Philips HTS7140 Sound Bar Home Theater System - Cinema Feel

Nuts and Bolts

Philips’ audio line-up has significantly improved over the course of the years. The products launched under the banner of “Obsessed with Sound” feature a great range of excellent sounding devices such as the DS9000 and the DS9/10 from the sound dock categories. However, we step away from the Fidelio brand and run the rule over Philips' sound bar offerings and see if they can live up to the same high standards.

Design and Features

The contender we had in our labs was the Philips HTS7140, which can be classified as a mid-range sound bar. With a recommend price of S$1199, the HTS7140 offers a simple system of one subwoofer and a large horizontal speaker unit the integrates a Blu-ray player as well. In fact, according to the company's own nomenclature, they call these as 1.1 audio solutions - obviously because there's just one physical audio unit while the subwoofer makes up for numeral after the decimal place. Without multiple discrete speakers, the unit ensures you'll have an out-of-the-box functionality right from the start. This is pretty much in-line with the rest of the company's sound bar solutions.

All you need to consider is the best location to place this unit with regards to your TV, connect the power cord and a HDMI cable that links up with the TV and you're good to go! It's definitely a smooth ride for any beginner hoping to upgrade their TV's audio system effortlessly. We guarantee that in less than five minutes, this sound bar solution is ready for use - including the time needed to get it out of the box packaging. Although we have not yet factored the time needed to hook up the subwoofer, the audio solution is usable without it. Of course, we do recommend hooking up the subwoofer for better overall sonic performance, but we'll touch more on that soon enough.

Examining the main sound bar unit further, its physical aspects are probably what would grab your attention first. It's a pretty chunky unit  with a listed weight is 6.4kg, which is anything but inconsequential. When we finally placed the sound bar in front of our TV, we found that the device was large enough to actually infringe on the Philips 6600 series LED TV screen we had incorporated as part of our test bed. It's so obtrusive that your TV becomes unusable because the IR port of the TV is blocked, or you can't see the bottom quarter of your screen properly, which includes subtitles. You're then left with these options:-

• If your TV is on a console - the sound bar has to be either in a shelf below or above the TV. Alternatively, prop the TV to a level that the sound bar can be place on the console top.
• If your TV is wall mounted - the sound bar has to mounted below the TV.

While the most ideal sound bar placement would be to conveniently place it  at the foot of the TV, our experience has shown that many sound bars aren't designed with this in mind, such as this HTS7140. The size and weight would also make this sound bar difficult to wall mount by yourself, but it shouldn't be an issue with contractors.

One key reason for the large size of the the Philips HTS7140 is the fact that the horizontal speakers come equipped with a built-in Blu-ray player.  A well-designed, intuitive and smooth user interface makes using the integrated Blu-ray player one of the star features of this product. Navigating the menus and altering settings is a breeze. The remote control provided is also a joy to use and has great ergonomics, which gives this sound bar a high score for usability.

As is to be expected, the device also features Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD technology decoding capability for high fidelity surround sound. In addition Philips’ own AmbiSound feature is also present to help the sound bar achieve greater realism when rendering audio. It tries to achieve this feat by using array processing and angled drivers built into the main sound bar unit. Although unable to actually replace a true 5.1-channel sound system, the AmbiSound feature it supports helps to improve the overall audio soundstage performance of the sound bar. Rest assured, we will judge the veracity of Philips' claims with thorough testing on the following pages.

Ports and Connectivity

While the HTS7140 sound bar does have a USB port located at the front, it is only capable of playing music from USB based drives. However, you will not be able to plug in your iPod and stream tunes via USB. To tackle this, you'll need a proprietary Philips dock for iPod and iPhone device compatibility. This cradle will set you back by S$99, something which we had hoped would be part of the package.

Unlike the higher end HTS9104 sound bar from Philips, the Philips HTS7140 is incapable of connecting to devices wirelessly and and as such, doesn't support DLNA either. A physical connection must exist between the sound bar and devices for it to function. Having said that, there is only one HDMI port available which would naturally be used for linking up the TV. This means that there are no opportunities to pair the sound bar with any other devices via HDMI. While the built-in Blu-ray player mitigates this oversight slightly, you will not be able to use an all digital connection to the sound bar to work in conjunction with other sources such as gaming consoles for example. Instead, you'll have to rely upon more traditional video connection options such as Component and Composite outputs as can be seen in the photos above.

Bass Matters

The HTS7140 comes bundled with a substantially sized passive subwoofer unit. Despite not powered and amplified on its own, the passive subwoofer maintains is hefty at just over 6kg, but is armed with a 6.5-inch driver and boasts specifications to deliver good bass with impact. We just hope it does not overshadow the other subtle nuances of music and movie soundtracks.

We noted that Philips has decided to go with a bass reflex port design on the subwoofer for the purpose of enhancing low frequency performance. An important point to note is that bass reflex ports need to be placed next to walls to properly fulfill its designed functionality. Unfortunately, they are also notoriously prone to producing loose, sprawling bass when not implemented properly and not placed in optimal positions. Our performance section will deal extensively with whether or not this flaw is present in this sound bar. 

Test Setup

Sound bars, unlike most other audio devices, offer a unique proposition. With their larger sizes, they can pack in more hardware that may translate to better audio fidelity than smaller dock sized devices. This also means higher cost when compared to what you might get from a multi-channel audio setup or even a plain 2.1-channel audio setup. In any case, since these sound bars are targeted at sizable living room spaces, we actually moved out of our lab and into a larger room to perform our listening tests.

Seeing that the Philips HTS7140 features a built-in Blu-ray player, we paired the sound bar with a Philips Series 6000 TV to fully test out its capabilities. The provision of a USB port also meant that we could use our usual MP3 tracks (stored on a USB thumb drive) to gauge the performance levels of this sound bar.

In order to fully challenge the capabilities of the Philips HTS7140, we expanded our usual audio materials from just MP3 audio tracks to include Michael Jackson’s This Is It Blu-ray as well. Although the songs on the disc may not be the finished articles the King of Pop intended for release, the mix of instruments and vocals still offers a stern test for audio equipment in various scenarios. Rounding up our collection of content was the Superman Returns Blu-ray movie with special consideration paid to how well the sound bar was able to replicate the entire gamut of audio which makes for an enjoyable movie experience.

As always, we performed listening tests with an objective mind frame to discern how neutral the tone of the HTS7140 truly was. Additionally, we also tweaked the audio settings in each listening test to see if enhancement options provided for Philips helps its cause better.

 

Blu-Ray Testing Testing:
 

• This Is It - Michael Jackson
• Superman Returns

MP3 Audio Track Testing:
 

• Hotel California - Eagles
• Sail on Soothsayer - Buckethead
• Melt My Heart to Stone - Adele
• Elements of Life - Tiesto

Standard Fare

Features and design implementation are have their hits and misses, but performance is what justifies the purchase of a sound bar. One obviously does not shell out in excess of S$1000 to get audio that can be provided by regular stereo systems that cost much less (minus the surround capabilities). The Philips HTS7140 does have the hardware, in the shape of 6.5-inch subwoofer driver and multiple full range 2.5-inch drivers to re-create all the audio channels required, but will the device make its mark in its product category?

MP3 Audio Testing

We played our regular selection of MP3 tracks using a USB  drive plugged directly into the Philips HTS7140. The sound bar had no problems is recognizing the MP3 tracks, but m4a files were incompatible with the system.

Starting off with Sail On Soothsayer by Buckethead, the HTS7140 began on the wrong foot. Loose bass lacking direction and tightness was heard. Distortion on the guitars sounded sprawling and the rhythm guitar lacked definition as well. The treble was also weak which meant that the tune lacked the bite required to really make it come alive.

Adele’s Melt My Heart to Stone further confirmed the weak mids and trebles which were evidenced first on the Buckethead track. Overall, the song had a sluggish quality to it and the instrumentation felt flat. This lead to the softness and emotion of the song being almost entirely absent.

When listening to Hotel California by The Eagles, shakers and alternate percussions sounded muffled. Loose bass in general was observed once again and persisted through our listening of the trance track Elements of Life by Tiesto. The general muddiness of sound experienced is a pitfall of using bass reflex ports and the Philips HTS7140 was unable to overcome this characteristic of the design they chose to employ.

After extensive listening we found that settings for the Philips HTS7140 Sound bar had to be tweaked significantly before its performance could meet the mark somewhat. We would recommend bumping up Treble to +3, while shifting Mid to +2 in order to get the best sound from the sound bar. Here's how the tracks fared in general:-

 

Blu-ray Testing
 

This Is It - Michael Jackson

For our Blu-ray audio tests, we chose Michael Jackson’s swan song performance, This Is It. His range of hits offer a myriad of challenges to audio products and are more than suitable for testing out the capabilities of this sound bar. Granted that the audio quality mastered on the disc may not be optimal due to the unfinished project, it's nevertheless a pretty good test when one is aware where exactly to focus and stress the audio device.

Kicking off proceedings was Wannabe Startin’ Something and the Philips HTS7140’s proclivity for emphasizing bass helped bring the funk rhythm of the song to the fore. Unfortunately, the bass also overpowered all other aspects of the track. Backup vocals in general were muted and almost sounded as if they were out of tune.

On the next track Jam, the sound bar from Philips did proceed to redeem itself slightly. A good soundstage and good bass helped bring the song’s drum beat to life. But on the percussive intensive They Don’t Care About Us, bad transient response resulted in subpar performance.

Rounding up this section of our testing was the Michael Jackson classic, Beat It. The Philip HTS7140’s performance for this track was close to being classified as bad. Beat It and its signature whammy bar solo suffered from muted highs and loose bass. It could safely be said that the sound bar was unable to handle this song and did not cover itself with glory with its performance.

Superman Returns

A sound bar is not primarily going to be used for the purpose of listening to music. Seeing that the device can be paired up with the television and the fact that the HTS7140 in particular sports and integrated Blu-ray player, it can also serve to enhance your movie viewing experience. For this purpose, we tried out our contender from Philips with the Blu-ray version of Superman Returns.

The first scene we tested the HTS7140 with was the Opening Sequence of the movie. The Philips HTS7140 once again displayed a nice soundstage and the overall "boom-y" qualities of its bass performance helped give the sound a cinema feel. Muffled dialogue was a problem but was rectified after bumping up the equalizer settings.

Following up with the Airplane Scene [33:00 minute mark] the heavy bass, which was such a detriment to performance during music playback, turned to be a beneficial characteristic here. The turbulence and thumps during the shot could be heard and felt, which added to sense of chaos and turmoil. The background melody and dialogue did not flow effortlessly, but the primary task of rendering the scene’s special effects was handled well by the Philips HTS7140.

Our movie testing section was also an area where the AmbiSound feature of the sound bar was given ample opportunity to shine. However, the soundstage sounded somewhat constricted when we flipped through various parts of Superman Returns. It seems that the actual performance of the Philips HTS7140 was unable to live up to the marketing spiel.

 

Final Thoughts

Having run the rule over the Philips HTS7140’s features and after thoroughly putting it through its paces, we can now evaluate the worth of this sound bar. Performance of the device was patchy and failed to completely impress. The HTS7140 has an excellent cinema feel and is capable of producing impactful bass that made the viewing and listening of our Superman Returns Blu-ray a joy. However when the system had to reproduce a wider range of audio materials, it faltered quite a bit. Loose bass made most tracks sound sluggish or muted. Only after tinkering with the audio levels were we able to get sound which we could deem passable.

 

With regards to the hardware and software aspects the unit is endowed with, the HTS7140 just meets the mark. Missing extra HDMI ports mean you cannot connect it to anything other than your TV when considering the full digital connection route in a single cable. The dock for your iPod or iPhone is also sold separately and will cost you a further S$99. The integrated Blu-ray player within the sound bar might be attractive to those just starting their journey into the wonderful world of AV products, but it is redundant if you already own a BD-player of your own.

Striving to offer the most simple and straightforward set-up out of the box solution, it seemed to meet this aspect initially but we soon found caveats. While its true that you only need a single power and HDMI cable to get it working, the unit is big and heavy, making it tricky to wall-mount. Its size also makes it difficult to place anywhere near your TV without infringing upon the screen and other aspects to the TV. However once you have successfully found a location for the sound bar, you will find its functions and user interface one of the simplest to operate and navigate. 

Priced at S$1199, the Philips HTS7140 is not cheap. For the money you shell out, you get a bulky sound bar that requires a lot of audio level tweaking for it to sound somewhat decent. Performance with movie sound effects is good, but reproduction of music and dialogue leaves a lot to be desired. The scalability of the sound bar system is also highly limited as it does not have any inputs for plugging in extra speakers and has just one HDMI port as highlighted earlier. In summary, the Philips HTS7140 is good for the purposes of watching movies but not much else. For its price, we expected much more substance.

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