- The Ultimea Apollo S80 splits into three front speakers and a sub
- Available in Canada now, coming to US and UK in February
- $209 / £171 / about AU$336
It’s fair to say that most soundbars aren’t very exciting to look at, and don’t tend to go beyond the familiar lozenge shape. But the Ultimea Apollo S80 soundbar is like no soundbar I’ve ever seen. It isn’t just a soundbar. It’s a TV transformer that thinks it’s a Philips Hue system too.
If you look at the main image you’d think there’s nothing particularly unusual going on: it’s a soundbar with a separate sub unit, like so many others. But that main soundbar isn’t one unit. It’s three, and you can pull them apart to turn them into completely separate speakers for left, center and right channels – adding the kind of real separation that hardcore home theater enthusiasts espouse.
Once you’ve pulled your soundbar apart, you can then leave the speakers standing horizontally or vertically, or you can wall mount some or all of them. However, if you’re thinking of wall mounting, it’s worth noting that although the soundbar has Bluetooth, the speaker units need to be wired to each other.
On the plus side, not only do they separate, but the left and right speakers also have LED lighting that you can adjust with the companion app. There are six dynamic scene modes and a color wheel to get the lights just-so.
Is a splittable soundbar a good idea?
The specification is decent: as Notebookcheck reports, the drivers are 2 inches, the sub is 5.25 inches and it’s a 5.1 system (though that’s five forward channels, not real surround) with Dolby Atmos, optical audio, HDMI eARC, USB and Bluetooth 5.3.
We’ve been quite impressed with Ultimea’s affordable soundbars, such as the Ultimea Poseidon D50: while they’re not up there with their more expensive rivals from the likes of Samsung or Sonos, they’re relatively cheap ways to significantly upgrade the sound of your TV, and we rate the Poseidon as being among the best soundbars today if you’re on a budget.
You can’t fault the thinking here: it’s not so much thinking outside of the box as thinking in a completely different zip code to the box. But I do wonder who the target market is for this particular unit’s transforming talents, because once you’ve got your soundbar or speakers just-so you’re probably just going to leave them where they are.
Having said that, we do like the similarly transformable JBL Bar 1300X with its rear speakers that attach to the soundbar or can be placed behind you when you want them… but those are totally wireless with built-in batteries, and rear speakers are more of an inconvenience to have permanently than front speakers, so the whole step makes more sense. And also costs many times what the Ultimea costs.
The big draw here is price: good luck putting together a similar system of separates without having to hit eBay or Aliexpress and seriously lower your standards.
The Ultimea Apollo S80 has an list price of $209 / £171 / about AU$336, but it’s currently cheaper with 10% off if you buy direct from the Ultimea website.