Oops. It looks like not one but two audio retailers have accidentally spoiled Sennheiser's soundbar surprise by publishing details of the new Sennheiser Ambeo Mini, a smaller and more affordable version of the firm's best soundbars. Both sites' listings have now been taken down but not before the internet noticed, so this soundbar cat is well and truly out of Sennheiser's bag.
The listings were published early by Audio T and by Hughes, and together they give you a pretty good picture (and also literally a picture) of the Ambeo Mini. Unsurprisingly it looks a lot like its sibling, the Ambeo Plus, and if it sounds like it then it's already a winner: in our five-star Sennheiser Ambeo Plus review we enthused about its stellar sound quality and said "Sennheiser knows exactly what it's doing with this technology".
What to expect from the Sennheiser Ambeo Mini soundbar
Going by the photos it looks like the Mini will not have dedicated upwards-firing drivers for Dolby Atmos: there aren't any speaker grilles on top so it looks highly likely that we'll get Sonos Beam Gen 2-style virtualised Atmos, which is quite common in more compact soundbars. The listing says the surround sound will deliver stereo, 5.1 and 7.1.4 surround sound.
On the back there's an HDMI eARC but no separate HDMI passthrough, USB and a mystery button that presumably pairs the Ambeo with another device or connects it to your Wi-Fi. The Audio T listing also says there are wireless options including AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, Chromecast and TIDAL Connect as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It also says the device supports Sony 360 Reality Audio, MPEG-H and DTS:X as well as Atmos.
The price on the listing is £699, wich is just under $900 USD and around AU$1,350. That makes it more expensive than the Sonos Beam, which has a recommended retail price of £449 / $449 / AU$699. There's no sign of a launch date, but since we know at least two retailers have their product pages ready to roll, it's surely not long before Sennheiser makes the Mini official.
