound data down the line, the Soundbox will adjust the equaliser depending on the content. Other Sky Q specific features are some handy sound profiles, Speech Mode, Late Night Mode and Kids Mode. These are very handy, Speech Mode enhances speaking audio, Late Night Mode ensure that the booming sound is dialled back so as not to annoy people and Kids Mode means an end to your kids maxing out the volume as mind regularly do.

To sum things up, Sky’s Soundbox works, the audio is very impressive and is way beyond anything that will come built into your TV. However it is not without its problems, its large size means you will have issues with where exactly to place it. It is also not cheap, Sky Q customers will get it discounted to €299 while regular Sky customers will need to pay €349 and if you are not a customer then its €949. At the cheapest price point it’s decent value if you are looking for an all in one solution to your TV’s relatively speaking poor sound but for many and certainly non Sky customers there are probably cheaper and almost as good alternatives available.