My daughter ordered this for me on her Amazon Prime account because I just had to have it by the weekend for a Carolina Panthers game watching get together at my house. I have a 70 inch Vizo E series and needed something big enough to match the screen size. I’ve always been a component guy and had my doubts about a Sound Bar Package, especially at this price. CNET rated it as best in class however so why not. Amazon, true to their word got it to me under my young’ns Prime account in just 2 days with free shipping! I think setting it up took less time than unpacking it. It was a real engineering marvel to get it all into that specially shaped box inside a box for sure! I have never seen so much Styrofoam.
Setup couldn’t have been easier. I set the bar in front of my TV, and then put the big sub in the back corner of the room. Nice long cables were provided to connect the rear satellite speakers to the sub. I put them behind my couch. When I powered up, the Sub paired automatically and it was ready to go. I connected to the HDMI ARC connector on my Vizio TV which was touted as the “best” option in the manual. Also provided were cables for either an optical, digital coax, or plain old school RCA connections. The beauty of having a Vizio TV however lies in using the HDMI ARC connection. Once I connected up, I simply had my TV automatically “discover” the sound bar and I was good to go. This allows my Vizio remote to control the Soundbar on/off/volume with my Vizio remote and an added bonus of an on screen display. Very nice. The sound bar also allows for programming other remotes, but I like having the same logo on both units.
So how did it sound? Well my plan was to give this a try and if not satisfied, I was going to upgrade my old bulky cable busy component system with a new 5:1 capable receiver and cram it all into a cabinet or something. Instead I was totally impressed with the Vizio. Adjustments are pretty intuitive from the remote, but there is also a quick reference guide which puts everything in plain English. A few tweaks on the equalizer and subwoofer levels and I was in home theater heaven. I opted to try it out with a Blue Ray (Jack Ryan) and it was definitely a theater experience. Sounds from all direction, discernible movement around the room as cars passed on screen and events happened in different areas of the scene etc… The kicker was the sub. With a “package” at this price point, I expected the sub to be the weak link. I was very much surprised at the very large bass filling the room. It’s non-directional at these frequencies so it was IN THE ROOM not just coming from the back corner. Big and thunderous, yet not overdriven or muddy. The action scenes and explosions were shaking the house. Very very nice Vizio! It’s a lock and my old and tired components are either going in the teen hangout room or to the Salvation Army for all I care. Since I can play CD’s on my Blue Ray and can stream iTunes from my iPhone, all I’ll need to add to have a complete killer music setup is an FM Tuner. I can run that right into the RCA inputs.
All in all for under 500 bucks this is an outstanding system and I endorse CNETs review. The only cons I have found to it so far are that the LEDs that light up when you are making adjustments from the remote are nearly impossible to see in the daytime they are so tiny and dim. You have to get right up in front of it to really see what you are adjusting. They are better at night in a darker room. I also found that having the “VizioTVRemote” set to ON can be a bit problematic. This allows you to turn the bar off and on with your TV remote in addition to using it to adjust volume. The problem is that is uses “Volume Up” on your TV remote to turn on the Sound bar. If you are for some reason not using the sound bar (just watching the news etc..) if you go to turn up the volume on your TV itself with your remote it will also turn on the sound bar. This could be a bit problematic at midnight! This really confused my wife so I set the "VizioTVRemote" function to OFF. This still allows me to adjust the volume with my TV remote, but I must use either the sound bar remote or the button on the bar itself to power up and down. Not a big deal at all to avoid the confusion. Also, as noted in the CNET review, the sound bar is over 4” tall and 54” wide. It blocked the bottom inch or so of my screen and also blocked the remote sensor on the TV if you sat too far to the right. I ordered an OFC Express TV Stand, also from Amazon. It completely solved the problem. It raised it up enough to clear the screen and remote sensor, and also provided a nice tunnel underneath to run all my cables through. I am quite please with this purchase and love the simplicity as well as the sound.
Good stuff all around…except the Patriots took it to the Panthers 30-7. Much more painful of a loss to experience on a 70” big screen in 5:1 surround sound. LOL!
https://www.facebook.com/Black-Friday-Deals-Sb3821-C6-21-Channel-Sound-Bar-black-friday-2015-1643989402541923/
