LATEST ADDITIONS

According to the company:

Acemile’s Theatre Box is the first the world’s first portable Bluetooth speaker that delivers a 360-degree surround sound audio experience from your smartphone, tablet, laptop or TV without complicated set-up, wires, or even an app. Theatre Box features four 2-inch full range drivers, one 3-inch powered bass driver and delivers up to 125 watts of power, so no matter your orientation to the speaker, you’re in the “sweet spot.”

[This sweepstakes is now closed.]

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

AT A GLANCE
Plus
It’s like having three top-drawer speakers
Balanced performance
Passive design allows benefits of an AVR
Minus
Passive design requires an AVR

THE VERDICT
Phase Technology’s Teatro TSB3.0 soundbar dispenses with the fancy stuff and provides the performance you’d expect from three well-engineered and great-sounding speakers.

This might seem a radical concept, but what if a soundbar were just a speaker, or two or three? What if it had no internal amplifiers, just some really good drivers, a thoughtfully engineered crossover, and sets of speaker terminals, like any other quality loudspeaker?

Is this kind of soundbar a good idea? That depends on what kind of system you want—or, more specifically, whether you want a standalone audio/video receiver in your system. For some people, the AVR is like the guy you’d cross the street to avoid, someone who confuses and bedevils you. For others, the AVR is the key to a cornucopia of features, the cornerstone of a system that unlocks all your desires.