ULTIMEA Skywave X70 7.1.4 Wireless Soundbar Review | Big Sound on a Budget

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[music]
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>> I am Dustin Abbott. [music] I've been
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doing a lot of reviews of some great
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projectors over the last couple of
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years.
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>> [music]
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>> But of course, getting good picture is
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only one half of the equation. Today I'm
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going to be reviewing the Ultimaea
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Skywave X70 soundbar setup and surround
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system for those of you that are looking
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for a relatively simple way to add big
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sound to accompany your big picture. And
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that works equally whether or not you're
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attaching it to a television or a
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projection type system.
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So the Ultimaea Skywave X70 is a 7.1.4
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surround system. And so it's built
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around a main bar with 10 drivers. It's
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got six horizontal 2 and 1/4 inch
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drivers, two up-firing 2 and 1/4 inch
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drivers, and then a pair of 1-in
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tweeters. It also has a couple of
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wireless surrounds that have both
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front-facing and up-firing channels. And
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then obviously
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the elephant in the room is the whopper
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of a subwoofer that comes with the
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system. It is a 500-W 10-in subwoofer
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that is rated down to 20 Hz. Obviously
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in very very controlled environments and
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acoustically sound rooms. However, this
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is capable of some big sound as we're
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going to see.
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So today we're going to dive in to
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hopefully cover the kind of questions
1:35
that you might have around a setup like
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this. How is it to put it together and
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to install it? What are the ports and
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connections that are available with it?
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How is it to actually use? What's the
1:47
functionality like? And then of course
1:49
most importantly, how good is the sound
1:52
actually from it? And then I'll double
1:53
back at the end to give you a
1:54
conclusion. So let's start by taking a
1:56
look at what's involved in taking it out
1:59
of the box and getting it into your home
2:01
theater setup. First of all, the actual
2:03
sound bar itself is shipped in three
2:05
separate pieces, and that makes sense
2:07
for packaging. And it means that you
2:09
have to just click the three sections
2:11
together. It's relatively simple to line
2:13
those up. And then once you have clicked
2:15
it into place, it is a nice solid piece
2:19
that isn't flexing and isn't moving
2:21
around. So, good on that front. I will
2:24
note for those of you that might
2:25
question, unfortunately, you don't have
2:28
the capability of separating the
2:30
sections if you want to create a little
2:32
bit wider a sound stage. Unfortunately,
2:34
the power is all circuited inside. Power
2:37
only comes to the middle section and
2:39
flows out to the side sections from
2:41
there.
2:42
And if you have them separated, the side
2:43
sections just won't work. Now, while
2:46
this is acclaimed as a wireless setup,
2:49
that can lead to a false impression if
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you're not familiar with how wireless
2:53
setups work. It is true that it involves
2:56
no actual wires in terms of speaker wire
2:59
connecting the sound bar and its
3:01
amplifiers to either the surround
3:03
speakers or the subwoofer. All of that
3:06
is handled in a wireless type
3:08
connection. However, all of these
3:10
require having a power supply to them.
3:14
And so, if your hope was as you know, as
3:16
it often looks like in the marketing,
3:17
you just have this sitting on a shelf or
3:20
kind of floating and this just sitting
3:21
with nothing coming to it, that's not
3:23
the way that it works at all. In fact,
3:25
there's a rather sizable power brick
3:27
that comes with the actual sound main
3:29
sound bar itself, which I was kind of
3:32
disappointed to see. The power supply is
3:34
internal when it comes to the actual
3:36
subwoofer, and so it's just connecting a
3:39
power cord to that. And so, I was glad
3:41
to see that its power, you know, brick
3:43
is integrated into the design. However,
3:45
once we get back to the two surrounds,
3:47
both of them have a right at the AC port
3:50
have a fairly big power uh brick that's
3:53
attached to them as a part of that. And
3:55
so, it just means that
3:58
you know, particularly with these
3:59
surrounds, if you're trying to plug into
4:01
one outlet, for example, you're probably
4:03
going to have a hard time getting both
4:05
of those, you know, bricks to work
4:06
there. It also means you're going to,
4:08
you know, end some kind of like power
4:10
bar connections. It just complicates
4:12
things for that. So, you are either
4:14
going to have to live with seeing some
4:16
exposed power cables, or you're going to
4:17
have to get creative in the way that you
4:19
hide those, but they do need to be
4:21
routed up to the bottom of these and to
4:23
the side of that and into the back of
4:25
the main sound bar.
4:27
In terms of the actual build quality,
4:30
the build feels, you know, for the these
4:33
components, it feels, I would say,
4:35
mid-tier. It doesn't feel cheap or
4:37
overly plasticky, and the look of it is
4:40
nice, a lot of rose gold type accents,
4:42
but really the the main care went into
4:45
the actual wood cabineted subwoofer
4:48
here. It's got wood grain to it. It's
4:50
heavier, it's more robust. It is really
4:53
the centerpiece of the system in a
4:54
variety of ways. Now, on a huge plus
4:58
side, there is literally no guesswork
5:00
involved in the actual wireless
5:02
connection. Once you have powered these
5:04
up, all of the connection after that
5:06
point is basically perfect. There was no
5:09
work involved. It was seamless, and I
5:12
had zero drops that I could detect over
5:15
the several weeks now, about 3 weeks
5:17
that I have been testing the sound bar.
5:19
I've never had any apparent drops of
5:21
sound or loss of that wired wireless
5:24
connection along the way. So, very good
5:26
on that front. So, let's take a little
5:28
bit closer look at some of the
5:29
specifications and the ports that are on
5:31
here. And so, it is rated at a total of
5:34
980 W of peak power. That's not RMS,
5:37
that is peak power. And a big chunk of
5:40
that goes into the sub, which itself is
5:42
rated at 500 W. However, I don't think
5:44
that anyone's going to complain about a
5:46
lack of power, at least when it comes to
5:48
the volume that comes out of the Skywave
5:51
X70. It can pump out a lot of volume and
5:54
a lot of sound and I have found myself
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working at the kind of the lower end of
5:59
the scale in terms of the volume
6:00
required out of it in my applications.
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In terms of the ports coming in, we have
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one HDMI 2.0. It is eARC. We have
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another HDMI in. We have an optical
6:12
input. We have USB type A. And then the
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connection here throughout the system is
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a dual wireless 5 mega megahertz connect
6:20
connection. The latency is rated at
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under 20 milliseconds and as I
6:25
mentioned, I haven't noted any kind of
6:27
issues with latency or drop of a
6:29
frequency or connection over that time.
6:31
So all of that is very very good. Now
6:34
before we get to the actual sound
6:36
quality, let's talk about the overall
6:37
usability and just my observations after
6:40
after having used it for a while. I will
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note that the surrounds, they are
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labeled left and right if you look at
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them. Really should have no
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complications far as far as the
6:50
installation. You know, they'll say
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right on them which, you know, which
6:53
side it needs to go to and so and again
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because you're not dealing with any kind
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of wires, there's no way you can get the
6:59
wired connection wrong. The wireless is
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going to work just fine. It's really
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about you just placing it on the correct
7:04
side and so the sound stage is properly
7:07
oriented. The included remote has a
7:10
variety of functions on here and it will
7:13
cover a lot of the different things that
7:14
you want to do. There is a front
7:17
mounted, um, you know, LCD screen that
7:19
gives you a read out and it is useful as
7:21
long as you have line of sight of it.
7:22
And speaking of line of sight, I found
7:24
that this particular remote, it really
7:26
required line of sight to function. In
7:28
the setup that I was doing because it's
7:30
temporary, um, you know, and I'm not
7:33
disrupting my whole home theater setup
7:34
to use this. This because I was using it
7:36
in front of a 120-in screen and with a
7:39
projector, this ended up initially on
7:41
the floor. And because it was on the
7:43
floor, it wasn't quite in my line of
7:45
sight when I was sitting on my couch
7:48
down there with, you know, with the
7:49
ottoman for my feet. And so, I had to
7:52
make sure that I was kind of angling it
7:53
properly to have line of sight.
7:56
There is also an app that gives you a
7:59
little bit more better visual control
8:02
when it comes to operating this, and
8:03
that actually became my preferred method
8:06
most of the time. I also found that once
8:08
I had connected using an eARC connection
8:11
from this to the
8:14
XGIMI Titan War Max projector that I was
8:17
using with the the cool configuration.
8:19
Once I had that set up, I found that I
8:21
could just use the XGIMI remote that and
8:24
it could control all of those basic
8:26
functions. And if I augmented, if I
8:28
wanted to make actually tweaks to the
8:30
the sound itself, I could do that
8:31
through the remote, and that to me
8:33
allowed me to eliminate one remote
8:35
control out of the equation, and
8:37
frankly, I didn't miss it. I could
8:39
control the volume fine from the actual
8:41
XGIMI remote, and if I wanted to tweak
8:43
any of the actual behavior, I could do
8:46
that through the app itself or even
8:48
change the input. And so, that became my
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preferred control setup. I always like
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to prefer to eliminate as many remotes
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as possible. But, I will say if you
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don't have that kind of option, maybe
8:59
you're using an optical connection
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instead, that between the remote and
9:03
then also the app itself, you have
9:05
plenty of control. However, make sure
9:08
you have line of sight, otherwise this
9:10
actual start this remote gets a bit
9:12
frustrating. As noted, I did find the
9:14
app itself to be a little easier than
9:17
the remote for tweaking sound, and
9:19
mostly because when you're making
9:21
changes on the actual remote, now you
9:23
can cycle through the various EQ modes
9:25
and all of that is fine. But, when it
9:27
comes to changing things to like your
9:29
up-firing level or your surround level,
9:32
things like that, I actually found I
9:33
preferred to be able to actually
9:35
visually see where the slider was at and
9:38
so I had a more finite level of control
9:40
of what was happening. Your mileage may
9:42
vary, but that was my personal
9:43
observation. I did find the front-facing
9:46
screen to be useful just to give a
9:48
little bit of feedback. I'll also note
9:50
that when I had it connected to eARC, it
9:53
when I turned on the projector, it would
9:55
turn on the sound bar at the appropriate
9:57
time. The sound bar would turn itself
9:59
off after I powered off the projector.
10:02
So again, it just kind of eliminated
10:03
some of the clutter. I loved being able
10:05
down if I was wanting to watch
10:06
something, one click to turn on the
10:08
remote, turn on the sound bar, by the
10:10
time I sat down, it was ready to go. And
10:12
so that is a great configuration for
10:14
that.
10:16
So how about the actual sound quality?
10:17
I've spent close to 3 weeks with the
10:20
Skywave X70 at this point using it for a
10:23
variety of things from music to shows,
10:26
movies, things like that. And so I'll
10:29
say as far as a positive is that there
10:33
is a massive amount of volume that comes
10:36
out of this. I had a very brief
10:38
flirtation with a sound bar, a
10:40
relatively inexpensive one, a couple
10:42
hundred bucks that I had ordered off of
10:44
Amazon at some point when I first
10:45
started to do projector reviews and I
10:47
was moving things around away from my
10:49
typical I have down in this this space I
10:52
have a 7.1 surround setup that's all
10:55
like architectural speakers you know, it
10:58
sounds great. So I was experimenting
11:00
with those things and I was really
11:01
really disappointed with both the
11:03
quality and the quantity of sound that
11:05
came out of that sound bar. Now a $200
11:07
sound bar is not a $1,000 sound bar
11:09
obviously, but I first of all I was
11:12
shocked by the quantity of sound that
11:14
came out of it. In fact, they probably
11:16
need to tweak down the volume level that
11:18
comes through it kind of by default
11:20
because it kind of like blew me away
11:22
when I first heard it. Came on at about
11:24
30% which is loud on this. Most of time
11:28
in operation
11:29
a scale of what's showing up on the
11:31
sound bar even in a fairly decent size
11:34
room here. This room here is as about 15
11:37
by 27 and even in a room this size, I
11:42
typically am operating in the low to
11:44
mid-20s in terms of the volume level on
11:46
the soundbar. Also great is the
11:49
subwoofer itself. There is a good
11:52
quantity of of sound and obviously its
11:54
ability to in theory go down to 20 hertz
11:57
means that the bass is very deep. It's
11:59
so it's I would say that the bass
12:01
response is very close to what I'm
12:03
seeing out of my typical 7.1 surround
12:06
and it also is it's fairly good. It
12:08
doesn't get all that muddy and I've
12:10
heard some really kind of precise low
12:12
bass notes coming out of it. It has some
12:14
nuance to it. It does good with impacts
12:17
and you know, movie types movie score
12:19
type related things as well as music
12:21
also.
12:23
I will also say that the overall
12:24
presence out of the soundbar and the
12:26
general system is quite good. There's a
12:28
fair sense of immersion when you're
12:30
watching movies. There's just that
12:32
constant sense that you're in a space, a
12:34
sound stage that is set up and so it's
12:36
not at all flat in that sense. So I
12:38
think they've done a good job on that.
12:40
Music sounds fairly good. Now again,
12:43
you're going to want to play with
12:44
settings sometimes to get your your
12:46
maximum performance out of that, but I
12:48
would say that in general I felt like a
12:50
music particularly you know, anything
12:52
that's that's you know, Dolby Atmos is
12:54
really going to have a lot of kind of
12:57
depth and presence to it and you know, I
12:59
could sit close my eyes and get pretty
13:01
immersed in it and so you know, pretty
13:02
sweet for soundbar setup like this.
13:05
Now as far as some of the downsides, the
13:08
biggest thing that I noted that I've
13:10
been working over the last few weeks to
13:11
try to correct as much as possible is
13:14
that I feel like in big moments where
13:17
there's a lot of action that the center
13:19
stage kind of shrinks on the X70. What I
13:23
mean by that is that vocals can get a
13:25
little bit muddy, but also I found that
13:28
on if you're particularly on like the
13:30
cinema setup that when it the action is
13:33
really starting to surge, whereas in
13:35
quieter scenes there's a lot of punch
13:37
and impact to sound effects that kind of
13:40
get lost a little bit during those big
13:42
moments. And so I have actually been
13:44
tweaking it by going into the voice
13:47
setting
13:48
on the the app and choosing that and
13:51
then trying to tweak accordingly. And so
13:53
by default it doesn't have quite as much
13:55
presence as what the cinema or the
13:57
standard version does. However, I found
13:59
that with some tweaking I can get I'm
14:01
not losing those vocals in those big
14:03
scenes, although I still feel like some
14:05
of the sound effects they just don't
14:07
have the same impact. I would say that
14:09
in those big scenes there's some
14:10
algorithm compression that's taking
14:12
place maybe to protect the smaller
14:14
drivers in a in a a setup like this, but
14:17
unfortunately it's in those moments
14:19
where the the system, you know, rather
14:21
than kind of rising to the moment kind
14:23
of shrinks in those big moments. One
14:25
other potential big downside for some
14:27
viewers or listeners is going to be the
14:29
fact that there is no DTS support here
14:32
of any kind. And so you're going to have
14:34
to switch to something like PCM and
14:36
up-mixing.
14:38
You're just you're going to lose a
14:39
little bit on DTS related soundtracks.
14:42
And so, you know, be aware of that. I
14:44
will also note that one of the things
14:47
that is lacking here in terms of the
14:49
package is that there is no room
14:51
correction options. You may be a little
14:54
bit disappointed
14:56
in terms of your lack of ability to
14:58
really kind of define the sound for your
15:00
particular room. And so that's an area
15:02
where some competing systems, maybe
15:04
those that are a little bit more
15:05
expensive, but some that are a similar
15:06
price point, they do come with room
15:08
correction options, microphones, and
15:10
things like that. That isn't present
15:12
here and there doesn't seem to be any
15:13
provision for it either. One final kind
15:16
of downside is that while you do have
15:18
the ability to go into a dedicated
15:20
10-band equalization, you lose a lot of
15:23
the sound processing. And so, the sound
15:25
goes from this big sense of presence,
15:28
and as soon as you start playing with
15:29
that custom EQ, it all shrinks right
15:31
down. And you can't really recreate
15:34
that. It's as if you It's like you lose
15:36
a lot of the magic of the system because
15:37
a lot of that is coming from the sound
15:39
processing and, you know, the various
15:42
algorithms that they're using to create
15:44
that sense of presence. And so, because
15:46
of that, where whereas I love the idea
15:48
of being able to tweak the sound through
15:51
the equalization, I feel like there's
15:53
too much lost, and so I've had to go
15:55
away from that and instead use what
15:57
little things that I can to try to tweak
15:59
the behavior within their presets
16:01
because it's in the presets that you're
16:03
getting the sound processing, and that's
16:05
where you're getting the big sound. So,
16:06
what's my conclusion?
16:08
I would say that the Ultimaea Skywave
16:10
X70, it gets high marks on volume, bass,
16:14
and overall sense of presence. In many
16:17
ways, it delivers a really compelling
16:19
sound stage, and it's a great
16:20
accompaniment to a big projector because
16:24
it puts out a big amount of sound. Where
16:26
it falls short is its ability to really
16:28
tweak the sound and customize it for
16:30
your room. And there are some competing
16:33
soundbars that cost a similar price or a
16:36
little bit more that give you much more
16:38
flexibility when it comes to controlling
16:39
the sound for your room. The lack of
16:41
DTS, again, could be a deal breaker for
16:43
some and make you move to an opposing
16:46
rival soundbar that actually has DTS
16:49
support. If you love bass, however, this
16:52
is the soundbar system for you because
16:54
the low end is very robust and it does
16:58
creates a big amount of sound and a big
17:01
sense of presence. It does run several
17:03
hundred dollars cheaper from competitors
17:05
like those from Samsung, for example.
17:08
And so, if you're looking on a pure
17:09
value proposition, maybe it's you can
17:11
afford the Skywave X70 where you can't
17:14
afford one of those.
17:15
I would say that I've actually really
17:17
enjoyed the overall sound from it. I
17:19
wish that there was that extra degree of
17:21
customization, but I do think that if
17:24
this is what fits your budget and you
17:26
find a good price on it, I doubt you're
17:28
going to be disappointed with the
17:30
overall quality of the sound that you
17:31
get out of it. It It is a compelling
17:34
sound and a compelling sound stage
17:36
generally, but it doesn't quite have the
17:39
level of customization that some of the
17:41
competing brands might have. Then again,
17:43
they don't always provide you the amount
17:45
of bass that the Skywave X70 does. If
17:48
you want more information, you can check
17:50
out the description. I've got links to
17:52
the Skywave where you can do a little
17:53
bit more research there, some buying
17:55
links there, as well. As always, thanks
17:57
for watching. Have a great day and let
17:59
the light in.

ULTIMEA Skywave X70 7.1.4 Wireless Soundbar Review | Big Sound on a Budget

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ULTIMEA Skywave X70 7.1.4 Wireless Soundbar Review | Big Sound on a Budget

Dustin Abbott