Customer Ratings & Reviews

Great sound. Enhances movie and gaming experience. Integrated subwoofer makes adequate bass but not quite powerful. As long as you dont turn it up all the way, it makes well balanced sound. Highs aren’t strong either as there are no dedicated tweeters. Left and right loudspeakers are good enough to cover a wide range of frequency and dialogues are its strongest point (clear voice setting: on). When connected via bluetooth and playing bass heavy music with Bass Ext. on and “subwoofer” all the way, it’s quite boomy and louder than a battery powered bluetooth speaker. It’s only a 2.1 channel so it won’t recreate a theater-like surround when watching movies or playing video games but there is clear stereo separation. It’s shy of 2ft wide and fits well nestled between my 40” tv stands. Connected via HDMI arc allows me to control it with tv remote and automatically bypassing the tv’s built in speakers. Got it on sale at $130, which is worth it. IMO, MSRP is a little high for its features and sound quality.

Love this soundbar! Got it as a gift for my boyfriend who needed a sound system for his PC set up. The size is perfect to fit on a desk underneath your monitor. Amazing sound quality, volume, great bluetooth connection, easy to use — highly recommend.

As part of a TV upgrade for my mom, I wanted to get her a soundbar that would fit on a small table. She is in no way an audiophile, so a simple bar would do. This soundbar fits right between the feet of her 50" TV and looks great. But the sound: right away, my mom noticed the fuller, richer sound. This small bar even produces some bass. I connected the bar via eARC, so mom can control her sound with just her TV remote. In all, very impressed. For the price, and for the size, soundbar is great value.

Sounds decent for being my first sound bar. Its a big upgrade compared to tv speakers. I didnt want to spend to much money on a soundbar. Easy to hook up, basically straight forward. I used optical cable to tv. and pluged in the power cord to soundbar and it works. If your using this method make sure you take of plastic tips on optical. I didnt have to go on my tv menu /audio to change audio settings on my tv it changed automatically but you might have to on different brands of tvs. Highs sound good as well as the bass or lows. It does have built in woofer which is good because I didn't want a separate sub just the bar. The actual bar is not to big nor to small I'd say medium size. Feels light so cant say much about the quality of speakers. I got the warranty for it.

The Yamaha SR C20A gives excellent sound for such a small soundbar. For background, I am using it in a 15x15 room as a desktop speaker. The sound can get very loud while still sounding clean (i keep it in Game mode as others have recommended). When watching videos or movies the voices are much cleaner than our Vizio M Series soundbar in our living room. The bass can also get very strong, but fortunately it can be controlled via remote separately from volume. At a Black Friday sale price of $130 this is a bargain, but even at MSRP I would have been very pleased with this purchase.

I used this product to enhance the sound of a wall mounted kitchen TV that is over five years old. I am learning a second language and watching programs in that language. Sometimes I could not hear a new word clearly to look it up. The addition of this soundbar has improved the clarity of spoken words. It also works well as a Bluetooth speaker to listen to music. I used the included optical cable to connect.

I selected this as I wanted a compact single unit soundbar that would be an improvement over my TV's built-in speakers. This unit delivered just that at a nominal cost. Without a separate subwoofer, it fits neatly into a tight space and delivers the improvement I was looking for at a value price.

Bought for a special purpose. Put it on my exercise treadmill and it is the perfect size and excellent quality. I have other Yamaha sound bars in larger sizes with my other televisions in my home and I’m very happy with them

I got this for my gaming monitor because it doesn’t have speakers. If your monitor has a analog plugin this soundbar will work. The bass is really good for being builtin the soundbar, its not better bass than what you would get with a traditional subwoofer but its a small and compact soundbar thats made by a company thats known for making reliable products. Id give it 5 stars its left me very satisfied. The remote is handy to have and buttons on the soundbar are easy to navigate. I highly recommend.

Exactly what I was looking for to upgrade the sound for the new 43 inch Sony tv in the bedroom. Fits neatly under the tv. Great value for the money.

It was a breeze to set up it paired right up with the remote on my Samsung TV . Great Sound at a great price.

For the size of this speaker you get some nice bass and volume. Great for movies, shows and gaming. Built in subwoofer is a nice feature.

We are very pleased with the sound and the number of options for type of sound on the remote. The most helpful is the "Clear Voice" button which amplifies the dialog of what you're watching so it is not overpowered by the music. This is an excellent sound bar for this price point.

This soundbar has no right sounding as amazing as it does for its price and form factor! This thing has huge, room filling volume that is clear, crisp, non-distorted across all volume ranges, and even manages to achieve some great bass notes with its built-in subwoofer! This soundbar is incredibly well featured at this price range. One of the chief excitements for me is that it has HDMI ARC at its price, allowing you to plug it into the HDMI arc port of your TV (if it is equipped) and enjoy pass through audio while being able to control the volume of the soundbar with your TV remote. I tried the HDMI arc feature with both my LG Series 8 TV and my Vizio 65 OLED TV and found this feature to work seamlessly with both. It comes only with its power cable and an optical audio cable, so you will need to get an HDMI cable to use this feature. For a compact soundbar without an external subwoofer, this thing is a truly impressive sound experience. For gaming, I tried this soundbar with God of War (2018) and was impressed to find how great each axe swing and punchy bass note of explosions and Kratos’s testosterone-laden voice sounded. Also, for my moderately sized living room, the sound was perfectly clear and projected well into all seating and standing positions of the room. The compact size is going to be the real winner for a lot of prospective purchaser’s decisions. At 23” long, 3-1/2” wide, and 2” tall, this can fit onto the desks and entertainment centers of most anyone with ease. The appearance with the full wraparound speaker mesh looks great, avoiding the cheap plastics and false metal brushed finishes of other soundbars in this price range. The remote works well to control the soundbar and its features. The soundbar utilizes a series of 5 LED lights at the front of the sound bar to visually display which connections and sources you are hooked up to as well as volume and subwoofer level increases and decreases. The lights do turn off after a brief period of time though, so you do not have LED lights glaring in your direction from this soundbar. Overall, I don’t know if I can recommend this soundbar enough. Whether you are outfitting a PC gaming setup, a living room entertainment center, of even just seeking a reasonably priced soundbar for a bedroom or garage TV set up, this soundbar will undoubtedly please you.

This soundbar packs big sound for the price. Paired with my smart TV, I immediately experienced a rich sound that was not expected. Good buy, satisfied!

Not bad for the money. Good sound would def recommend using the optimal cable instead of hdmi.

This is excellent, I have it sitting beneath my monitors and it is amazing quality. Very loud, super clear, good EQ

Great sound and Bass! I love that I can switch between stereo, movie and game modes

Pairs nicely with my new hisense A6 75. Good sound quality

From pianos to motorcycles, Yamaha’s history encompasses more than a century of product development and reputation for high-quality acoustic gear and small engines alike. Yamaha’s receivers, speakers, and musical instruments can all be found at Best Buy, and it seems only logical that they too would compete in the soundbar space. Yamaha’s SR-C20A is a compact stereo soundbar with an integrated subwoofer, promising exceptional sound in a tiny package that can fit just about anywhere. Though it does deliver some solid sound without the assistance of a dedicated subwoofer, you will still need to decide if you want more space or more bass, since this comes up just ever so short in execution. - Unboxing and Setup Arriving well-packaged, the first impression of the soundbar is the size. At just about two feet wide and only four inches deep, this is easily one of the smallest soundbars I’ve seen in quite some time, not much larger than two popular portable bluetooth speakers glued together. Fully wrapped in a speaker cloth material, the beveled edges of the soundbar are visually pleasing and give a premium touch to the sound system. The power cable is plenty long, and the power brick is a reasonable size to hide behind your TV stand or under the desk. A 4-foot optical audio cable is included to connect to a TV, blu ray player, or other compatible device. A basic product guide leads through connectivity options and using the remote. Yamaha also includes a drilling template and additional hardware for wall mounting options. Setup is as straightforward as can be - connect to your TV or other devices via either HDMI ARC, optical, or stereo 3.5mm (headphone or line out) input and turn the soundbar on for wired sound, or power on and set to the Bluetooth input to begin pairing. From there it’s just a matter of dialing in your settings with the included remote or the Yamaha remote app from a smartphone, and you’re off and running. - Sound Quality Soundbars without standalone subwoofers will always be compromised on bass. A sizeable driver (speaker) is needed to replicate low frequencies with power, and on a compact soundbar like the Yamaha SR-C20A there simply isn’t much room to integrate large drivers. A 3-inch subwoofer was chosen as the solution here, mimicking compact desktop studio monitors that include similar subwoofers. Four different equalizer presets are present: Stereo, Standard, Movie, and Game, though the best sound seemed to be in Standard mode throughout. Stereo and Game both felt tinny while Movie made sounds and music less impactful. A “Clear Voice” setting also seemed to make little difference in any audio circumstance. Overall, the Yamaha SR-C20A produces good sound. With some tuning, the response curve seems somewhat flat with no obvious tones overpowering the others, but true low-end bass is lacking as is expected from such small bass drivers. It can get pretty loud as well - even on my TV I never needed to go above two-thirds volume for clear sound to power across the room and I couldn’t pick up on any obvious distortion nearing maximum. The speakers seem to be upward-firing, which does explain why it sounds better as a personal or desktop soundbar rather than a TV or home theater one. I ended up keeping an older, larger soundbar with front-firing speakers as my TV’s sound system with the SR-C20A residing in front of my PC. In practice, the SR-C20A does an admirable job trying to reproduce bass, but it needs both the subwoofer maxed out and the extended bass (“BASS EXT”) option enabled to produce convincing sound, and even then it falls short. The bass is fairly clear and hits well at close distances, but at further distances most of the punch is lost from its physical limitations, and worse yet there’s almost zero reproduction of truly deep bass notes (sub-200Hz, the range of sound that really gives you that subwoofer boom). The soundbar works hard to try and get the bass through, but the lack of a dedicated large subwoofer really hurts the performance here. Some soundbars that ship without dedicated subwoofers have a port available to hook one up at a later time, but this one does not, so it will never be able to make up that shortcoming. The big surprise from this little soundbar is the sound stage it projects, or the perceived distance between left-panned and right-panned sounds. Listening up close, the sound stage feels anywhere from 6 to 8 feet wide, delivering enveloping sound that really drew me into music and games. It became quickly apparent that “personal” listening was the way to go for the best experience, as at close distance the difference between BASS EXT on and off became more of a preference than a necessary toggle. As I state in every speaker system review, quantifying something as subjective as home theater sound is difficult. Audio opinions are subjective and the listening experience is difficult to translate to text. I highly recommend sampling this sound bar in-store at your nearest Best Buy prior to purchase. - Connectivity & Ease of Use HDMI ARC leads the feature list for connectivity, letting you control your soundbar volume via your TV remote and reducing the need for another remote lying around. This worked well enough in practice, but the bigger surprise was the inclusion of two optical audio inputs. Though a little outdated against HDMI ARC, this does allow for more creative options that could help provide a better audio experience hooking up game consoles or blu-ray players on older, lower-end TVs. I ended up using the optical audio input to connect my desktop computer to the soundbar for use under my gaming monitor. The SR-C20A also supports bluetooth for streaming audio to the soundbar wirelessly. Pairing requires no passcode, and sound latency was minimal as far as I could tell. Perhaps 50-100ms at worst. The soundbar’s middle status LED will blink as it awaits connection then turn blue once established. Each of the 5 LEDs on the soundbar is labeled by its input name and a “Surround” option that always seems to be lit. These LEDs double as an information readout when adjusting volume, subwoofer level, or enabling and disabling Clear Voice and Bass EXT options. These work well enough in practice and the LEDs aren’t overly bright. - Remote & Settings Contrasted against the seemingly high quality construction of the soundbar, the included remote feels incredibly cheap. Labelling is very basic, the rubber buttons feel mushy to use, and the plastic clamshell is made of low quality plastic with uneven seams. If you’re using HDMI ARC, dial in your settings and leave this remote elsewhere, else it’s a pretty straightforward but disappointing affair to have in-hand. Yamaha does have a smartphone app available for both Android and iOS that acts as a remote control for its range of soundbars, and the SR-C20A was recently added to the supported list. I was hoping for further functionality or configuration that could store profiles or have one-click commands for various settings, but the app is arguably even more basic than the remote. It’s a mirror clone of the remote’s buttons and functions, but one that requires bluetooth access to use (and even more concerningly, location data). There is virtually no point to the companion app - as much as the remote disappoints, it’s at least not tethered to your phone. One final, though small, annoyance is that sound settings are stored at the soundbar level and applied across all inputs. You cannot set “Stereo” sound mode to be used only on one input and “Standard” to be used on another, for example, nor can you adjust for device-specific volumes or sound features like Clear Voice. Again, a minor complaint given you’re best served setting the sound up once and running with it universally, but still something that could be addressed with a future firmware update (through the USB port on the back of the soundbar). - Bottom Line If space is at a premium, the Yamaha SR-C20A is a solid companion for a personal setup or small room. It’ll handily outperform a TV’s inbuilt speakers and desktop USB-powered speakers, but I found myself longing for my old setup I bought nearly 15 years ago even though the cable management was a nightmare. The only thing that really hurts this soundbar’s potential is that there’s no way to get more bass out of it - any wired or wireless expansion for later would have been welcome, as would have a slightly thicker soundbar overall to pack in a bigger subwoofer that could have recreated that low-end rumble I so sorely miss. Regardless, this bar does create good sound at a reasonable price and looks quite good doing it. If that low-end rumble is something you can do without, the Yamaha SR-C20A soundbar comes recommended.