LG - 2.1-Channel 300W Soundbar System with 6" Subwoofer - Black

The LG SL4Y 2.1 Soundbar with wireless subwoofer is an interesting soundbar. It has some good features and some questionable features. From a sound perspective, the soundbar has four modes: Bass Boost, Cinema, ASC (Automatic Sound Control), and Standard. After trying all the sound modes for various video sources such as Netflix, Plex, Playstation Vue, Xbox One Gaming, and Bluetooth music through Pandora and Spotify, I now have it on Cinema mode exclusively. The other modes either have the spoken voice too low or is very dull in my opinion. In Cinema mode, everything sounds great. The Soundbar has a small display that tells you the volume which is great feature that other soundbars tend to overlook. The soundbar has no problem being cranked up to a loud volume and still maintain a vibrant clarity and stability. The subwoofer while fills in the ambiance and does a good job, at times feels like it could have been more. If you were expecting a home theatre quality of low frequencies, you may be disappointed but for the average home movie viewer, this will make movies much more enjoyable over your standard TV speakers. The soundbar works well in small to medium rooms but does require some cranking up of volume to fill out a large living room. I am not using a LG TV so I cannot speak to how it pairs with an LG TV nor do I have the optional surround rear speakers. Setup had a few annoying things that frustrated me out of the box. Having various Toslink cables lying around, I spent 5 minutes trying to figure out why none of them would connect to the soundbar. Apparently, LG has recessed the optical input port a bit which makes Toslink cables with larger grip points to not fit in the Optical Input port. If this is your scenario, you will be stuck using the very thin supplied optical cable by LG. So you will have to be sure that if you need another optical cable, you have to choose a low profile Toslink cable. The included wall mounts have this amazing feature which places the soundbar about half an inch away from the wall allowing me to run all the TV wires behind the soundbar. Since I do not have fancy options of running wires in-wall, the gap between the soundbar and wall allows me to just drop the wires straight down and not have to interfere with the mounting of the soundbar. The subwoofer linked up with the soundbar instantly and I was setup, mounted to the wall, and ready to watch a movie in less than 30 minutes. From a connectivity standpoint, you are very limited on connection options. This soundbar only has optical input, USB, and Bluetooth. There is no HDMI passthrough. In order to get the sound properly going to the soundbar, you may have to play around with your TV sound settings and the media device sound settings. I have noticed that Amazon FireTV Cube will only work if you choose a specific sound output, therefore before you go crazy trying to figure out if the soundbar sound is cutting out or not, make sure you play around with your media sound source options. Overall, if you are looking for an improvement over your TV speakers, this will do a wonderful job at the price point. If you were to pay more, you would gain Dolby Atmos, 3.1, 5.1 surround capabilities but that does have a significant price jump for those features.

This sound bar is super easy to set up and sounds pretty decent. Which is a good thing since the included “Simple Manual” is super simple. Reasonable deduction led me to figuring out what the plastic things with stickers were, the elevated feet. If you want to know more about the device, like how to disable the auto power off and that there is an app for additional settings, Music Flow Bluetooth, go to the LG support page. This soundbar is limited with inputs of optical, Bluetooth and USB so any other input methods must go through your TV. The optical cable is included and is the best option for connection. If you have a recent LG TV it can use LG TV Sync over optical or Bluetooth. It was instantly recognized on my 2016 TV and controls the volume of the TV, but every time I change the speaker function to something else, it changes the TV settings to internal and then asks to turn it back when returned. Bluetooth is the same way, completely turned off the moment the function is changed, so you have to reconnect any device that was using it. The USB port allows you to plug in a thumb drive and play music directly and I was surprised at just how quick it loads MP3 files. I don’t think my PC even loads them that fast. The LCD display on the front only displays 5 characters, but provides enough info even if it requires it to scroll by, like the filename of an MP3. It’s bright enough to see in a well lit room and dims where it is barely noticeable in a dark room after 15 seconds. Though not listed on the Best Buy page, the dimensions are about the width of a 40” TV at 35.1" x 2.3" x 3.4", this is without the extended feet, wall brackets or power cord. The power cord isn’t recessed in any way, so it makes it about 3.75” deep and the extended feet help raise it above a thin TV plate, giving it about 0.75” clearance making it about 3” tall. The wall brackets are just a bit longer to allow for room to run the cables but you need your own screws to install in a wall. The subwoofer is 6.8" x 15.4" x 10.3" and only needs power, so can be hidden behind a couch or table. It has an interesting black carbon fiber laminate on the box and cloth front. Sometimes when first turning on, there is a delay of about 30 seconds for the subwoofer to kick on. Kind of a thing with anything wireless though. Sold separately, you can add the SPK8-S two channel wireless rear speakers for added surround. However, I do not have those to test out and curious as there is a setting to turn off the surround sound which allows for original sound. So by default it is filling sound to the rear speakers, but disabling it will provide the true cinema sound if available. Overall, not a bad speaker system, as it is better than most built in TV sound systems. However, I feel there's still room for improvements.

Setup was pretty fast. Took about 30 mins. I downloaded the software on my phone and paired it via Bluetooth. Also paired it with my LG TV. Sound quality is pretty good. I used netflix and streamed an ultra 4k movie with Dolby surround and the sound quality for a 2.1 is pretty good. I had to set the setting on bass boost to get the subwoofer to kick more but after that I was surprised. Voice dialogue came out good and was not drowned out. Theatrical scenes took notice. 1 small bug was that the volume control from about 13 to 15 jumped pretty high and vice versa going back down. Listening to music via phone streaming was nice. I ran the LG app it found all my songs on my phone and categorized them well. I am running Android OS. Did not notice any buffering issues. Interface was good. Easy to switch between phone and TV via the app. It was nice to be able to use the TV remote to control the sound bar. Not sure if you can do that with other TVs. The appearance is nice. Sleek and small and fits just right for what I needed. I would recommend this item for a simple setup for 2.1 system. It does have the option to add rear speakers but I did not purchase those. So you could get a surround system out of this if you get those.

Pros: I have BOSE Sound Bar at home which i got couple of years of back. Before buying BOSE i tried many brands sound bars like LG, Samsung etc. But I was not happy with those because for me Dialogue Clarity is more important when i am watching movies, usually many sound bars just keep their focus on songs and sounds part but not on Dialogues except BOSE, but again not all BOSE products good on dialogue part. You maybe wondering why i am talking about BOSE here, Yes I have to do that, Because now the time has come to beat it. I am very happy with the current LG Sound Bar with Subwoofer. The Cinematic mode is simply superb, Some how i like this mode for songs, Sounds and Dialogues. What a change in LG in just few years. Dialogue clarity while matching movie is top natch. This is BEST for People who wants to use it for watching movies on TV.If you want to use only for audio music then this is not superior for sure compare to other big ones, But again, if you want best superior audio quality just for audio songs purpose you have to spend minimum north of 8 or 9 hundred dollars. Considering the price, I would surely recommend this product for everyone who wants best Cinematic Sound experience. CONS: Non Cinematic modes like BASS etc... are not that great. Just Good. But again you need think price point as well when you are comparing with other ones. Let me focus on What is Inside the box and Installation Setup. 1) Sound Bar 2) SubWoofer 3) All required Cables Including Optical Cable. 4) Remote and Batteries needed for the remote. 5) Wall mount brackets and screws with simple mounting instructions guide. 6) Simple user friendly manual - Very easy to read and understand. 7) You can do Installation in less than 10-15 Mins. Very easy setup. 8) Very Easy Auto pairing. 9 ) Super fast bluetooth connection. No interruptions. I used bluetooth to play songs from my phone. My Final verdict : Just Go for it. You will like it. I will be happy if my review helps you to pick your choice :).

I was skeptical about buying my 1st soundbar because i thought it wouldn't have the punch i was looking for but once i got it going WOW! i was suprised by the bass & clarity super simple to connect To an lg tv once the power cord & optical cord (included) is connected press home on the tv remote select the device connector choose soundbar you should be good to go

PROS . The easiest setup I have seen for any Soundbar with subwoofer . 300-Watt wireless subwoofer with zero-step setup (at least in my experience) . Bluetooth . Light weight CONS . No HDMI input/output . No Dolby ATMOS support - No Wi-Fi connectivity to stream directly from the Internet The first thing I really loved, even being tech savvy, was the fact that once I connected the soundbar and subwoofer to power and the optical cable to TV, it worked immediately. I was expecting to go through a bunch of steps, especially to connect the wireless subwoofer. None of that was necessary. Both the soundbar and subwoofer worked even before I tried the remote. The only thing I had to do was to set my TV sound to off. I own a heavier, high-end soundbar with wireless sub-woofers but like most similar systems, it required a lot of steps to get them working. The LG 2.1 Soundbar is big but it fit nicely under my 55-inch Visio TV. The default volume already made a huge difference compared to the volume my TV built-in speakers are capable of but it can go much louder and the bass is not bad. This is not a fancy soundbar. There are no apps for it and it does not connect to Wi-Fi although you can use your phone Bluetooth to stream music to it. I installed it under my TV, which is on top of a rack, but it comes with a kit to assist you in installing it to the wall. It should take you just a few minutes if you choose that option. If you intend to make this your Home Theater setup, and if you are an audiophile, I should warn that you might be disappointed. No, it is not bad. I am an audiophile myself but for the purpose I use it, it is excellent. However, I would not set it up as my main Home Theater sound system. That is not to say that you could not set it up for that purpose and still be happy with it but if you compare it with higher grade Soundbars out there, you will realize that it is missing a richer sound experience since it does not come with features like Dolby ATMOS for instance. Of course, for that you would spend a LOT more bucks. For what it’s worth, this is an excellent replacement for any built-in speakers in any TV out there. It is loud with good bass and will make any dull sounding TV much more fun to watch. My only complaint is that it comes with zero HDMI ports. I did not even know they made soundbars without one. Instead, it uses the optical output that many people never realized it is built into most - if not all - modern TV’s. That means that you cannot control your TV through the Soundbar, although the remote seems to be universal, which minimizes that “problem”.

The sound will easily get overwhelming in the living room and shake the walls. Not as easy to integrate with my LG TV as I had hoped. Cannot adjust volume with the TV remote using an optical connection. Bluetooth connection can't manage switching inputs from phone to TV smoothly. It does connect to smartphones which I couldn't tell from the description. Finally, Best Buy's coupon strategy is dumb. Don't give me 10% off and then have it not apply for anything except for the snacks at the register.

This soundbar and subwoofer combo sounds fantastic for watching movies and TV. It is 2.1 channels and you'll get clear audio and rumbling bass from the subwoofer but there isn't too much excitement beyond that. You can purchase rear speakers for better surround experience but for this combo it is lackluster. There are not too many features and there is no connection via HDMI only optical and bluetooth. The bluetooth connection is solid on any phone other than Google Pixel. For some reason anything LG will drop from my Pixel phone but with my girlfriend's Samsung or brother's Samsung it connects and stays connected with no lag. Another positive thing about this soundbar is how sleek and out of the way it looks. It doesn't seem intrusive to your TV set up but without the HDMI ARC feature it's really lacking. I do like the sound that is produced with this sound bar and I would recommend it for someone that just wants better sounding audio than their TV speakers but don't really mind losing on added features and sound profiles. The sound doesn't distort on higher volumes and voices are clear. The subwoofer does pack a small punch. For my very small room it works but I don't think it would work for traditionally larger rooms such as living or family rooms. With all that said I do recommend it for small bedrooms and not tech savvy people that would expect more features.