TAB8905

Overview

The TAB8905 is a 2021 Philips soundbar. The bar is 1120 mm wide, 64 mm high and 113 mm deep, comes in dark grey, and can be wall-mounted with the bracket in the box.

It is a 3.1.2 system with a wireless subwoofer (one 8-inch woofer) in the box. Philips lists a centre full-range driver and tweeter, two front full-range drivers and two tweeters, and two up-firing full-range drivers, with a total output of 600 W max (360 W RMS).

The TV connects over HDMI eARC or optical. The bar also has two HDMI inputs, a 3.5 mm aux input, a USB port for music files, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Over Wi-Fi it supports Spotify Connect, Apple AirPlay 2, built-in Chromecast and DTS Play-Fi multi-room, and works with Alexa and Google Assistant devices. Philips lists bass and treble control, audio sync, subwoofer volume, and the sound modes Movie, Music, Voice, Sports and Custom. The bar is controlled with its touch buttons, the remote control or the app on Android and iOS.

What the specs mean

• 3.1.2 speaker setup: left, right and centre channels, a subwoofer channel and two height channels. The height channels come from up-firing drivers; the ".1" is the wireless subwoofer in the box.
• HDMI eARC: the enhanced Audio Return Channel sends the TV's sound to the soundbar over the HDMI cable, including high-bitrate formats such as Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Atmos.
• HDMI passthrough (4K, HDR10, HDR10+, HLG and Dolby Vision): a console or streaming box connects to one of the two HDMI inputs, and the soundbar passes the picture on to the TV in 4K with these HDR formats, with HDCP 2.3 copy protection.
• Audio formats: Dolby Atmos, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital, Dolby MAT and LPCM over HDMI; Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus and LPCM over optical.
• DTS Play-Fi: Philips states the bar can be grouped with other Play-Fi speakers for multi-room audio, or combined with them into a surround setup, through the Philips Sound app or the Play-Fi app.