EDIFIER CINESOUND B3 SOUNDBAR SYNAPSE CIRCUIT REVIEW

SYNAPSE CIRCUIT

EDIFIER CINESOUND B3 SOUNDBAR £149.99 CHECK ONLINE FOR PRICE

REVIEW

#Edifier #Soundbar #CineSoundB3 #HomeTheater #HomeTheatre #SpeakerSystem #HiFi

EDIFICATION It looks like Edifier have given a sermon in the purity of audio delivery! Could the Edifier CineSound B3 Soundbar convert you from the more well-known speaker manufacturers? Read on! SAFE AND SOUND In the box you get your standard cables RCA, male/female jack and optical. Plus you get a remote control with 3 presets: Movie, News and 3D. Finally, the CineSound B3 Soundbar is Bluetooth 4.0 compatible and you get a wall mount bracket! Great!

I love the Bluetooth 4.0 aspect as today's gadget obsessed person has a myriad of Bluetooth compatible devices.

There's a 10-minute standby that powers down after inactivity.

DESIGN & BUILD QUALITY

I've got to say that I have become a fan of the Edifier speaker design aesthetic. The CineSound B3 is wonderfully minimal; a sleek black line that should complement any wall.

At the right end of the CineSound B3 is an array of physical buttons arranged in a triangular pattern for your convenience. Nice. It's simplistic.

The build quality is solid and does not feel cheap.

SOUND

I think it's fair to say that Edifier has established itself as a major player in the loudspeaker industry. Over the years I've seen Edifier grow from a computer speaker company to Bluetooth - covering mainly mobile devices and now expanded to TV/Gaming with the CineSound range.

As a computer musician, I would love to see Edifier produce affordable studio monitors.

The sound quality is, as I've come to expect from Edifier, very pleasing. The CineSound B3 has a nice clean quality from the off! The frequencies are well balanced; it's an all-round good sound for general purposes. Music comes across very well and it makes me wonder what could have been if Edifier had a few music modes (in addition to the Movie, News and 3D presets). However, it's a small gripe; if you play music from your smartphone via Bluetooth you can use an equalizer to get the best results.

The 3 presets, Movie News and 3D, do not disappoint. If you've been using the speakers on your TV/PC you'll certainly notice the difference! You might feel an inclination to slap yourself for making do.

I did notice a bit of distortion at full blast but I can't imagine why anyone would want to use the maximum volume setting as the CineSound B3 is plenty loud! There's an input for a subwoofer which is always a good thing, but on its own the bass has a very good presence. The bass isn't muddy like on some soundbars, going back to listening to music, this is why the CineSound B3 makes for a good all-round speaker unit.

The mid and treble frequencies are nice and crisp, hi hats and breaking glass sound realistic.  

CONCLUSION

For the price, I think Edifier has done more than a good job here. As I've stated previously, the CineSound B3 delivers an all-round pleasing sound and presets are perfect in that they enabled me to movies, action movies that benefits from the 3D mode and the News mode levels out the frequencies to avoid distractions.

More expensive soundbars struggles to be this good straight out of the box. I was very happy with the sounds coming out of the CineSound B3.

SCORE

It's pretty much a no brainer, if you're upgrading from the embedded speakers in the TV/PC monitor. If you're a dabbler in gaming the CineSound B3 is good enough.

I fancy myself as an audiophile and I'm satisfied with the CineSound B3 on a price to quality ratio. Yes, there are better soundbars out there but they​ don't come cheap!

If you've already decked out your living room with a huge TV and home theatre system then it could be that you're looking for a decent soundbar for TV in the bedroom, the CineSound B3 is it!

A Synapse Circuit Gold

Thank you for reading!

Synapse Circuit/Blue Gene

THE BREAKFAST WITH SUNDAR FALLOUT PART TWO: CHROMECAST UK

SYNAPSE CIRCUIT
THE BREAKFAST WITH SUNDAR FALLOUT  PART TWO: CHROMECAST UK
#SundarPichai #Android43 #Nexus72 #Chromecast #Apple #iPad #BBC #BBCiPlayer #UKTVLicense

Good evening, Synapse Circuit Readers! Chromecast is such a great idea and US residents are so very fortunate to be getting the first bite of that cherry!

WHAT CHROMECAST MEANS TO THE UK
Quite some time ago I wrote an article on how we in the UK can legally avoid paying the TV license. The current fee for colour TV license is £145.50 and for those rocking a black & white television set is an amazing £49! What’s the situation like where you’re from? It’s only the BBC that requires TV owners to pay the fee as they claim the licensing revenue is used to fund their programs. There are a few flaws in this system:

1. The BBC programs do not reflect the multicultural aspect of the UK.

2. If one genuinely does not watch the BBC channels how would the license enforcers (yes, people do come around to make sure that you have paid the license fee) know what channels you are watching?

3. Some BBC programs are funded through the UK Lottery and European Commissioning.

However, the BBC stipulates that as long as you don’t watch their programs live i.e. you watch their programs through the iPlayer then you don’t have to pay the license. You’d be surprised at how many British people do not know this. Many British people are so used to the thought of a private BBC police force kicking down the door and confiscating TV and video equipment that they wouldn’t think to look into the legalities of avoiding the hefty license fees. The other side of coin is that so many UK residents illegally do not pay the license.

CABLE
I can’t say what the quality of cable TV is like in the rest of Europe and the US but I can tell you that in the UK the quality is very, very poor. There are more repeats on cable than from eating a dodgy meal! I am on the Virgin Media cable and if it was not for the benefits of having items like the Internet, landline and mobile thrown in I wouldn’t have bothered with cable – it’s that bad!

However, Virgin wants to charge me extra to have YouTube on my list of duff channels! Ok, they aren’t all duff but for the 400-odd channels there must be about at least 6 channels that I would actively watch!

CHROMECAST IS THE ANSWER
Chromecast can and will play a vital role in alleviating folk from paying the TV license fee! I am certainly going to get the Chromecast HDMI dongle as soon as it is available in the UK; I can see it selling out because at $35 (around £22) it is an absolute steal! As you may already know there are similar ideas that involve purchasing yet another box that requires more bloody cables! And if you buy into certain technological brands you’d have to opt for more of their equipment to enjoy TV their way. Chromecast does none of that.

UK CHROMECAST
I have read somewhere that the success of Chromecast in the UK lies with the BBC iPlayer app adopting the Chromecast transmitter in future updates. That’s not true. If you go to the BBC iPlayer website through the Chrome browser then you’d be able to transmit what’s on the Chrome browser to the Chromecast enabled TV.

I have noticed that Google specific apps have been updated for Chromecast compatibility and therefore Google already knows that Chromecast will be worldwide success. I am expecting that the likes of Netflix UK will be adopting their app to accommodate Chromecast. I am also expecting BBC to adopt Chromecast too.

In fact Google has given app developers the Google Cast code to place in their apps and therefore I am also expecting to see developers of media players to include Chromecast in their apps. So, expect to be able to play your videos and slideshows produced with your favourite Android and iOS devices.

At the time of writing Blackberry and Windows mobile will not be getting a Chromecast compatible app. However, if Blackberry adopts Android apps it may well be possible.

I can’t wait for Chromecast to come to the UK! You ought to be feeling the same way too if you are paying the high BBC TV license fee!

What do you reckon?   

Take good care!

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