In general, I really like the Bowers and Wilkins PX7 headphones… and I’m also a fan of
their PX5 on ear headphones… So when bowers and Wilkins announced their new Soundbar…
the Panorama 3… which kind of implies there are other Panoramas in the pipeline… I was
rather excited. Now overall… I like the general design and martial choice of this
Soundbar… but the Panorama 3 is a very hard sell.
Now I’m going to be straight up… one of the reasons why I was interested in reviewing
this Soundbar is cause a lot of consumer reviews are bashing the Panorama 3… Now the Panorama
3 isn’t that bad… however, at a retail price of $1000 the Panorama is very hard to
justify… and plus, you can’t build out this Soundbar with an external subwoofer or
surround sound speakers. And plus, I think its funny that Bowers And Wilkins proudly
stated that you won’t need an external sub woofer with this Soundbar… but you need
and external sub woofer with this sound bar.
Now design wise I like the hexagonal and angled shape of this Soundbar, I like the fabric
wrapped front, and I like the perforated brushed metal top of this sound. And I also really
like that the brushed metal top of this Soundbar doesn’t create a reflection… like lets
say the glass top on the Bose Smart Soundbar 900 which can be rather distracting depending
on your setup. However, my main issue with this Soundbar design wise is just its sheer
size. This thing is huge its up there with the Sony HT-A5000 which was an absolute unit
as well. The Panorama 3 has a length of 46.6 inches, and a depth 5.5… a little above
average. However the Panorama 3 is still low profile coming at a hight of 2.5 inches.
But what really got me off guard about this sound bar is just its sheer weight. It weighs
in at 14.3 pounds… so if you plan on wall mounting this Soundbar… you’re going to
need a study wall. But thankfully the Panorama 3 does come included with a heavy duty wall
mounting bracket. And ingenral I like to see that this bracket came included cause either
with Bose or Sonos their wall mounting kits are sold separately… or with Sony or Samsung…
their included wall mounting kits are pretty cheap.
Now speaking about what comes included in the box… the Panorama 3 comes included with
a rather premium AC power cable that also fairly flexible… just like Sonos’s power
cable. And thankfully there is no external power brick that you have to worry about hiding.
But honestly, given this Soundbar’s sheer size there better not be an external power
brick.
And finally… this Soundbar also comes included with a an HDMI cable. And that’s it… unfortunately
the Panorama 3 doesn’t come included with a remote control like either Bose’s or Sony’s
soundbars. Now I am rather indifferent about this… I usually just use the apps with my
soundbars… however the panorama 3 does have onboard media control buttons on it that present
themselves when your hand gets near the touch surface… but unlike Sono’s soundbars which
also have built in touch sensitive media control buttons on it… with the Panorama 3… you
can’t deactivate this touch pad… which could be a problem if you have kids in the
house. So hopefully bowers and Wilkins will put out a software feature which will allow
you too deactivate these media control buttons.
But now lets break down the ports on this soundbar… cause unfortunately it is pretty
basic for a thousand dollar soundbar. You’ve got a single HDMI out port that has EARC support
and that is pretty much a given due to the fact that this a a dolby atmos soundbar. But
unfortunately there is not HDMI in port… you can’t plug in a blue ray player into
this soundbar. So the Panorama 3 is going to be mostly targeted at people who are just
going to be streaming their content.
Now the Panorama 3 also has an optical port just incase your TV doesn’t have an HDMI
in port with ARC or EARC support… but honestly if your TV doesn’t have ARC support, you
should be upgrading your TV before getting a soundbar like this… and the Panorama 3
also has an Ethernet port… But I feel that if you’re having wifi trouble you should
upgrade your access point before getting a soundbar like this. Especially since this
soundbar is mostly aimed at people streaming your content… if you upgrade your access
point then your streaming experience will be better cause your content is less likely
to stop and buffer. But overall, I do expect the optical and ethernet port on this soundbar
to go mostly unused.
And beisdes, this sound bar does have wifi… and it also has Airplay 2 support. So if you’re
an iPhone user as long as you're connected to the same wifi network of this soundbar,
you will be able to stream to it… and you can also use this soundbar as a smart speaker
if you want. But as of right now, you can only use Alexa with the Panorama 3. But maybe
in the future they will add google assistant support as well.
But lets say that you don’t want to connect this soundbar up to your wifi network due
to security reasons… you can always still stream music to it via bluetooth. And the
Panorama 3 is one of the few soundbars out there that have APTX adaptive support. But
overall, I do recommend that you connect this soundbar up to wifi so that you can take advantage
of Airplay.
But now lets talk speaker set ups cause the Panorama 3 has a lot going on under the hood.
The Panorama 3 has 3 frontward firing tweeters… and it has a total of 8 drivers. 6 of which
fire out the front… and there are two upwards firing drivers which are supposed to bounce
sound off of the ceiling and they are what give this soundbar true dolby atmos support.
And the Panorama 3 also has 2 upwards firing subwoofers which are supposed to handle the
bass. Now in general, I have found that soundbars that have upwards firing sub woofers tend
to have more bass than soundbars that have bass chambers… like lets say Bose’s or
Sonos’s soundbars… cause a very popular example of a soundbar that has an above average
amount of bass is the JBL Bar 5.0 which has similar upwards firing subwoofers like the
Panorama 3. But unfortunalty, the Panorama 3 doesn’t have all that much physicality
in its bass… so you’re not really going to feel what’s on the screen. And in general,
I would argue that the Bose Smart Soundbar 300 has more bass than the Panorama 3. And
it also sounds better as well. Now the Panorama 3 is able to get significantly louder than
the Bose Smart Soundbar 300 at max volume… but overall, I do feel the 300 sounds better
than the Panorama 3 all while costing half as much and with much less hardware.
So like you may have just heard… obviously any soundbar is going to sound better than
your TV’s built in speakers. Your tv most likely just has a pair of downwards firing
speakers that bounce sound off of the table… they don’t get all that loud… and when
their bass really gets going it just becomes a rattling mess. In most cases, getting a
soundbar is good investment… however… I would argue that if you have a more premium
TV like lets like lets say a Samsung Q80A or something similar… then the Panorama
3 isn’t going to sound all that much better.
Now
my main problem with the Panorama 3 is that it has a very shallow sound signature and
more nuanced sounds get lost very easily. Cause in this sound test, I hope you noticed
that with the 300 you were able to hear footsteps and the Watson generator much easier than
you could with the Panorama 3.
But the very strange thing about the Panorama 3 is that even though this soundbar has a
shallow sound signature to it… it doesn’t have all that much bass. Cause for comparison
sake… the Sony HT-A5000 also has a shallow sound signature to it… but it also has a
lot of physicality in its bass. Which could be a fair trade off if that’s what you're
looking for in your soundbar.
Now you can go in and raise the bass on the Panorama 3… but if you do this, you’re
not really going to get any more physicality out of its bass… its just going to sound
even more shallow. So right now im basically at the point where I hope Bowers And Wilkins
puts out a new firmware update that will put the Panorama 3’s upward firing subwoofers
to better use. Cause just speaker set up wise… this soundbar should be putting out a lot
more bass than it is right now.
And im just saying, during this sound test, both of these soundbars were playing with
their stock EQ’s… but if you want to you can go in and raise the bass on the 300 and
get more physicality out of it… but even when you increase the bass Bose… it doesn’t
end up sound shallow. So you can still very easily hear dialog and more nuanced sounds.
And finally there’s the dolby atmos affect of this soundbar… given that the Panorama
3 sounds pretty shallow and it doesn’t have the best instrument separation… the Panorama
3 doesn’t do the best job of immersing you in your content. And also the verticality
affect of this soundbar isn’t super prominent. And unfortunalty… you can’t adjust the
verticality affect on the panorama 3 like you can with other Atmos soundbars.
So with all of that being said… the Bowers And Wilkins Panorama 3 is a visually appealing
soundbar… it is very stylish. I love how this soundbar looks and I love the martial
choices here. However performance wise… the Panorama 3 struggles to keep up with soundbars
half its size and half its price. Yeah, the Panorama 3 gets super loud… but it sounds
very shallow, very narrow and it has very little physicality in its bass. And I think
physicality in a soundbar is very important because you want to be able to feel whats
happening on the screen.
So overall, the Panorama 3 is just over sized and under delivers. And unfortunately, you
can’t build out this soundbar with an external subwoofer or surround sound speakers. And
then, there’s the streaming only focused port set up on this soundbar. A soundbar of
this price should have an HDMI in port. Hopefully Bowers And Wilkins will put out a firmware
update to overhaul the performance of the Panorama 3… cause speaker set up wise, there’s
a lot going under the hood… but for right now, this is a hard pass for me.