VIZIO M-Series 5.1.2 Sound Bar with Subwoofer

Product was as described, arrived earlier than expected. Easy to setup and use.

Perhaps not the best ATMOS system, but it really brings an immersive sound experience at a low price. I’m using this together with an LG C1 OLED. Here’s my setup:

EARC HDMI connection between the LG and the soundbar, the peripherals (Blu Ray, etc.) plugged into the other HDMIs on the C1. I’m NOT using the second HDMI (passthrough) on the bar.

Pros:

—Sounds great! Way too loud for my needs, and intense bass. Overkill for my room, but nice to know I’ve got the power when needed.

—Soundbar shows colored LEDs to indicate the audio signal type (green = Atmos) so you never need to wonder if it’s getting the right signal input. My fireTV stick has Disney, HBO, Apple, etc. apps and they all automatically output ATMOS to the bar if/when available.

—Excellent CEC support! By setting all connected devices to CEC, the remote commands are passed/shared through the connected equipment. I use a FireTV Max stick for almost everything (Live YoutubeTV, streaming apps, etc.) Touching the Fire remote turns on everything, and is able to control the volume on the soundbar as well. I now only use ONE remote for everything!

—Alexa! I’ve tried various ways to incorporate Alexa into my media stack only to find too many “gotyas” and unexpected conflicts. This unit has both bluetooth, and a 3.5mm stereo connection for music input, but it also has a dedicated 3.5mm wired input specifically for an intelligent assistant like Alexa. I have an Echo Dot plugged into this input. When Alexa speaks or plays music, the unit changes the input automatically to allow the signal from the assistant to be heard, when done, it switches back to whatever you were listening to originally. Brilliant! This is the perfect kind of handoff.

—Easy to mount!

Cons:

—YOU MUST DO AN OS UPDATE before you touch anything (It’ll wipe out any settings you’ve made). This bar is not connected to wifi, so it’s a manual process requiring a download, a usb stick, and some patience. See the instructions for the bar.

—CEC does have some conflicts with my C1 TV, for example, using the voice function on the fireTV remote causes the C1 to change inputs. Not a problem with the bar, but you may encounter CEC issues with your TV especially if it’s an older model.

—Audio level conflicts can happen between the Alexa and the bar. The total volume output when using an Alexa input is a combination of the volume you set on alexa and the volume you set on the bar. They can easily get wacky if one or both are too high, or too low.

I highly recommend this product for “pro-sumers” looking for ATMOS at a bargain price.

Be well!

This thing has no business sounding this good, given what it costs. It is a tremendous value for a simple, home theater audio in a box solution.

Now the “good for what it costs” part is important. It doesn’t break the laws of physics, you can certainly spend more and get more, but the little dedicated subwoofer really does a solid job in compensating for the relatively small speakers in the main unit. It also gets surprisingly loud for its size without introducing meaningful distortion.

Are you going to put this thing in a giant, dedicated home theater or a huge great room with a cathedral ceiling and be happy with the results? Probably not. But in a bedroom, an apartment or an average-sized living room or den, this is likely going to give you results you are happy with for both movies and most casual listening.

When you give it a workout across a bunch of different genres of music, you find the results vary between adequate and excellent. There are some basic physics reasons behind why you normally need much bigger speakers to get truly excellent high fidelity sound. So occasionally the results are a bit flat and uninspired. But it does a pretty remarkable job for what it cost and how big it is. What you will notice if you listen with a very critical ear is that there is some muddiness in the mid-range and the bass rolls off too early because the little sub runs out of steam, but that almost seems unfair to criticize at this price point. Most people won’t even notice any of that.

On the other hand, don’t get super excited about the strength of the Dolby Atmos effects here. Atmos is designed to create a 3d sound field and place sounds in the physical space around the listener. It is a cool new technology and movies are starting to be mastered in it. Normally that 3d sound effect means you have to have additional channels physically mounted in the ceiling. Like all of these sound bars, it doesn’t have actual ceiling speakers and instead has to make do with pointing some speakers up at the ceiling to bounce the sound off the ceiling indirectly.

If you stick it in a basically square or rectangle shaped room with an 8 foot ceiling and no obstructions, it does sort of work. But if you have a cathedral ceiling or sloped ceiling or anything other than the basic box shaped room it likely won’t do much of anything. On the other hand, the more basic, 5.1 surround sound effects are perfectly adequate, assuming you can place the little rear speakers properly.

Installation wasn’t hard, although note that there are specific requirements that the system sit in front of and a certain distance below the TV because of the Atmos, up-firing speakers. The rear surrounds connect to the subwoofer with standard speaker wires and the separately powered subwoofer then connects wirelessly to the main unit. The little sub is ported, so it can’t be set absolutely flush against a wall. It all came pre-paired up and worked perfectly right out of the box.

I have a modern tv, and was able to connect with eARC/HDMI successfully. I also paired my phone to the device using bluetooth and that worked easily too. I can control the volume with both the TV remote and the Apple TV remote control, and so I will almost never need to use the included remote for much of anything beyond initial setup.

There is a reason why this unit got such good reviews on the big audio review channels. It really is a good value for the price.