Philips Fidelio B5 review: A soundbar with surround on demand

The very nature of a soundbar being placed under on near your television immediately makes it difficult to create a surround sound experience. That hasn’t stopped many soundbar manufacturers attempting to emulate the 5.1 or 7.1 experience, however. The sheer physical location of the speakers means that trying to recreate a rear speaker requires all manner of technical trickery by reflecting sound around the room, often with poor results compared to a true multi-speaker setup.

With the Fidelio B5, Philips has attempted to get around this with genuine rear speakers in what it calls ‘Surround On Demand’, something it has done in the past with its Fidelio HTL9100 soundbar. In a piece of clever design, two detachable rear speakers are attached to the main soundbar unit, allowing the B5 to be used as a conventional 2.1 soundbar with regular television and music.

When the source material requires it, such as when playing games or watching a film, the detachable speakers can be used as rear speakers to create a true 4.1 setup with genuine rear channels. There’s a mounting point on each so they can be hung on a wall or they can be placed on a surface if you have one behind your seating position.

The separate speakers communicate wirelessly with the main soundbar unit and 4.1 mode is triggered automatically as soon as you detach the speakers, which are affixed by magnets. Swapping between the two modes is seamless with only a short audio delay as it switches over.

Beyond triggering conventional 2.1 audio, docking the rear speakers also charges the built-in batteries. Philips says the batteries should last for five hours per speaker, so you’ll easily get through a movie or two, but perhaps not quite an epic movie marathon.

A new update over the HTL9100 is the ability to use each rear speaker independently as a conventional standalone Bluetooth speaker. As the main soundbar also supports Bluetooth, that means the Fidelio B5 can essentially become three separate Bluetooth speakers with the rear speakers able to be taken anywhere around the house with a different device paired to each. The main soundbar will still work for television viewing even if the rear speakers are being used as Bluetooth speakers, too.

The Fidelio B5’s design has not changed drastically over its predecessor. It has the same ‘teardrop’ profile that sees it have a reasonably large footprint. It’s also reasonably tall at 70mm, meaning it could potentially obstruct the lower edge of your television if sat below.

You do have the option of wall-mounting and mounts are included. Sensors inside will detect the B5’s orientation and adjust the sound accordingly. It’s worth noting that when the rear speakers are detached, this exposes the hollowed-out docking point on the soundbar, which doesn’t look particularly attractive.

A status LCD screen is integrated behind the speaker grille, lighting up to show you what mode the soundbar is set to. With the B5 lying flat, the display is angled upwards, though, which can make it a little difficult to read. A remote control is included that allows you to tweak the treble and bass and activate different sound modes.

You can connect the Fidelio B5 to your television or audio source through either its HDMI Audio Return Channel (ARC) port, digital optical, digital coaxial, RCA phono or 3.5mm auxiliary. A dedicated wireless subwoofer is also included. Measuring 200x510x200mm, it’s very tall and a little conspicuous for our tastes, certainly when compared to the slimline subwoofer included with the XS1 SoundStage that is easy to hide under a cabinet or sofa. An NFC contact point can be used to pair a Bluetooth device to the main soundbar and it also supports aptX and AAC codecs.

Inside the main soundbar are 2x 3in drivers paired with 2x 1in soft dome tweeters for stereo sound. Disappointingly, there’s no dedicated centre channel. The rear speakers use a 3in full-range speaker with 8W of power each, making for a total of 120W of power when coupled with the main soundbar. Inside the subwoofer is a 6.5in woofer to fill out the low-end with 90W of power.

Setting the Fidelio B5 up for 4.1 surround is a simple affair thanks to built-in spatial calibration. This uses a special tonal signal to locate the rear speakers in a two-step process. First you place the speakers in two locations you’re likely to sit, then you place the speakers where you’re likely to leave them. This will then adjust the sound balance and adjust the sound of each speaker. In testing it worked excellently and got round the awkward shape of our testing environment.

There are other clever functions, such as the ‘Close To Me’ listening mode. This mutes the sound from the main soundbar and only emits stereo sound from the two rear speakers that you place nearby. This is great for late-night listening when you don’t want to disturb the household. There’s a more traditional ‘Night’ mode that tones down the lower frequencies but still has audio outputting from all the speakers, too.

When used as a 4.1 set up, the Fidelio B5 creates an enveloping cinematic surround sound that you can’t really achieve with traditional soundbars. There’s clear audio separation and directionality from the satellite speakers meaning off-screen sound effects have real presence. The Fidelio B5 can decode Dolby Digital, DTS and Dolby Pro Logic II, but not Dolby TrueHD, much like the Sonos Playbar.

However, without a true dedicated centre channel, dialogue wasn’t as isolated as we would have liked. It was by no means muffled or unintelligible, and certainly a cut above a television’s standard speakers, but it lacked the clarity evident with other soundbars, including Philips’ Fidelio XS1 SoundStage that has a dedicated centre channel.

Stereo separation from the main soundbar was also disappointingly narrow, both with and without the rear speakers docked. Other soundbars and soundbases often get round the problem of closely packed soundbar drivers creating a narrow sound field by dispersing the audio with side-firing drivers but that’s not present here. Even with the slightly narrow sound stage, sound quality for both movies and music was still very good with crisp mids and trebles and plenty well-controlled bass from the subwoofer.

Conclusion

Overall, the Fidelio B5 creates a surround sound experience that can’t be matched by most soundbars thanks to its clever detaching speakers, although you’ll need to have somewhere to place them. The sound coming from the front is disappointingly narrow even if it does sound excellent, however. The Philips Fidelio XS1 SoundStage has a far wider sound, and the Q Acoustics Media 4 is another option if you only have space for a traditional soundbar, but for sheer versatility the Fidelio B5 can’t be beat. You can see other alternatives in the Expert Reviews best soundbar guide.