Philips SoundBar HTS8100 offers surround sound from single source

Stereo sound doesn’t exactly cut the mustard these days, especially with the growing popularity of 5.1 home theaters. One hitch, however, is that you have to deal with those ugly cables leading to the rear channels. Philips has avoided this issue altogether with their single speaker surround sound solution, the SoundBar HTS8100.

Other than being incredibly fashionable with its mirror-like black finish, the SoundBar HTS8100 also boasts the company’s propriety “Ambisound technology and Smart Surround processing.” This solution is designed to “replace an entire home theater speaker system with one speaker that’s about 3 feet long.” Naturally, you still get that ground-shattering bass you need — action movies just aren’t the same without the rumble — from the separate subwoofer.

Look for the wall-mountable SoundBar at a retailer near you in June. The asking price is a somewhat hefty $999.