Turn your living room into a full-fledged movie theater experience.
When my fiance and I moved into our house, we knew that we wanted our living room to feel like a movie theater. We already had a big-screen TV and only needed an amazing surround sound system. After trying a mid-range system, we invested in one by Klipsch. One of the main reasons we went with this option was because my fiance, who lives with hearing loss, was actually able to hear quite a bit of the audio through the Klipsch speakers. The system was a true 5.1-surround sound set-up complete with two front side speakers, a center speaker, two rear surround speakers, and a subwoofer. It served its purpose for many years (nearly 10, in fact), but we decided it was finally time for an upgrade. When we heard about the new soundbars from Klipsch, the Cinema 1200 system sounded like the ideal option for our living room.
DETAILS
The Cinema 1200 Sound Bar is a 54-inch soundbar system with 5.1.4 surround and full 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos decoding. The system features 1200 watts of power, a 12” best-in-class wireless subwoofer, and integrated discrete height speakers in the soundbar and surround speakers. The system is smart home compatible (with Google Assistant and Alexa) and has built-in Bluetooth connectivity. 8K HDR passthrough with Dolby Vision compatibility and an included HDMI®-eARC connection allows for compatible TVs to transmit Dolby Atmos from built-in apps. Includes two additional HDMI inputs for external devices. Available now, $1,699 system.
MAIN FEATURES
- Dolby Atmos Cinema in the Home
- Easy Plug and Play Set Up
- Wireless Multi-Room Streaming
- Best-in-Class 12-inch Wireless Subwoofer
- 8K Passthrough
- 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos Decoding
- Dialog Enhancement Modes
- Horn-Loaded Performance
- Wireless Surround Sound
- Bluetooth Wireless Technology Ready
- Motion Sensing Remote
- Dolby Audio Built-in
SPECS
SPEAKER SYSTEM | 54” 5.1.4 Dolby Atmos Soundbar System with 12” Wireless Subwoofer and Wireless Surround Speakers |
MAX ACOUSTIC OUTPUT | 109dB |
HIGH FREQUENCY DRIVERS | (3) 1″ (25.4mm) soft dome tweeters mated to Tractrix® horns |
MIDRANGE | (6) 3″ (76.2mm) high output oval fiber composite cone woofers |
HEIGHT CHANNELS | 3″ (76.2mm) high output Cerametallic cone woofers |
SURROUNDS | 3″ (76.2mm) high output fiber composite cone woofers |
SUBWOOFER | 12″ (305mm) wireless ported subwoofer |
ENCLOSURE TYPE | Bar: Wood • Subwoofer: Wood • Surround: Wood |
TOTAL SYSTEM POWER | 1200W |
FREQUENCY RESPONSE | 22-20kHz |
INPUTS | HDMI-eARC • (2) HDMI • Bluetooth® • 3.5mm Analog • Optical Digital |
OUTPUTS | Subwoofer (RCA) Output |
DIMENSIONS (BAR) | 54″ (137.2 cm) W x 2 15/16″ (7.5cm) H x 6 3/16″ (15.7cm) D |
DIMENSIONS (SUBWOOFER) | 15 5/8″ (39.6cm) W x 20 3/8″ (51.6cm) H x 15 7/8″ (40.3cm) D |
FINISH | Black (interchangeable walnut end caps included) |
VOLTAGE | 100-240V 50/60Hz internal power supply |
WEIGHT | 42 lbs (14.52kg) |
INCLUDED ACCESSORIES | LED Backlit Remote control (2) 1.5m power cord (Region specific) (2) Keyhole mounting clip(With 1/4 – 20 Screw) Wall mount template (2) AA batteries (1) 1.5m HDMI Cable |
MOUNTING OPTIONS | 1/4-20 Keyhole Mount Included slim-depth wall brackets |
USER EXPERIENCE
The best place to start with my user experience is at the beginning. And for me, that is when it was delivered. Our delivery person had a bit of trouble with it because the system is packaged in a box that looks a lot like a Tetris piece. Klipsch did this so that they could package the entire set-up together, but the box is large and a bit unruly to deal with after the unboxing takes place. I don’t know if there is a good suggestion for how to improve this phase of the user experience, but it’s not a deal-breaker for me.
The next part of the process for me was to line up all the pieces and parts of the system. I do this for two reasons. First, I want to make sure that nothing is missing and second, I want to see what I have to work with. The system comes with the soundbar, the subwoofer, two surround satellite speakers, a remote, some cables, a user manual, and some hanging hardware. We decided that we did not want to hang this soundbar on the wall so it rests comfortably on top of our TV stand. The subwoofer sits in a corner to the left of our TV (as you are looking at the TV) and the surround speakers are sitting on wall shelves on the back wall of our living room.
Now, before I get too far into the set-up of the new system, I want to back up and describe the horror that was the set-up of the old one. The old system consisted of a Denon receiver that all the speakers ran through, two rear surround speakers that were connected to a wireless transmitter so that we didn’t have to string speaker wire across the entire living room; two front satellite speakers that connected to the Denon receiver using speaker wire; the center speaker that connected to the receiver using speaker wire; and the subwoofer that we had connected to the receiver using a wireless transmitter. As you can imagine, the switch to the soundbar was a dream come true for someone (me) who hates dealing with all that speaker wire. Once we pulled the old system out of the living room, we were amazed at how much space that system used to take up.
The set-up of the Klipsch soundbar involved plugging it into power, plugging the rear speakers into power, and plugging the subwoofer into power. Once all the parts were connected, they automatically connected to the soundbar. I didn’t have to do anything to get the external speakers connected to the soundbar. There are instructions for how to manually connect them if you need to, but so far, I’ve not had to use them. There is a free app that you use to register the soundbar and monitor things like its firmware version, but it doesn’t do much other than getting the soundbar connected to WiFi as a part of its initial set-up. I would love to see the app do more than that. At the very least, it would be great if the app would complete the same tasks as the remote.
I ended up setting this soundbar up using the eARC port. I wanted to be able to control the soundbar/volume using the controller of the input device (most of the time, my DVR or my Apple TV) and in order to do that, I needed to use the ARC ports on both the TV and the soundbar. I am essentially using the TV as my receiver now as all the input devices are plugged into it with the soundbar acting as the external speaker. There are other options for connecting the soundbar, but this one worked best for our living room. I also want to note that even though the soundbar works with Alexa, it doesn’t have Alexa built-in. So what that means is that you still have to have an Amazon Echo or other Alexa device to work as the smart hub. I was able to use the soundbar as a casting device from our Echo puck, but couldn’t actually ask it to do commands.
After the set-up of the system was completed, we were ready to start testing it for sound quality. In comparison to our previous system, I would say the Cinema 1200 is far superior. The Dolby Atmos feature is quite remarkable and it’s made watching movies just as amazing as going to a movie theater. Even though we don’t have speakers mounted on our ceiling, the total surround/atmospheric effect that you get with a Dolby Atmos system is present. My fiance, who has profound, high-end hearing loss, does not have an issue hearing audio using this system. He is even able to hear shows that he’s always had trouble with (NCIS being one of them). I’ve been equally impressed with the sound quality since I’ve always had an interest in sound design. One of my favorite movies to use as a test is The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. It has a very diverse soundtrack and there are lots of nuances in the audio track. I typically can only hear certain parts of it when I am wearing headphones, but with the Klipsch Cinema 1200, I don’t miss a thing.
CONCLUSION
The Klipsch Cinema 1200 Sound Bar Surround System is a fantastic option not only for an easy audio set-up but also for theater-quality sound. According to the information provided by Klipsch, the MSRP for this set-up is around $1800 (at the time of publishing this article). While that seems like a steep price, our original set-up was around $1200 and it didn’t include Dolby Atmos or smart assistant technology with it. I think the Cinema 1200 is the set-up to invest in no matter where you are on your audio journey.
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2 Comments
Price?
Hi, Around the time of publishing this article $1800