Review on 🎮 Revamp Your Gaming Experience with the Panasonic SoundSlayer Soundbar: Final Fantasy XIV Online Edition, Dolby Atmos Gaming Speakers for PC & Home Theater, Built-in Subwoofer – SC-HTB01PP (Black) by Juan Gomez

I've had this speaker for a week and a half now so I'm sure I have enough experience with it to give a thoughtful review. Actual numerical ratings are listed below in the TL section. DR. As someone who has been playing FFXIV for many years, I have a habit of wanting things branded XIV, so these Sound Slayers are no exception. Although the price was indeed quite high, the reason I made this purchase was that I wanted to replace my $20 bricks with a better, more sophisticated sound system. The Revain packaging looks great straight out of the box. Clear white box with XIV logo and XIV logo on the top. Nice. But it's not in the box. The speaker itself was well packaged inside, and pulling it out I noticed a couple of things: there's a downward-firing speaker, which I'm assuming is a subwoofer, but apparently muted unless you could get some kind of distance underneath. The footplates that the speaker rests on are quite widely spaced (about 13.5 inches). So using a soundbar mount that supports the soundbar in the middle will definitely cover the subwoofer a bit and probably cause some weird vibrating noises. Make sure you have enough space on your desk for it as it will likely be there (unless you put it on a shelf somewhere or something). Also, there are two ways to connect this: Optical and HDMI in/out with ARC. Of course I wanted to take advantage of the fact that these speakers have Dolby Atmos, which I used to justify its price, so optical wasn't considered as Atmos isn't about optical. So I had to figure out how to share the HDMI port on the graphics card, so I used a splitter for my card's HDMI output, but now the speaker doesn't show up as SOUNDSLAYER in the device list, it shows up as the name of my monitor. Slightly odd, but it's my fault that there aren't enough H-DMI ports (3 monitors, no DisplayPort connections required). Note. I've tried enabling the iGpu to only connect speakers to the motherboard's onboard HDMI output, but that opened up a whole bunch of worms related to general GPU settings and other things that got me into this , just go back. You can try this route, but I didn't go all the way with it. Once I finally got it plugged in and working, I turned it on and downloaded a few different things - Spotify, Youtube, FFXIV, Overwatch, etc - stuff for testing 3D surround sound with Atmos, as well as just stuff for depth of sound and quality checks, as well as Panasonic's built-in sound modes (Standard, Music, Movie, Game). Sound quality is better than my Pebbles, especially low end, but that's to be expected. I can crank it up to maximum volume and it's able to reproduce pure depth and full sound quality without clipping. The subwoofer doesn't handle the bass very well, even when I crank it up to the maximum, but that's it. Audiophiles who prefer hi-fi will likely want to either get a good set of headphones or a better soundbar that can really handle any volume. The Atmos tests were good, but not outstanding. During my testing with and without 3D audio enabled, I'm probably getting around 120 degrees of detection in each direction, even on spherical testing. It's noticeably better than stereo, but I don't think it will compete well with other Atmos speakers. That being said, I think it's one of the few Atmos speakers that can fit on a desk, albeit a bit cramped. Doesn't sound as good as it should considering Atmos and its cost. So I can't say I would recommend it as a TV soundbar replacement, but it can definitely complement/enhance your PC sound if you have the basics. Ratings: Sound Quality: 4.1/5 - Handles most noise with ease. There is depth, but not enough bass even with the maximum subwoofer height. Value for money: 2.3/5 - it's really expensive for what it is. There are comparable options for fewer and more expensive options that offer better value. Clarity: 4.0/5 – Assumes cleanliness to mean portability/comfort for travel. Larger than standard PC speakers, smaller than TV soundbars. Suitable for the desktop, but had to work. FFXIV-ness: 3.8/5 - I don't really look at my speaker, but when I do, it has the FFXIV design. The novelty will probably wear off and I'm probably wondering if it was worth it. Overall: 3.3/5. Solid middle. Too expensive to justify PC speakers, not good enough to replace TV sound systems. Legitimate purchase due to XIV branding/needing an upgrade from Pebbles but still close to a return.