Sky Soundbox review

The Sky Soundbox is a fantastic-sounding speaker that packs premium technology into what is a puzzling form factor. When bought as an existing Sky customer, though, it offers great value for money.The launch of in 2016 marked a massive turning point for the company. It brought Sky kicking and screaming into the new world of broadcasting, adding things such as multi-screen viewing, 4K content and voice control. It was needed, given the rise of Netflix and other streaming upstarts looking to pinch subscribers where they can. Sky had to refresh itself and show that its offering wasn’t just the best from a content perspective but a hardware one, too. The thing was, while it could control the picture quality it offered (4K, yay!), audio was left wanting. There was a fair chance sound was being pumped through a TV’s speakers, speakers that have become a second thought as screens become even thinner. Sky’s solution has been to try and fix the problem by teaming up with high-end audio supremos Devialet and jump into the burgeoning all-in-one speaker market with the Sky Soundbox. The clue to the design of the speaker is in its name.Sky (and Devialet) have decided to forgo the usual soundbar design for something that’s more retangular and chunky. Did we mention it’s chunky? It’s the first thing you notice about the speaker when you take it out of its packaging (slick packaging we might add, Sky has really made the device feel premium from the off), aside from the sheer size of the thing. It’s packing a lot of timber, at 37.5x 21 x 9.5cm.It weighs a hefty 4kg, too, so be careful when you are taking it out of the box. It’s a decent design and it’s clear that it’s taken a number of cues from the look of the Sky Q boxes. It’s black for a start with a nice and thick speaker grill stretching around the front of the device that packs a punch with its six 7. 5cm woofers (four of which are on the sides) and three 5cm drivers.Both Sky and Devialet’s logos are nestled on the lower left of the Soundbox and Sky’s branding is on the top. Underneath this are four buttons: volume control makes up two of these, then there’s a power button and one to toggle through inputs (HDMI, optical and Bluetooth). Flip the speaker around and you have a optical in (which is a good thing as there’s no ARC support), HDMI in, HDMI out, a power cable slot and USB, as well as Dolby Audio branding - not , but more on this later. The Sky Soundbox has a design that won’t fit all rooms.There are a number of caveats when setting it up too, but ones you will be familiar with if you already use an all-in-one speaker system. For a start, it needs to be central in the room and it needs to have the minimum of 15cm of space around it for the speaker to pump out its audio effectively. Oh, and don’t think you can plonk your Sky Q box on top of it either, this is another thing that isn’t recommended - although we actually did this, not because we are rebels or anything (we’re the sort of people that don’t