The Philips Fidelio B8 was originally first spotted at CES in Las Vegas earlier in the year, although there was no information on the model number nor was there any indication of price.
The B8 uses a combination of Philips's proprietary Ambisound technology and Dolby Atmos to deliver 5.1.2 (which translates as five speaker channels, one subwoofer, two Atmos channels) surround sound.
This isn't just Philips' first Dolby Atmos soundbar; it's the first such soundbar we've seen priced under £1000.
The current Atmos soundbars on the market are well over £1000: the Yamaha YSP-5600 costs a substantial £1600, while the Samsung HW-K950 is yours for £1300.
By pricing the Fidelio B8 at £900, it puts it closer to the likes of Yamaha's YSP-2700 - a five-star soundbar that does surround convincingly but doesn't feature Dolby Atmos.
Philips hopes that the price and the slim design will make it more attractive to customers that want immersive home cinema from a compact and stylish bar.
The slim soundbar hosts 18 speakers in total. This includes three tweeters and two upward-firing drivers on each side, three midrange drivers (one of which is dedicated to the center channel), and a tweeter at either end to deliver a wide soundstage.
The main brunt of the low frequencies is handled by a 20cm downward-firing wireless subwoofer. All together, that's a claimed 400W of power from the Fidelio B8.
There's no calibration system at launch, but you can change the volume/intensity of the upward-firing Atmos arrays using the included remote control.
On the connections side, the B8 features two HDMI inputs, an HDMI output with ARC (Audio Return Channel) support, optical, coaxial and 3.5mm inputs. There's also aptX Bluetooth for streaming from smart devices.
