REVIEW – I love watching movies. Subbed, dubbed, foreign, domestic, it doesn’t matter. Give me some good acting and a good story and I’m sucked in. I do most all of my movie watching at home. Have you tried taking a 6 member family to the movies? I’d have to sell a kidney! Anyway, I recently had to downsize and move. I didn’t have room for my surround setup and had to rely on the TV speakers. Ugh, I know, right? Well, the good folks at Ultimea offered the Aura A60 7.1 soundbar to review and I jumped on it. Size-wise, it should fit into the new digs, but how would it sound? I mean, it would have to be better than just using the speakers of a flat-panel TV, right? So, when it arrived I hooked it up immediately. Read on for my thoughts on this tiny little package.
⬇︎ Jump to summary (pros/cons)
Price: $204.99
Where to buy: Ultimea (save $20 with code: ULTIMEA60)
What is it?
The Ulitmea Aura A60 is a tiny 7.1 Dolby Atmos surround sound system with App control.
What’s included?
- Soundbar
- 4x Surround speakers with RCA cables
- Subwoofer
- Power supplies
- Mounting brackets and hardware
- HDMI cable
- Optical audio cable
- Warranty and User Guide
Tech specs
Key Specs
* Dolby Atmos Yes
* Speaker Channels 7.1
* Total Number of Speakers 8
* Drivers
Main bar: 2″ × 3
* Surround: 2″ × 4
* Sub: 4″ × 1
* Remote Control Type IR Signal
* Listening Modes(EQ)
Movie, Music, Voice, Sport, Game, Night
* Frequency Range 65Hz -18kHz
* Max Sound Pressure Level >98dB
* Signal-to-Noise Ratio ≥75dB
* Distortion <1%
* Static Noise 26dB
Connectivity
* HDMI eARC ×1
* Optical ×1
* AUX ×1
* USB ×1
* Bluetooth BT5.3
* Wired Surround Speaker ×4
* Power Supply 24V 3A
Size and Weight
* Soundbar Dimensions
Main bar: 400 (W) × 100 (D) × 65 (H) mm
* Surround: 82 (W) × 81 (D) × 88 (H)mm
* Sub: 140 (W) × 195 (D) × 220 (H)mm
* Soundbar Weight 10.93 lbs(4.96 kg)
* Packaging Dimensions
12.9 x 17.3 x 7 in
* 327 (W) x 439 (H) x 177 (D) mm
* Total Weight 12.9lbs(5.85kg)
Design and features
I have to admit when I first cracked the box open and saw the speakers up close, I was a little underwhelmed. These things were tiny, but hey, it still had to be better than what I was using currently. There are 4 speakers, the soundbar, and the passive subwoofer.
The speakers are labeled as left and right side speakers and left and right rear. The soundbar itself contains three separate speakers, center, left, and right. So there’s your 7 channel surround with the subwoofer being your .1. And of course, Ultimea includes a remote for the system.
The soundbar offers a slew of ports on the back of it including HDMI eARC, Optical, USB, Aux, RCA for the front, side speakers, sub out, and power for the unit and subwoofer. They even include HDMI and optical cables in the box.
Granted, most of those will be populated when connecting the system to your TV, leaving only the optical, USB, and Aux open for other devices. Thankfully, the Ultimea Aura A60 also offers Bluetooth 5.3, so you should be able to connect any compatible sound source to it without issue.
As mentioned the .1 of this system is a tiny little 4″ passive subwoofer so it gets all its power and signal from the soundbar. Look at the little guy. Isn’t he cute?
The Ultimea Aura A60 also decodes Dolby Atmos-encoded media. According to Wikipedia, “Dolby Atmos is a surround sound technology developed by Dolby Laboratories. It expands on existing surround sound systems by adding height channels, interpreted as three-dimensional objects with neither horizontal nor vertical limitations.” So if anything, you watch, whether it’s Blu-ray or streaming services, as long as it’s encoded with Dolby Atmos, you’re going definitely hear a difference.
Assembly, Installation, Setup
Setting up the system is very easy. The cables and speakers are labeled so you know exactly what goes where.
All you have to do is connect the cables to the correct speaker and then to the correct port on the soundbar. The rear surround speakers require the additional power supply included with the kit. The User Guide says to connect the rear speakers to power and once the soundbar is powered on, they will automatically pair with the system, and that was exactly what I experienced. Ultimea also has a manual pairing process in the guide should you have any problems. I don’t really have the need to connect to any audio devices using Bluetooth but there is an Ultimea app you can download, both IOS and Android.
Basically, you can do everything from your phone that you can do from your remote with the addition of creating your own EQ preset and upgrading the firmware when an update comes out. My Aura A60 was already at the most current level so I can’t speak to how that process works.
Performance
Firstly, don’t laugh at my cable management. I fix it later. Famous last words. Bad cabling on my part aside, this little system has impressed me overall. Once you get the speakers moved to a good position, the size of the soundstage is pretty good. I had to play with the settings to find the sound profile that I liked best but, for the price, the Ultimea Aura A60 offers clear vocals, surprisingly good bass, and good surround separation, all leading to a good performance.
I have had a quirky issue or two. When I first connected the system eARC HDMI port on my TV, it was recognized but it wasn’t controlling the volume as intended. I couldn’t use my TV remote to control the volume. I had to use the Ultimea remote, but a full reboot of both the TV and soundbar fixed that issue. Sometimes I also have an issue, usually when the TV has been left on just showing a screensaver, where audio will come out of both the TV speakers and the Aura A60 making for a weird echo effect. Powering off and on the TV fixes that as well. I can’t say if this is an issue with the TV or the soundbar but I never had that issue with my previous setup. The next nit to pick is the remote. It’s the remote is IR only, so when the soundbar is pushed all the way back to the rear of my stand, it doesn’t work unless I raise my arm high and point it in the right direction. It’s not a huge deal since I can use my TV remote for volume and my phone for any tweaks to the sound I want to make. Finally, I was a little disappointed with the mounts. In the photos of the Aura A60, you’re given the impression that the wall mounts are completely hidden by the speakers. You can see from my picture that isn’t exactly the case. Not a huge deal, but not what I was expecting either.
Final thoughts
Overall, I’m happy with the Ultimea Aura A60. The sound is far more impressive than I expected. It’s not going to fill your theater room, but for a small living room, apartment, or dorm, I think it fits the bill. I would also consider it if you’re unsure about having surround sound in your home and you want to experiment without spending a ton of cash. I should also mention with a system of this size only the people directly in front center are going to get the full experience. In my living room, my Dad chair is off to the side, so not ideal positioning but I still enjoy my movies with the Aura A60.
What I like about Ultimea Aura A60 soundbar
- Dolby Atmos decoding
- Simple set up
- Impressive sound from a small system
- App allows for personal EQ settings
- The price
What needs to be improved?
- IR only remote
- Quirky eARC HDMI issues
Price: $204.99
Where to buy: Ultimea (save $20 with code: ULTIMEA60)
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by Ultimea. Ultimea did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.
Check out these other speaker reviews!
- Ultimea Poseidon D80 Dolby Atmos 7.1 surround sound system review – Simple setup small speaker surround sound! Slick!
- Ultimea Apollo S70 Lighting Soundbar review – Better sound than your TV, with cool LED effects!
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