Hisense AX5140Q Review

Design

• Includes soundbar, sub and wireless rear satellite speakers
• Supports Bluetooth
• No Wi-Fi

The Hisense AX5140Q is a complete package. Where a Sonos or Bose system at the money leaves you tempted to upgrade with an expensive subwoofer or surrounds, you get the whole lot here. 

That ambitious sense of value means there isn’t room for super-luxe construction. But I only mention that because the brushed finish on the AX5140Q soundbar’s top could be potentially mistaken for aluminium. It is, like most soundbars, plastic. 

The front has a pleasant fabric finish, though, and this is not a totally prosaic design. Note the way the front grille gradually recedes back into the casing at the sides. 

This effect is mirrored in the satellites too, for a more coherent sense of style and deliberate design. These rear speakers are very light, though, a reminder these satellites don’t have the same job as a small set of bookshelf or desktop speakers. They only really need to to deliver higher-frequency audio in order to deliver persuasive surround sound. 

These are entirely wireless units. They just need to be plugged into a power outlet.

Hisense’s AX5140Q is also a Dolby Atmos soundbar, which in home cinema tells you a system supports height channels. At each end of the soundbar, and on the top of the rear surrounds are upwards-firing drivers sat behind plastic grilles. Once again, it’s an example of Hisense pushing the value angle in style.

Need to know a bit more about the practicalities of a Hisense AX5140Q? The soundbar is 102cm long, between the width of a typical 43-inch and 48-inch TV. Its subwoofer is 35cm tall, and while it is fairly large face-on it’s not that deep — just 16cm.

Features

• HDMI eARC
• Bluetooth streaming

Your primary way to hook up the AX5140Q is over HDMI eARC, but it’s not your only option. There’s an aux input, an optical input, and it can take a Bluetooth wireless signal from your phone.

When switching between these sources, you’ll see the current mode shown in a display that shines through the fabric front. It’s a common screen style among soundbars, one invisible when the speaker is not in use. 

The Hisense AX5140Q also has an secondary HDMI input, used so a source can feed sound directly to the bar, then passing the video through to your TV. This avoids audio compression and any format support niggles you might have if your TV is older or not particularly high-spec. 

Passthrough is capped at 4K resolution, 60 frames per second, which will limit a high-end gaming PC or PlayStation 5 Pro slightly. But considering the price, not having 4K/120 may not be a deal-breaker. 

Do consider the Hisense AX5140Q’s limited smarts too, though. The soundbar has Bluetooth but, like many in this class, does not have Wi-Fi. You can’t treat this like a multi-room speaker, as you can with a Sonos or Bose Smart Soundbar, or use Spotify Connect, just plain old Bluetooth streaming.

Hisense does include a remote control, a neat little stick that handles features not accessible through the four top plate buttons. These alter volume, cycle between sources and turn the soundbar on and off. 

Sound Quality 

• Decent, although not brilliant, bass depth
• Good general sound quality
• Annoying delay in subwoofer and rears

The Hisense AX5140Q is a 5.1.4 system. That means it has the five primary surround channels, one subwoofer and four Dolby Atmos-enabling height channels, spread across soundbar and satellites. 

There are 13 drivers across all four boxes, and it doesn’t take a genius to conclude how they are likely arranged. It works out at dual mid-range and treble drivers for the left, centre and right drivers, single speakers for each of the other channels, including a 6.5-inch subwoofer. 

Hisense has balanced the tone of the AX5140Q well. It’s not overly bassy like the Sony Theatre Bar 6 is before being tamed. It is not thin or harsh, and while the subwoofer does not have incredible depth and power — 6.5 inches isn’t huge for a woofer driver after all — it can handily wipe the floor with any all-in-one soundbar. 

Similarly, while something like a Sonos Arc Ultra provides better mid-range detail and projection, there is value to the sheer scale and weight a setup like the AX5140Q can lend to a movie soundtrack. The raw performance per pound here is compelling. 

And while the Dolby Atmos channels don’t provide a sound field as 3D-sounding as the Samsung Q990F, but this speaker package can deliver a real Atmos effect on a reasonable budget.

One issue upsets the whole enterprise, though. There’s a fractional delay in the wireless transmission system I haven’t been able to get rid of after factory resets, countless re-pairings, trying every mode at the Hisense AX5140Q’s disposal and turning off every possible source of interference in my flat. 

It affects both the subwoofer and the rear units, and the effect is at its most noticeable when playing stereo content. And music in particular. 

With rhythmically simple content that doesn’t have a rapid bass decay, and when using the AI sound mode, I’ve been able to briefly believe the problem has been momentarily resolved. But then you switch to a more rhythmically challenging track like something from Geordie Greep or Kamasi Washington and you can tell something is amiss. 

On the subwoofer front, it can sound as though Miles Davis is about to give his drummer and bassist the sack for being slightly out of time. And in some sound modes the fractional delay of the treble content of the rears is not dissimilar to the effect of listening to an act or band play in some mid-size music venues. 

I’ve found the Hisense AX5140Q effect less obvious in proper multi-channel audio, where you’re less likely to be dealing with pure music. And the rear channels have their own discrete content. 

This brings about another complaint with how the surround system operates. While there’s a Surround Off setting, this doesn’t actually silence the rear speakers entirely. And the Night profile, which would usually neuter bass for those with sleeping kids, flatmates or thin walls, doesn’t nearly tame the subwoofer’s bass enough to be truly useful. 

You can’t really just unplug the subwoofer either. Well, you can, but then the overall package sounds worse than the speakers built into my ageing LG OLED TV as the soundbar itself simply isn’t designed to fend for itself as a Sonos Beam can.

Should you buy it?