LG - 2.1-Channel Soundbar System with Wireless Subwoofer and Digital Amplifier - Black

I bought the LG SH3K soundbar open-box at significant discount so my review will reflect this. I am a closet audiophile so I like to think that I appreciate higher quality audio. For my main TV I have a traditional stereo w/the typical mess of wires. For my bedroom I wanted better sound than the TV speakers could offer so I started looking at my options. I didn't want to deal with a second set of speaker wires and cables (I rent, so moving is not unlikely) so I decided to try a soundbar. The soundbar arrived in its retail packaging, which seems to have plenty of protection. My open-box unit appeared unused as all the protective packaging was in place. the only sign of use was that the manuals were out of place in the box. Setup was painless for me as I am familiar with setup of home audio systems, but even the tech adverse should have little issue. For my setup I simply connected the optical audio out (toslink) from my TV to the optical audio input on the LG soundbar and placed it below the TV. Then I put the wireless subwoofer in a corner out of the way and plugged it into the wall. When I turned everything on and set the bar to "optical" the subwoofer paired wirelessly to the bar, and everything worked on the first try. I had to reference the manual for my SONY TV to determine how to disable the TV's own speakers, but for the soundbar itself everything was intuitive. LG's manual for the soundbar sufficient but not the best, and occasionally suffers from what I assume are translation errors. SOUND QUALITY: I didn't expect anything mindblowing from this system due to its modest price, limited driver size, and the general reputation soundbars have for sounding "ok" but not "great". Now that I've used it for a few weeks, I think it has met expectations. The sound from the bar itself is certainly better than the speakers on my SONY TV. They lack the punch of the bookshelf speakers in my other system but this is to be expected, and the bar is certainly more than adequate to fill any room with sound, or play over talking at a party. My bedroom is not too big so the TV speakers were plenty loud already, so I wanted this LG SH3K primarily for better sound quality and more bass. The bar provides much better sound quality, especially with more "cinematic" audio tracks with background music and effects. Talk-centric content (TV news, etc) is a less noticeable improvement, however the soundbar has a "voice" mode that helps bring the spoken parts of the audio out while suppressing background noise which is handy for sports with loud crowds. Music sounds alright on the sound bar, and the sub helps fill out the overall sound. Definitely not my preferred music listening setup, but good enough the few times I use it. Most will probably find the SH3K good sounding for music, I'm a bit of an audio snob. The subwoofer is impressive for its size and cost. Bass is as present as you desire, as the subwoofer can be adjusted independently using the included remote. I have the subwoofer located in a corner so its output is more noticeable than if placed on a wall or off the walls in the middle of the room. When turned up it adds some of that "boom" for explosions in movies, which is one of the reasons I decided to buy it in the first place. Compared to the 12" sub used in my stereo the LG subwoofer is noticeably "smaller" in its sound. Initially I was concerned that the wireless aspect could present problems with pairing or latency, as I had such issues with a wireless home theater system in the past. Fortunately the wireless connection for the LG SH3K soundbar has been 100% reliable so far, and doesn't have any lag that I can perceive. It also has a handy indicator LED on the front so you can quickly tell if it is connected, in sleep mode, or disconnected. The included remote is nice for what it is. Home theater remotes sometimes feel like an afterthought, but this one feels nice in the hand and has a nice restrained selection of large easy to read buttons. All functions of the bar can be controlled from the remote, or if you want the sound bar will respond to most remotes that come with TVs. I tried this feature, and the sound bar volume level can be adjusted with my SONY TV remote. This is convenient as it allows you to not need the soundbar's remote.

This LG soundbar (SH3K) is good for the price. There are many things that could be improved upon, but that would surely raise the price. So, for the price, I'd say this is a good soundbar. I listened to these at my local Best Buy, comparing with other brands from Bose, Sony, Samsung, Polk Audio, Klipsch, and Visio. To me, this was the best sounding soundbar in the sub $200 range compared to models from Visio, Samsung and Sony. The Bose, Polk Audio and Klipsch sounded better, but those were in the $300-$600 range, which was way more than I'd pay for a soundbar. The sound from this soundbar is very good. Dialogue in movies is nice and clear. So much better than the tv speakers. Bass is good and not overpowering like some other brands. There is no bass or treble adjustment for the soundbar, so you have to be able to live with how it sounds. It's good to me, and sounds better than my tv speakers for sure. At least there is a level adjustment for the subwoofer. There is no display on the soundbar at all. Only lights to indicate whether it's on or off and if it's receiving a signal from a remote. I say "a" remote, because it instantly picked up the signal from my cable remote. I don't even use the remote that came with the soundbar, unless I want to change the sound mode or subwoofer level. Would be nice if there was at least a volume level display. I can live without that, but the thing that bothers me the most is the volume adjustment. There is a volume level where one level is too soft and the next one up is a little too loud. This isn't a problem during the day, but at night, it can be. What I really like about this soundbar, is that it has Bluetooth to not only connect the subwoofer to the soundbar, but I can play music from my phone on the soundbar. Nice! Pros: -Clear sound, good bass -Automatically powers on/off with the tv -Subwoofer level adjustment -Bluetooth connectivity to subwoofer and other devices. Cons: -No display on soundbar -No bass or treble adjustment -Volume sensitivity -No cloth covering speakers on soundbar

First of all, this IS a good sounding sound bar. There are many better ones, but the price of this one is usually pretty low compared to others in the same tier. It has great lows, good mids and decent highs for dialogue, but it lacks in a few "quality of life" areas. For one, there is no way to adjustment bass, mid or treble at all. Not even with the remote. So I hope you like where the levels are, because they're permanent. Two, the bar features no useful display. Just a few simplified icons. How high is the volume or the sub woofer level? Who knows without just turning it up and down at random. What sound mode is currently active? Can't tell without switching between them. Another thing I was disappointed with was the lack of sound mode presets. There are only three. Voice, Cinema and Standard. They are OKAY at best, but would be better if we could fine tune them with a custom EQ, but it's not possible. More presets would have been nice. There is also no grill option with this bar. If you don't like the look of the exposed speakers, you should find another sound bar. It would be nice to at least have a removable grill as a side option. I also ran into a strange issue where the sub woofer would cut in and out, but it turned out to be some kind of interference from my wireless router. I had to move the sub woofer very far away from it and the problem stopped. Troubleshooting that was.... fun, to say the lest. Again, it's a good sound bar and it gets loud for the price, but don't set your expectations too high or you'll be disappointed. Hope this helps!

My wife and I needed an audio upgrade for our LG TV in the living room so rather than go the full on AV receiver and 7.1 speaker route, we decided on a simple and minimal soundbar setup instead and I'm very glad we chose this one. First of all, the way this bar looks is great... brushed texture with nice looking woven drivers, nothing to complain about in the looks department. Actually, nothing to complain about with sound either... the bass supplied by the included wireless sub and the remaining frequency range supplied by the 4 drivers on the bar itself are all great and full. This setup actually gives my 7.1 Pioneer Elite receiver a run for it's money in terms of sound and that is no easy feat. It's good looking, minimal, and blends well with our living room decor, and it sounds very good and definitely punches above where it's price would have you believe (even better when you find it almost half off on sale)... so... why the 4 star rating? Well I have to dock a star because of the user interface, or maybe the lack thereof?! There is no real useful status or volume indication present on the soundbar, all you get is a short power up sequence and which input you are using but no volume level, etc. A nice digital dot matrix readout like our Samsung soundbar we have in our bedroom features would make this LG soundbar just that much better. Now since our LG TV assumes the majority of the control over this like-branded soundbar it's not the biggest deal, but that extra info at a glance would be nice to have since I've become accustomed to it elsewhere, that's all. Overall I really give it 4.5 stars, but there's no half star option. I highly recommend this product.

I was very surprised with the quality of the sound that came with this Soundbar and Subwoofer. I never purchased LG speakers before, but I am inclined to pay closer attention to them in the future. First, the good. This soundbar has an attractive design, in my opinion. Some might be turned off by the lack of grills, but I for one like the look of the exposed speakers. The design of the soundbar compliments my OLED65B6P TV. The size of the soundbar is quite large, but looks good when mounted center with the TV. If you have anything less than a 50" TV, you may want to look into another soundbar, as it is quite long and you might not want any overlap, which may be comical in appearance, The best thing about this soundbar, is of course the sound. At this price, you can do no wrong. Sound is clear and crisp. It gets quite loud, and my wife hates it, which means it is definitely worth the price. The Sub does have a somewhat hollow sound at lower levels, but to me sounds better when at mid-level. The auto on feature is nice, if your remote is compatible. Setup and installation was easy. The negatives in my opinion are the lack of expansion for this model. You won't be able to add more speakers to it down the road. Maybe TVs with LG Sound Sync could be of use here? I am not sure. I also wish they could have placed some indicator in the display regarding the volume level. You just have to guess what level the unit is at. To sum up, this soundbar and sub are an excellent value. I didn't have the option of going full surround in my living room, because I have small children with bedrooms directly above, and I only wanted something that was an upgrade from the TV speaker. Whether at low, mid or high volume, this unit is excellent in my opinion, for the money. If you want the capability for expansion, or something with better surround sound, look elsewhere.

This unit sounded a lot better in the store than it does in my bedroom. To start, I had difficulty getting the subwoofer to pair with the unit. It's supposed to be plug-and-play, but for me it didn't go very smoothly. I had to go to the LG website to find proper instructions for a manual connect, and even then it had difficulty connecting. Also, for whatever reason the bluetooth functionality of this soundbar does not pair with my Nexus 5x, although it does pair with my iPad Pro. On to the sound itself: it's very average sounding to my ears. The sound bar actually sounds pretty decent when I am watching shows on Netflix, but when I switch to playing games the subwoofer's low quality becomes immediately apparent. It's the type of bass where it is VERY apparent exactly where the subwoofer is in the room. It's not able to produce those frequencies that make it seem like the bass is all around you. This is very distracting to me. I tried moving the subwoofer to various locations around the room, in the corner, under the bed, etc., but it just sounds very muddy and undefined with games in particular. Sadly, I feel that the sound quality is even worse when listening to music via bluetooth. No matter how I adjust the volume or which sound mode i select, the subwoofer is a constant distraction to my enjoyment of the music due to its struggle to blend in with the sound bar. Also, the sound produced by the sound bar itself is not very good. I have a small 50 dollar bluetooth speaker in my kitchen that fills the room with much better sound and the bass on that little unit blends much better with the music to make a very pleasant noise. I don't think this soundbar is terrible, but I do think that it sounded way better with the huge, open atmosphere on the show floor than it does in my little bedroom. I am disappointed, but I guess you get what you pay for.

Directly compared the Sony HT-CT390 (BestBuy open box for $129.99) and this LG SH3K (BestBuy $125 after Visa Checkout) and with two TV's in two separate bedrooms did independent tests to compare the two and found the Sony to have several key advantages. The advantage of the LG was slightly louder and larger oomph from the bass. Advantages for the Sony were: 1. More clear audio, sharper details, tested with 300, The office, music 2. HDMI (ARC) so higher quality connection and ability to control with existing TV remote 3. Longer Bluetooth Range, and remote can actually control the Bluetooth device (phone) unlike LG 4. Slimmer so can sit down in front of TV, without blocking screen or wall mountable 5. LED display so you can see volume level 6. LG has just Standard, Movie; Music. Sony has those plus additional modes of clear voice, sports, and Game, plus night mode 7. Better wall mounting brackets 8. NFC 9. USB input, plus the ability to see the data on the LED display I returned the LG and kept the Sony and couldn't be happier. Nothing too bad about the LG but especially for a similar price i'd choose the Sony hands down.

My "real" home theater is equipped with Klipsch speakers powered by a massive Yamaha 7.1 channel amp... so I'm accustomed to truly great sound. But during a current new home construction, our old home sold much faster than we'd anticipated, forcing us to find an apartment until the new build is complete. Apartment wouldn't accommodate my big Samsung tv, so decided to look for a reasonably-sized 4K that will get us by, and Best Buy had a great deal on a feature-rich LG 4K LED... but the sound was just not enough. Went back and found this soundbar w/sub that was also LG brand, and although have never been a raving fan of LG for my taste in a/v equipment, was surprised with the reviews and blown away by the great price. I was certain we'd get it back to the apartment and find it to have been a waste of money, but in reality, there is no way we could ever turn this puppy up !!! Solid highs and mids, and good lows with the sub. Needless to say, it is more-than meeting our temporary needs. Had thought I'd just put it on eBay or something after the new house is done, but am now so impressed I will find a home for this thing in the new house somewhere ! Can't beat it for the price !!