The Ambeo Plus is the only soundbar I've tested where I turned around mid-movie to see who was behind me. It was the cat. There was nothing behind me. That's the trick: Sennheiser uses room calibration data to model a phantom 7.1.4 speaker array, and on the right content (Dune, No Time To Die, the opening of Top Gun: Maverick) the effects float around the room in a way I had previously assumed required actual rear speakers.
The other half of the trick is the bass. There are two built-in subwoofers in the cabinet, and they punch hard enough that I never reached for a separate sub. On Sicario the rifle shots had the weight I expected from a dedicated subwoofer setup. On music (anything from Bon Iver to Daft Punk) the bottom end was even and tuneful rather than the one-note thump that most all-in-one bars settle for. If you want even more low end, the Plus is the only major soundbar I'm aware of that accepts any powered subwoofer via RCA, which means you can pair an SVS or a Rythmik instead of being locked to the manufacturer's matching unit.
Dialogue stays clean through dense Atmos mixes. The mid-bass doesn't run over the center, which is a problem I've had with bars that lean on processing to fake surround — the trick works at the cost of voices. Here, the voices stay where they belong, even when the room around them is doing acrobatics.
Now the catch, and it's a real one. The HDMI inputs are 2.0a only. No 4K/120Hz, no VRR, no 8K passthrough. If you have a PS5 or an Xbox Series X and you care about 120Hz, this is the wrong soundbar — period. You can work around it by feeding the console straight to the TV and using HDMI eARC back to the bar, but that's a workaround on a $1,500 product that shouldn't need one. The Samsung HW-Q990D handles this natively for the same money.
The app dependence is the second annoyance. Initial setup, calibration, source switching, and most adjustments live in the Sennheiser Smart Control app, and the app is fine but not delightful. The Alexa button on the remote is awkwardly placed; the LED indicator on the bar is in a position you can't see from the couch. None of these is a deal-breaker. All of them feel like polish that was left for later.
Fifteen hundred dollars is real money. The original Ambeo Max cost two and a half thousand and was the only bar that beat this one for sheer single-box presence; the Plus is the cheaper, smaller sibling and the better buy unless you have a very large room. Compared against a Sonos Arc Ultra plus a Sonos Sub plus a pair of Era 300s, you'd land at similar total spend with more flexibility but more boxes.
Verdict: Buy this if you want true single-box Atmos and you don't need 4K/120Hz passthrough. If you're a console gamer, get the Samsung HW-Q990D instead.