For a handful of years, I’ve been using a modestly-priced Vizio soundbar in my living room, which I thought was enough until I began covering the custom home technology industry for CE Pro. Then, after attending my first CEDIA Expo this year, I knew I needed to see what some of these more robust systems can do.

However, I wanted to keep it realistic to my space – a small house with one main TV and living room. With those space limitations, I didn’t want a complicated system with even more wires to hide.

The Milan 5.1.4 Soundbar System from Platin Audio is a perfect system for the average homeowner with space and budget limitations that are still looking for robust, Dolby Atmos audio. The system features WiSA E wireless technology that connects a main soundbar, subwoofer, and two rear speakers, presenting an impressive total of 10 audio channels that includes two upfiring speakers in the front and two in the rear.

Setup and installation

Setting up this Platin Audio system was relatively seamless, with the subwoofer being plugged into my TV via HDMI Arc, and then each other component connecting to the system via WiSA E, a software-based multichannel wireless audio technology designed to be implemented in soundbars, TVs and set-top boxes.

The soundbar comes with two stands, which I placed on my TV stand in front of my TV. With limited space, I was able to sneak the subwoofer into a cabinet in the TV stand. The two rear speakers, however, came without stands, so I placed them on shelves on the left and right of my couch.

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The TV stand with the TV, soundbar and subwoofer are about 10 feet from the middle of the couch, and the speakers are each about six feet away from the money seat.

I was able to set those distances in the Milan soundbar app, as well as fine tune speaker levels to my liking.

Testing and features

Testing the Platin Milan 5.1.4 Soundbar System was a little difficult since I got the system shipping to my house a day after coming home from the hospital with my newborn daughter. So, for about the first week, it was used to play relaxing sounds for newborns that I found on Spotify. One playlist she likes (we think) is womb sounds, with the subwoofer doing an excellent job of making the white noise and heartbeat more natural and rumbly.

While the baby was napping in another room, my wife and I would decompress in the living room to some smooth jazz, lo-fi beats or other low-key music. Even at low, don’t-wake-the-sleeping-baby-who-doesn’t-like-to-sleep volumes, the audio quality comes through with rich bass and special accuracy.

As a sports fan, I’ve waited until the baby’s bedtime to flip on a football game, and the crowd noise comes through the surround sound system beautifully.

However, the real test came when watching the classic “Saving Private Ryan”. You know the opening scene on the beach in Normandy. The explosions that lend themselves to the nice deep bass provided by the system really speak for itself, but what was more impressive to me was the spatial accuracy, hearing explosions from off screen out of the side channels or hearing bullets whiz by in one of the rear speakers.

I typically listen to loud, aggressive punk rock, so when the wife and baby were out of the house, I had the chance to really turn up the levels and test the system, and it performed beautifully.

I also noticed how well the audio stays in the intended space. During some of these louder testings, I wanted to see how loud it was upstairs where the baby sleeps, and I could hear virtually nothing except for some light residual bass from the subwoofer. That was even without the white noise machine on.

The one thing I didn’t test this system with was gaming, but with a newborn baby in the home, I won’t be gaming for some time.

Final thoughts

As somewhat of an audio novice, I was pretty sure that whatever this system provided would be better than the 6-year-old Vizio soundbar I was using. However, I didn’t know it was going to be this much better.

The system handled everything I threw it at nicely, with the subwoofer standing out for delivering rich, powerful bass. Maybe because of placement inside my TV stand, but I had to lower the levels in the subwoofer so it wouldn’t drown out the other channels. However, doing so is extremely easy via the smartphone app.

For a low price of $799, the Platin Milan 5.1.4 Soundbar System is an affordable yet powerful surround sound system for rooms of varying sizes. It’s a great entry point for a customer looking to upgrade from just their TV speakers or a standalone soundbar. With installation as simple as this, integrators can quickly move on to other apsects of a project.

CE Pro and Cons

Pros:

• Excellent sound quality
• Easy setup and installation
• Customizability in the smartphone app
• Bluetooth connectivity

Cons:

• Lack of provided mounting for rear speakers
• Audio channels have to be fined tuned a bit as the subwoofer can drown out others in an enclosed space

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