Ultimea Solo B30 Soundbar review – A great companion for the Poseidon E40 projector

REVIEW – Ultimea was kind enough to send along their new Solo B30 Soundbar to test along with the Poseidon E40 projector. I was going to write a separate review, but they work nicely together, so this is kind of a mini-review add-on. It’s two-fer Tuesday!

What is it?

The Ultimea Solo B30 Soundbar is a small yet full-featured soundbar.

What’s in the box?

• Soundbar itself
• Power wall wart with a captive proprietary plug
• Optical audio cable
• TSS AUX cable
• Remote (not pictured)
• Mounting hardware

Hardware specs

Design and features

The Ultimea Solo B30 soundbar is a semi-glossy black plastic box with a black metallic screen across the front. It measures 15.75″ x 4.25″ x 2.375″. On the bottom is a 3″ bass speaker, which gives adequate bass for movies or podcasts, but is not gonna rock your room if you’re playing games, rocking some bass-heavy hip-hop, or wanting a big theatre action movie sound. But it’s better than most mid-sized TVs I’ve experienced.

The rear of the unit has the inputs (AUX, Optical audio, and USB) and an RCA jack for a subwoofer. There are holes about 1.5″ from either end to mount the included wall mount brackets. These allow for about 1.5″ of space from the rear for your cable ends.

Setup

Setup was non-existent. Plug in power, and plug in the inputs to your sound source’s output. Listen to better sound. I only used the standard AUX cable at first, but went back to test for delay with a BlueTooth connection. There is a setup stage to use an Android device, but I’m in the minority of folks in the world who use an iPhone, so I could not participate. Seems unfair to eliminate even this small portion of a market. 

Performance

I’ve not done much with sound on my TV, because I usually either listen with really good headphones or watch video on my computer, which has pretty decent sound for a single user. But testing this projector, and wanting to see how it worked for room-sized sound, I spent a bit more time paying attention to the difference between the built-in sound and this soundbar.
I placed the soundbar fairly close to the projector because the included cable is fairly short (1 meter). This made the soundstage the reverse of what was on the “screen”, which was a wall 10′ away. When using with a TV, rather than a video projector, that may not be noticeable, but, for example, the sounds of a car approaching off-camera from the wrong side (everyone on-screen was looking in the wrong direction!) made it awkward for this specific application. Music and podcasts were fantastic, with better lows and richer conversational tones due to better bass. (Note the soundbar on the table behind the projector in the photo below.)

I did move the soundbar to the front and attempt to use Bluetooth to connect, but the sound always came through the projector’s speakers. I spent a while trying without being able to force the sound to the Bluetooth without success. It connects fine, but never played the sound.

What I like about the Ultimea Solo B30 Soundbar

• Sleek finish
• Multiple ways to connect

What I’d change

• Battery-operated remote with no batteries included. Make it rechargeable
• Proprietary charging brick. Make it USB-C and not captive
• Offer iPhone setup in addition to the Android setup

Final thoughts

A soundbar can be a great enhancement to your listening, but will need to be located in the same area as the video. I did enjoy the ease of setup, but they only offered Android setup as the “easy option.” There are a lot of iPhones out on the market, I hear.

Price: Currently $49.99 Regular price $99.99
Where to buy: Company Webstore (Save $50 with code: JulieE40) and also available on Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Ultimea. Ultimea did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.