NEWS: Panasonic introduces special edition SC-HTB01 gaming speaker

[Andy Bassett]

Panasonic has unveiled a Final Fantasy special edition version of its 2.1-channel SC-HTB01 gaming speaker which can also double as a fully featured home cinema soundbar with support for Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and DTS: Virtual X.
Read the news.

 

[Doomlord_uk]

The non-FF version is £283 on Panasonic's website, £250 on Amazon's (and they are doing a 5x £50 monthly payment deal too). That's kinda pricy for a small soundbar that doesn't appear much bigger than your keyboard. From the pics on the site, it appears it lacks any analogue input (eg for stereo). But I use a cheap JBL soundbar with my PC and, being compact and able to sit under my monitor, it's not a bad solution for PC audio, so this might be tempting to look at.

I really can't see how it supports Atmos or DTS:X though... what am I missing? I'm pretty 'meh' on Final Fantasy but Panasonic could almost certainly sell me on a Doom branded one.

Panasonic's product page

A similarly priced alternative would be Creative's Katana, which also includes a subwoofer.

For real surround sound though and probably pretty decent sound quality for what you get, there is Logitech's venerable Z906 at just over £250.