Philips TAB6309

Design

• Slim profile
• Minimalist aesthetic
• Side-firing subwoofer

The main bar is 811mm long, not far off ‘full-size’ soundbars. You do save some space but don’t mistake this slim effort for a compact soundbar.

The depth is 42mm and compared to the Amazon Fire TV Soundbar Plus’ 64mm, and you’re making savings of a whole 2.2cm. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but 610g of weight versus Amazon’s 4kg is another area where savings are made. If you have any ambition to wall mount, that low weight is the biggest attraction.

There’s a wall mount bracket included that makes wall-mounting even more convenient.

The grey appearance won’t make waves in the fashion stakes but the TAB6309’s build quality is solid. It looks smart, with its fabric covering granting it some style. It’s an unobtrusive effort that doesn’t draw attention.

On the top surface are touch capacitive buttons that cover power, volume, source input and Bluetooth pairing. The TAB6309 is another soundbar where the ‘display’ is a series of blinking dots. The mobile app provides more context for what the soundbar is doing.

The remote control is simple and efficient to use with all the same buttons that feature on the soundbar itself, as well as EQ, bass and treble settings, mute and AVL, which I’ll get to later.

The subwoofer with side-firing port is not the biggest but the design is clever as it can be positioned vertically or horizontally. The aesthetic is similar to the main bar and connects to the main bar wirelessly.

Connectivity

• Sole HDMI port
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth streaming

Connections can be found in a recessed area around the back and Philips keeps it simple. There’s just a single HDMI eARC port with no HDMI input to plug devices into the bar itself. 3.5mm out, a digital optical out and a USB port make up the rest of the connections.

As far as wireless options are concerned, there’s no Wi-Fi but there is Bluetooth 5.3 with Bluetooth LE Audio streaming from a mobile device.

Features

• Atmos and DTS Virtual:X
• IMAX Enhanced support

There’s 320W of power funnelled through the Philips TAB6309’s 2.1 speaker set-up. The 2.1 channels of amplification give the clearest notion that this soundbar doesn’t support native spatial audio.

The TAB6309 generates its ‘3D’ sound through virtual processing – not necessarily a bad thing, especially given the soundbar’s slim design forces that approach.

It does support Dolby Atmos sound, but on the DTS side it’s DTS Virtual:X rather than DTS:X.

It also supports Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus, along with the Dolby MAT and Dolby TrueHD soundtracks (the full fat versions of Atmos). There’s also DTS Digital Surround along with 2ch LPCM. And though the Philips site makes no mention of this, this soundbar supports IMAX Enhanced sound quality from Disney+. You’ll need an Android/Google TV to enable it at this current moment in time.

Bluetooth streaming is the lower quality SBC, while via the USB port the TAB6309 can play MP3, WAV, and FLAC files.

App Experience

• Firmware updates
• Dialogue Enhancement mode

I wish Philips would consolidate its home cinema apps into one but today is not that day. The app to control this soundbar is the Philips Entertainment App. It’s a simple, clear and easy-to-use app.

The soundbar receives firmware updates through the app, but of more concern is that you can monitor which soundtrack is playing, switch between the various ‘Sound Styles’ (movie, music, stadium, and voice). It’s better off to customise treble and bass in the app, as you have visual feedback as to what’s being changed.

You can adjust the AV sync, turn the LED light off (for some reason) and swap between inputs. There is also a Dialogue Enhancement mode that’s different from the voice sound style and seems enabled by default.

• Wide, spacious sound
• Strong bass
• Solid with music

For such a thin soundbar, the Philips TAB6309 puts in a surprising performance. I wouldn’t have thought that a soundbar of this size and shape could create a sound that’s as big and open as it is – but that’s what the Philips TAB6309 does.

Watching Avatar: The Way of Water on 4K Blu-ray in Atmos, there’s ample detail and clarity. Whether it’s the flap of the wings of the Leonopteryx birds, to the gunshots that pepper the film’s finale, the TAB6309 puts in a performance that’s tall and expansive. It sounds mightier than you might expect.

Having the subwoofer is a welcome addition with bass that’s weighty but not too powerful. Enough to rumble the floorboards but not too much to cause the neighbours concern. You can feel the atom bomb go off in Oppenheimer, though with Civil War – a tricky soundtrack for most TVs – there’s some distortion with the low frequencies.

Scenes feature a fair amount of dynamism – action scenes in Avatar are injected with energy, thrust and sense of weight; while in Dune Part One, the film’s dynamic range has a sense of scale the Amazon Fire TV Soundbar Plus struggles to match.

Dialogue, for the most part, is delivered with clarity; though some scenes in Dune could use a fraction more clarity. Playing with the Voice EQ increases clarity but does diminish the film’s cinematic feel by reducing the ‘loudness’ of everything else.

At least with the EQ on – Dialogue Enhancement is on by default – characters don’t sound as if they’ve got a hand over their mouth. I wouldn’t use the Surround EQ though – all it does is reduce the volume of some sounds.

Switching to streaming content and the soundbar delivers a smooth performance through BBC iPlayer and Samsung TV Plus streams, but if there’s an area where the Philips doesn’t feel as confident it’s at the top end of the frequency range. Sometimes clarity is good (Dolby), other times it’s a bit blunt (DTS/PCM).

With DTS soundtracks (which reads as PCM) the Philips TAB6309 doesn’t sound as expansive. There’s good clarity with voices but overall DTS soundtracks sound a little distant and less dynamic.

With music over Bluetooth and the bass output is weighty and warm. Vocals sound clean, though it does sway close to sibilance at times, with highs sounding on the crisp, slightly bright side of things. Levels of detail and energy are good, which makes the Philips one of the better soundbars I’ve heard for music.

Should you buy it?