Sennheiser is debuting a soundbar and two pairs of headphones

Sennheiser is a well known company in personal audio thanks to its well designed and high quality headphones, but the company hasn’t produced a hi-fi product until now.

Sennheiser has shown a prototype soundbar at CES featuring 13 speakers; six forward facing woofers, five tweeters and two upward facing woofers for virtual surround effects. If the company’s headphones are anything to go by, the sound quality ought to be quite good, although home theater remains new territory for Sennheiser.

Virtual surround systems vary in quality, but Sennheiser’s solution is quite typical. The soundbar is able to determine the size of the room it is in by measuring how long it takes for sound to reflect back to it.

Along with the unexpected soundbar offering, Sennheiser is also launching two new pairs of headphones; the closed-back HD 820 circumaural headphones and wireless CX 6.00BT in-ear monitors. The HD 820 headphones use a Gorilla glass back to reflect sound from the back of the drivers into absorption chambers, minimising unwanted leakage. The CX 6.00BT in-ear monitors feature a six hour battery life and can charge in under two hours.

The soundbar’s release date is unconfirmed, but Sennheiser hopes to launch the soundbar by the end of the year. Pricing and local availability information isn’t available at this time.

Pricing for the HD 820 headphones according to Sennheiser is around USD$2400, and they are likely to be available around the middle of the year. The CX 6.00BT in-ear monitors sport a less shocking price of around USD$100 and will be available later this month.