“How good (or bad) is the bar by itself? Most of the reviews cover both the Link Bar and also a separate subwoofer. I'd like to just use the bar by itself since it's advertised as having the bass built in, as this is for TV #2. Thanks!”
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Sound is subjective, but I would say the JBL LINK Soundbar BY ITSELF is ONLY GOOD, a bit ABOVE AVERAGE and certainly not great; I'd score it as a 7.5/10 on sound quality, but I'm an audiophile with very high expectations(and a $5k audio system). I bought this soundbar a couple weeks ago because I want a more compact and convenient system for basic, casual listening, something which it works pretty well for, I can connect it to my phone using Bluetooth or directly to Wi-Fi and it works fine with both videos and music. Whether this will work well for you or not will depend on what you're using it for, if you're using it for TV and movies it should be pretty good, it's clear enough, has a nice mid-range sound(vocals sound good and natural on the songs I've listened to), decent soundstage and bass extension, and it will deliver the booms and oomphs in your movies and music, the subwoofer will add substantially to it however, and if you care a great deal about low end, the sub is worthwhile, BUT it's definitely NOT necessary and the soundbar alone has a good amount of bass of it's own, it will vibrate and slightly shake your floor and bother your neighbors if you live in an apartment building like I do, I've had to turn mine down many times. If you want really high sound quality for listening to music, especially large scale music, symphonic, choral, well, then you might be disappointed; you're not going to be blown away listening to the Star Wars main title through this soundbar(actually, it's definitely loud enough, but it doesn't handle large scale complex and congested music very well, it doesn't break up or anything like that, but the resolution of the inner parts is lacking), but if you listen to popular music, folk, rock, EDM, stuff like that, it's actually pretty good, it can get pretty loud, not crazy loud but pretty loud, and will thump the bass if that's what you want, the subwoofer does add low end but is a bit slow for music, it is great for movies though. In my experience, the Google assistant has worked pretty well most of the time, I'd say about 70% of the time it responds well to my voice commands, but sometimes there's a bit of a lag, I'd say about five seconds, maybe ten, and I have had some of the issues which you may have read about in reviews which can be frustrating. I do not use it as a Google smart home hub so cannot comment on that aspect, but I have seen video reviews on Youtube where it does turn off the lights and stuff like that after you get it set up. I haven't used it for Chromecast either. Value is also a very subjective thing. I bought mine on sale with the subwoofer included a couple weeks ago, and for the price I paid I'm generally satisfied with it(I paid $210), but if I were paying full price I'm not so sure it would be worth it, I surely wouldn't pay $700 for the system, but $400, that might be about right for the soundbar and sub, and honestly, the subwoofer isn't really necessary unless you really love deep bass, as I said, the soundbar alone will vibrate your floors at about 85/90% volume, and it's where the "brains" of the system is, the Google assistant, etc,, the sub really just adds a bit of low end. But ultimately, the only way you're really going to know if you're going to like it is by buying it and trying it out yourself, so if you can get a good price, I'd say to go for it, the setup isn't too difficult and the sound isn't bad at all. Hopefully that answers your question, I tried my best. Cheers
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.Thank you for the responses Cerulean and Jayjay. @Cerulean: absolutely understand your comments about the benefit of a subwoofer; we already have a much better (and more expensive) sound system including subwoofer in our study with our large TV for movies and XBox games. The LinkBar would be for a smaller TV in our living room that we only use occasionally so don't want to spend too much or create an elaborate set up. From this and from other reviews I think one of these would be a good choice.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.the link bar sounds fine, but some channels the link bar is not in synch with the voice, the mouth speaks before you hear it coming out of the link bar
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