Hisense AX5125H review: Highly immersive Dolby Atmos at a very affordable price

The Hisense AX5125H sits at the top of the brand’s range of soundbars and, much like its TVs, aims to deliver great performance at an affordable price. It achieves this by offering an immersive 5.1.2-channel Dolby Atmos and DTS:X system for under £500.

Hisense has kept things basic to reduce costs but in this case, that’s a sacrifice worth making. Overall performance is very good, with clear dialogue, a wide front soundstage, overhead channels at the front and effective surrounds at the back. There’s sufficient amplification for all the channels as well, ensuring the audio delivery doesn’t distort or lose steam at higher volumes.

The subwoofer is the only weak point, lacking some depth and feeling a bit woolly at times. Also, aside from careful placement, there’s not much you can do to address the low-frequency response in the absence of any real EQ controls. However, this is a minor quibble and you won’t find another surround sound soundbar system that performs as well for the money.

Hisense AX5125H review: What do you get for your money?

The Hisense AX5125H was available for £349 at the time of writing. That’s some seriously competitive pricing for a 5.1.2-channel system based around a soundbar, subwoofer and two rear speakers that incorporate nine drivers and are powered by a total of 500W of amplification. Once you add in the Dolby Atmos and DTS:X support the AX5125H starts to look like a real bargain.

The main soundbar measures 920 x 90 x 60mm (WDH), making it best suited to TVs with 55in and 65in screens. The build quality is very good considering the price point, with solid construction and a top covered in black fabric, while the front is wrapped in the type of black metal mesh grille often found on soundbars from higher-end competitors.

There are three forward-firing speakers (left, right and centre), along with two up-firing speakers that bounce audio beams off the ceiling to create the front left and right height channels. How effective this is will depend on the reflectivity of your ceiling, the lower and flatter the better.

The subwoofer betrays the AX5125H’s affordability more than the bar, with its simple black MDF construction housing a forward-firing 6.5in driver behind a mesh grille. It measures 214 x 294 x 304mm, has a rear port from lower bass extension and 180W of built-in amplification. Its wireless connectivity and compact nature make it easy to position at the front of a room.

There are two surround speakers, each measuring 91 x 109 x 144mm, and their aesthetic and build quality match the main bar. It’s worth pointing out that while the rears and the sub connect wirelessly to the soundbar, you’ll need to plug all four units into wall sockets.

There are some basic touch-sensitive controls on the top of the soundbar, along with an alphanumeric display on the front right. While this display provides clear feedback, the number of characters is limited and it’s behind the mesh grille, which makes it difficult to read at times.

The included remote is small and simple but gets the job done with controls for selecting the input, adjusting the volume, bass and treble, switching between different sound modes, adjusting the display brightness and engaging Hisense’s Pure Surround technology. Thanks to HDMI-CEC you can also use your TV’s remote for basic control.

At the rear of the soundbar are the connections, composed of an HDMI input and HDMI output with eARC, along with an optical digital input, a USB 2.0 port and a 3.5mm jack. There’s also support for Bluetooth 5.3 but Wi-Fi connectivity is omitted, presumably as a cost-cutting measure. Hisense includes an optical digital cable and HDMI cable in the box, along with wall brackets for the soundbar and rear speakers.

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Hisense AX5125H review: What do we like about it?

The Hisense AX5125H has much to recommend it, not least of which is its price. This would be an affordable option even if it was a basic all-in-one soundbar, but the fact you get a full 5.1.2-channel system right out of the box is amazing value for money.

More importantly, this is a great-sounding system that delivers a genuinely immersive Dolby Atmos and DTS:X experience – with the latter being something of a rarity at this end of the market. The front soundstage has width and height, while the rears helped envelop me in the action.

The system boasts a total of nine speakers, and I found them to be tonally balanced and generally well-integrated. The use of similar drivers throughout ensures that sounds pan smoothly around the room, and the rears manage to hold their own without getting lost in the mix. If you feel you need a bit more oomph at the back, you can adjust the surround volume, though I never felt the need.

The inclusion of a dedicated centre speaker ensures dialogue remains clear and focused on the screen, never getting swamped by all the other channels. The overall delivery is generally very good, with plenty of amplification grunt, an uncongested midrange and clear treble reproduction. As a result, higher frequency effects are rendered with pleasing clarity, and I never felt they sounded strained.

The subwoofer plays its part by taking over the heavy lifting at lower frequencies, and in general, it provides a solid foundation that gives drums or explosions added depth. However, as I’ll explain in the next section, this is the one area where the AX5125H’s affordability is most apparent.

The AX5125H not only decodes all the Dolby and DTS sound formats, it also offers several sound modes, including Movie, Music, Game, News, Sport, Night, and AI. In the absence of any other EQ controls, these modes are your best option for fine-tuning performance, and all are fairly self-explanatory.

I tended to use the Movie and Music modes the most, with the former beefing up 5.1-channel mixes and the latter delivering two-channel without any manipulation. Hisense includes its own Pure Surround processing, but I typically left this off and used the Dolby and DTS upscaling instead.

The film Midway is a favourite of mine, with a staggeringly immersive Dolby Atmos mix, and the AX5125H handled this object-based barnstormer admirably. Planes flew around the room, flak peppered the air with percussive thumps and bullets strafed from front to back. It was a commendable performance from what is essentially a budget soundbar system.

The overall clarity of the speakers makes the AX5125H surprisingly good with music, and listening to Suede’s Still Life in two-channel revealed plenty of width and epic sweep to the overall delivery, from Brett Anderson’s plaintive vocals to the soaring orchestral accompaniment. If you dabble in the recent trend for Atmos remixes you’ll also be pleased, and I must say Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon sounded great, with plenty of added dimension and some well-placed sound effects.

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Hisense AX5125H review: What could be improved?

The Hisense AX5125H offers such exceptional value for money it almost seems churlish to find faults, but the absence of Wi-Fi is an obvious criticism because it does limit the soundbar’s functionality. There’s also no remote app, nor are there any real EQ features or automated calibration/room corrections. But these are very minor gripes at this price point.

Since the height channels are only at the front, the AX512H can’t quite create a fully immersive bubble of sound, but most people probably wouldn’t even notice the lack of rear height channels, and sound designers seem to use overhead channels sparingly. The inclusion of actual rear speakers is more important, creating a genuine surround experience, and if you want rear heights you’re going to have to spend a lot more.

My only other criticism would be levelled at the subwoofer, which I found lacked real depth and didn’t always feel fully integrated into what was otherwise a very cohesive system. The sub had sufficient power but felt a little unruly at times and often drifted into the midrange. Unfortunately, in the absence of some form of calibration, all you can do is adjust the bass level and experiment with positioning in the room. To be fair the sub is pretty standard for a system at this price point, but it’s another area where more expensive systems will have an edge.

Hisense AX5125H review: Should you buy it?

The Hisense AX5125H is an easy-to-use and very effective 5.1.2-channel system that delivers a genuinely immersive experience with today’s Dolby Atmos and DTS:X object-based soundtracks. Along with a cohesive soundstage, the clean delivery means it handles music with surprising clarity, while a dedicated centre speaker ensures that dialogue is always clear and focused.

There’s no Wi-Fi support or remote app, and if these things are important to you there are alternatives such as the Sonos Beam, Sony HT-S2000 or Bose Smart Soundbar 600. However, these are all-in-one soundbars with no separate subwoofer or rear speakers and, the Sony option aside, are more expensive. As a result, you won’t find a more capable soundbar than the AX5125H at this price.