Surround Sound Unbound

RATING

WHEN I WAS a trade reporter many years ago, I wrote an article about the skyrocketing sales of packaged home theater audio systems. Inside each box was a rudimentary A/V receiver, five or six speakers (typically compact satellites in plastic cabinets), color coded speaker cables, and graphic instructions to get things hooked up. The article’s big takeaway was that the brands selling these (Sony, Panasonic, et. al.) had discovered that many buyers either left the rear surround speakers in the box or wired them up and placed them on top of the front left and right-channel speakers. (Hey—the more speakers the better, right?) The bottom line was that nobody wanted those damn cables running along the walls to the back of the room. So, the most demonstrable benefit of having a surround-sound system—surround sound—was eschewed by consumers who’d actually paid for it. Eventually, the audio industry just called it a day for those box systems and invented the soundbar.

Which brings us to the Enclave Audio CineHome PRO, a 5.1-channel wireless home theater system that fully eliminates the need to run speaker cables to the rear surrounds—or any speakers—and does so with superb reliability. At $1,600 it’s not cheap, but it does offer substantial build and sound quality, and is the first WiSA-wireless powered home theater system to achieve THX certification. (I’ll say more on WiSA in a moment.)

Enclave may be an unfamiliar name, though some readers will recall ’s 2016 review of the company’s Cine-Home HD WiSA system (see ). That model was replaced last year by two redesigned