I attended the launch of the Yaber K3 and K3 Pro projectors at IFA 2024, and while both models are very affordable, and impressive in terms of just how easy they are to set up (both have fast auto-focus and adjustment tools, and a tool that detects obstructions and just resizes to avoid them), it was the K3 Pro that stood out to me.
Both models have built-in stereo JBL speakers, with 15W per channel through a 60mm driver that's capable of getting pretty loud and big. But the K3 Pro comes with a subwoofer as well, and that's the addition that made me wonder why I don't see this as an option more often, having heard it in action.
The idea with the K3 and K3 Pro is to be an all-in-one home theater solution, with speakers built into the projector unit, streaming services built in, and obviously visuals built in. You just plug them in, point them at a wall, they adjust their picture to give you up to 200 inches, and away you go.
This is the idea of a lot of the best ultra-short-throw projectors, which often have a soundbar-like arrangement of speakers built in, pointing at you, since they sit close to the wall and are ideal for this. And yet, they're always weedy. All projector sound is weedy, because you can't get enough bass from these boxes, and a home theater without bass is like a pasta sauce without onions.
The K3 is priced at €599, which is about $660 / £500 / AU$980 – we're waiting on official pricing for other countries. The K3 Pro costs €649 (about $710 / £550 / AU$1,060) and is basically the regular K3 bundled with a matching subwoofer – and the difference is immediate.
That's not to say the K3 Pro's sound is exactly mind-blowing. It's two JBL speakers on the side of a projector with a compact subwoofer. It's not competing with the best soundbars for spatial positioning of Dolby Atmos effects or pristine dialogue clarity. There's no center channel, no up-firing speakers, no room correction.
The sound is big and loud and clear enough, and the stereo separation will fill a room… but most crucially, it has a solid and impactful bass foundation in a way that makes movie soundtracks feel fulsome and meaningful.
The demo I saw (and heard) ran through a bunch of movie clips, and the soundtrack from Avatar: The Way of Water gave me a jolt of energy the way it's supposed to, but won't if it sounds like it's coming from a cheap Bluetooth speaker, as is the case with too many projectors. Scenes from Spider-Man: No Way Home have booming effects and big brassy sound thanks to decent bass frequencies underpinning it, giving a scale to the audio that matches the big projection screen I'm looking at.
The quality of the projection from the K3 Pro looked fine, as you might expect for the price. It's a 1080p projector, and colors looked reasonable, but a tad thin in the lighting conditions. And that's all no problem; this isn't supposed to knock our best 4K projectors off their lofty high-end home theater perch.
It's supposed to be a tempting alternative to a mid-size budget TV and cheap soundbar, and I think the subwoofer is the piece of the puzzle that means it genuinely is tempting at this kind of price.
Any home theater fan will tell you that audio is probably even more important than visuals to a true home theater setup; it's what makes or breaks it. During Techradar's Home Theater Week 2024, we're running as many articles about the audio side as the visual for this exact reason.
The Yaber K3 Pro's subwoofer is only small – about a foot tall and wide, and a few inches deep – and yet it makes all the difference to the idea that a projector really can be a one-box… okay, a two-box solution for a living room.
As I mentioned above, it makes me wonder why we don't see them as an optional extra all the time on UST projectors. Lots of them have sound systems produced in conjunction with the likes of Onkyo or Technics (much like Yaber works with JBL), and these companies could surely whip up a compact sub to pair with them pretty easily.
Give me projectors and laser TVs with real low-end heft from a friendly sub that comes in the same box – I hope Yaber starts a trend with the K3 Pro.
