Customer Ratings & Reviews

Bought this to use as a standalone system in a spare room. The quality of the sound from the soundbar on Bluetooth setting is on par with having a portable Bluetooth speaker. The bass is very weak. If there's an explosion in a video, expect the bass to hit a few milliseconds after the explosion occurrs on-screen. Watching or playing anything with a dynamic soundtrack feels unnatural because of the bass always playing "catch-up." My biggest disappointment was the Bluetooth connection, my device had to be in line-of-sight of the soundbar or the sound would become severely choppy and cut out. I stood with my device 3ft in front of the soundbar while playing a song over Bluetooth and as soon as i would turn my back to the soundbar, the sound would cut out. I weight about 190 lbs and don't have an orbit around me.. so I'm returning the soundbar kit.

Since I got this soundbar, it has been very dissatisfying. The sound goes in and out when connected via bluetooth and now after just 1 year of using it, the sound has totally stopped working even when connected via bluetooth or HDMI wire. I am extremely disappointed. I had my Samsung soundbar since 2020 that I got in Rhode Island and even move with it, none of these issues have occurred, I am using it in my room, connected to via bluetooth to a firestick, still works perfectly after more than 4 years. But JBL as big of a brand, how a soundbar can just lose sound with no possible explanation is mindboggling! I have reset, done all I can the sound just gone! There was no prior incidence at all! As I said, the sound would go in and out like a scratched CD plate! I kept managing it, till I stopped using bluetooth and switched to HMDI wire...now the sound is gone, I thought my tv was the issue, I connected it to my phone via bluetooth, connected successfully but no sound from the soundbar. Just like that, turn it on to use it, and it stops working. I have read through the manual, checked on youtube, etc to find a solution, all to no avail and I doubt if JBL or bestbuy can fix this without demanding that I pay! Just 1 year, a month after the warranty has expired, the soundbar develops fault from nowhere....how convenient! I suggest if you want to buy a soundbar, just stay with Samsung.

I don’t see how this thing got so many positive reviews . Maybe I have the wrong one? Either way it SUCKS and for almost $200 the quality is trash! Doesn’t connect , sound is lousy! Wanted to charge $100 to have someone come look at it ! I wish I kept the box but since I’m moving it got thrown away too fast ! $180 out the window ! Will never buy any JBL products again!

This soundbar seemed like a good value for the money. After 3 months of dealing with it dropping the bluetooth connection randomly, we hooked it to HDMI ARC hoping it would fix it. It did not. The soundbar will randomly go into power saving mode if you: - pause a movie - pause a youtube video - go use the restroom - were born in the Midwest - have the tv volume set low There's no volume indicator on the sound bar itself, so if you have it hooked up to ARC, you'll have no reference point the next time you turn on the tv. The bluetooth connection simply doesn't work half the time; the soundbar's sleep mode doesn't allow it to wake when a device tries to connect to it. It doesn't wake on ARC. You have to manually connect it each time you use it. If I wasn't past the refund/return window, I would return this thing. Don't get stuck with mediocrity. Go with a different soundbar.

Looks and sounds nice. There is one major flaw with it though. If you pause you tv/sound for more than 5mins the speaker goes into sleep mode and you have to hit the power button to turn it back on. This means that you need to have the sound bar remote on your table or near you at all times. This may not be an issue for some but I work from home and take calls constantly so I have to pause the TV all the time to take calls. This makes the speaker go to sleep and I have to turn it back on. I bought this because it has an HDMI port and I thought I could get rid of a remote from my table but this power feature means the I have to continue to keep the remote at arms reach at all times. Pretty lame

[Employee of bestbuy] do not buy. Okay, let me start out with the basics: this thing is roughly $180 when i bought it on sale. great price. but even for that price i would not buy this thing. it sucks. for 1 you cannot change the bass settings or how it works. it sounds horrible with dialogue, it gets very very quiet, and then when any ounce of music, it is 10x as loud. the default “sound settings” on the remote is very bad. I think the bad dialogue has to do with the dialogue coming out of the subwoofer for some reason, and there is no way to fix this. do not buy.

These good reviews are ridiculous and leads me to believe that I simply can not trust any reviews anywhere. Bought the LG SN6Y last year for the bedroom on my bus. I added the optional rears and was blown away by the sound. Good bass and articulate dialogue. Even sounded satisfactory for music, by which I was pleasantly surprised. (I am an audiophile btw. I have also owned many JBL products over the decades.) I bought another LG SN6Y open box to put in my mothers' bedroom at her house. However, the open box was missing the REMOTE! "Excellent" condition? No. The awesome Best Buy rep took good care of me and made me a spectacular deal on the JBL SB170, that he recommended. I got it home and hooked it up. Muddy sound and boomy bass. OK, no problem, I'll just lower the bass level and turn up the treble, right? WRONG!!! THERE ARE NO CONTROLS FOR ANYTHING!! Just a few EQ presets. This is unbelievable to me. Totally unacceptable. There are no tone controls available through the TV either. Boxed it right up and returned it. I've never experienced such a poorly thought-out product. Not to mention the poor audio quality. The LG I wanted was still unavailable so I gambled on the Vizio V51-H6... I was immediately impressed, not only by the sound quality but the overall design, materials, and build quality. Good job Vizio. Genuinely impressed. Total control over channel levels and tone btw. AS IT SHOULD BE! Don't buy the JBL SB170. It is comically bad.

Subwoofer constantly disconnects and is no way to manually reconnect. Just need to power on and off and hope. Absolute garbage

Sound is nothing special. My Sony TV sound is comparable. Loose Bluetooth connection with TV when TV is not active for some time, then TV trying to find it back, but it is off already. It's interfere not just sound, but YouTube videos start to jump from one to another. Connected my phone through Bluetooth: connection exist, sound don't. Save your money: buy Sony, Samsung or LG products

garbagw item is not foods at all. using it is too much

If you want to amplify your TV volume and make car chase scenes loud and things like this yep it's an okay sound bar. If you want to listen to music forget it my 1993 Ford as Better Sound than this sound bar. There's no high or lows just base I mean it just sounds really bad there's no other way to put it don't get it don't waste your money if you want to listen to music

Terrible connection . My cheaper Samsung has better range . As soon as you walk away from the speaker it starts skipping

Poor sound quality - still need a high level of volume to hear TV and you wouldn’t know there’s a subwoofer. You have to connect to Bluetooth each time, so it’s necessary to have multiple remotes.

Not worth the very little price tag. Better to go with the next tier. Get a higher channel sound system and pay the price. Don’t settle for this. Sound could barely be felt.

Has very bad connection problem- constantly disconnects from tv. Highly disappointed

Lip sync problems and popping noise following voice audio.

Disappointed, didn't sync with tv at all. A waste!

Sound is horrible. Every time we connect a new device the sound glitches a lot

Sound Quality is Bad Item returned Usually this brand good but unfortunately this model bad

From the reviews i thought this would be a good choice. My mistake. Tinny, boomy, sound. No rage. Sounds like its from a cheap childs toy. If your tv has built in speakers, i can almost guarantee they will spind better than this sound bar. Big waste of money.