[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] It's been quite a few years since I've had a sound bar. The last sound bar was made by Sony and it lasted 10 years before it stopped functioning properly. I never bothered to replace it because I lived in apartments and thought "Why bother? They're so loud." Wellllllll........I really missed the sound quality and jumped at the chance to test this guy out.
This sound bar is NICE. Right out of the package you can feel the quality of the speakers and the technology within them. My last sound bar had a lot of the same features, minus the surround speakers, and was almost as easy to set up. I absolutely love that this has fewer wires and that the subwoofer is connected by blue tooth. It makes it easier to position the subwoofer (and they suggest placement in the instructions) I went with the suggestion of putting it next to my sofa, with the surround speakers on either side, and the main sound bar in front of the TV. Setup took all of 10 minutes and was a breeze.
Do I like having to have an app to control this? NO, I do not. HOWEVER, it makes it much easier to fine tune the sound to your preferences. The app has a lot of pre loaded sound setting but I like being able to adjust them myself. The Night Mode feature gets A LOT of use because it lowers the volume to a level that's more respectful to neighbors. This thing gets REALLY LOUD. I'm sad I don't have a house because I'll rarely, if ever, be able to really blast the hell out of this guy. Even for music, it makes listening to some of my favorite albums a really nice experience. The sound is immersive and crisp and it really does surround me. It makes watching movies a whole different experience.
I find the height feature a little confusing but it apparently positions the speakers to create different sound features. Up will surround you with more sound and be more immersive than positioning the speakers straight ahead. I like having that option but I didn't notice a drastic difference in positioning them up or down though. Perhaps it would be more noticeable in a larger room.
Now, I like that you can use this with any brand of TV, though it can be attached differently to VIZIO brand TV's, and comes with the hardware necessary to do so. I have a cheaper flat screen TV and this has worked great. It worked so much better than the TV's speakers and the sound quality gives movies a cinematic feel to them.
For the quality of the product, it is absolutely worth the price point, and I really hope this lasts as long or longer than my last one, as it's almost three times the price of my last model.
Really pleased to have this, especially with winter coming up, because I'm sure there will be some snow days spent inside watching movies. It's already been nice to have for my horror movies.