TCL - A65K 3.1.2 Channel Designer Series Sound Bar System with Wireless Subwoofer - Black

The TCL A65K 3.1.2 Channel Soundbar with Wireless Subwoofer is a slim soundbar with minimalist aesthetics that produces sound that punches well above its weight. It’s designed to look great in any room and not take up so much space that it overpowers a room with messy clutter. It’s slim enough to be placed underneath a TV without blocking its remote sensor. In fact, the soundbar is so slim and light that I was a little skeptical about how well it would perform. Package Contents The package comes with the following items: The TCL A65K Soundbar itself with AC power brick and AC cord Wireless subwoofer with AC power cord Remote with batteries HDMI cables Mounting brackets Quickstart Manual, Warranty Pamphlets, and a Wall Mount Template Quick Specifications Audio by Bang & Olufen Supports Dolby Atmos & DTS:X 3.1.2 Physical channels 8 Sound Modes (Standard, Movie, Music, Voice, Game, Night, Sports, and Custom) EQ for bass and treble Individual level control for center, front top, and subwoofer TCL AI Sonic-Adaptation HDMI eARC 2.0 connector USB-A input Bluetooth 5.3 The TCL A65K Soundbar is a 3.1.2 channel system meaning it has 3 front channels (front left, front center, and front right), along with 1 low frequency channel (wireless subwoofer) and 2 up-firing channels for the height effects. The 6 channels are implemented using 9 physical drivers. The 3 front channels are implemented using a high-performance tweeter and a dual magnet racetrack-shaped full range driver. According to TCL, this system is capable of producing bass down to 40Hz and high frequency up to 20kHz. Setup Setup was very easy. Just connect an HDMI cable to the soundbar and your TV and plug in AC power to both the soundbar and wireless subwoofer. In my case, the wireless subwoofer automatically paired with the soundbar although the subwoofer does have a physical pairing button if something goes wrong. I currently have it hooked up to a 43-inch Hisense R6G 4K HDTV and mounted to the wall using Insignia Soundbar Wall Mounts. The soundbar automatically turns on when the TV is turned on and goes to sleep when I turn off the TV. Everything just worked out of the box. First Impressions The wireless subwoofer is compact and has a solid and hefty feel to it. The build quality seems premium. I prefer smaller compact subwoofers, so it doesn’t take up much floorspace and this is perfect for me. Also, living in a townhouse means I could never really take advantage of a huge subwoofer anyways. The soundbar itself is extremely light which didn’t give a good impression. It felt almost too light. There’s no way a soundbar this light and slim can produce a good sound. Sound Quality However, I was pleasantly surprised by the sound quality. It punches way above its weight. There is plenty of bass which provides the theater-like experience that people expect from a soundbar. There were many times I had to dial the bass down (by using Night mode) because I was worried that it would disturb my neighbors. The bass was crisp and tight which is how I like my bass. The midrange seemed balanced, neutral and natural. The TCL A65K also produces a decently wide soundstage with very clear dialog. When I sat right in front of it, it produced an enveloping sound when playing Dolby Atmos demos and there were times when it seemed the sound was actually moving around me. The surround effects were more subtle compared with soundbars having physical surround speakers, but I was pleasantly surprised, nonetheless. I have been testing the soundbar by binge watching shows like “The Boys” and watching YouTube videos. During my testing, I have mostly been using the Movie and Night sound modes with the Center Channel level up to +6. At these settings, I have been getting a great theater-like experience with very clear and crisp dialog. User Experience Overall, my experience with the TCL A65K has been great. It gives a theater-like experience and offers much improved sound over a TV’s built-in speakers. The more time I have spent with it, the more impressed I am with it. I appreciate the digital display on the soundbar which lets me know the status of the soundbar when I am using the remote. So, if I press the Sound Mode button on the remote to change the Sound Mode, the display will indicate which Sound Mode it is now on. If the soundbar didn’t have this display, I would need to use the TCL Home App to determine the sound mode. The remote is similar in design to remotes used for many streaming devices. It is not backlit which can make it difficult to determine which button to press in a darkened room. I found that it offers access to most of the features a user would want access to. For finer control and access to a few extra features, you would need to download the TCL Home App. One of these extra features is using AI Sonic Adaptation to calibrate your personal sonic environment. Once you have calibrated the system you can save it to a profile (you can have up to 3 different profiles saved). The remote allows you to toggle the AI Sonic Adaptation to one of the saved profiles or have it be OFF. To be honest, I’m not sure if I hear much difference between having it turned OFF or to one of the saved profiles. Another feature that the TCL Home App offers is something called Beosonic which allows you to tweak the sound to be more bright, relaxed, energetic or warm. I couldn’t really hear much difference when watching TV. I suspect this might be more noticeable when listening to music. The number of inputs to the TCL A65K is very limited. It only supports HDMI eARC, USB and Bluetooth. This isn’t a problem for me since I am using HDMI but for people that have an older TV that doesn’t have enough HDMI ports, the lack of an optical connector might be a problem. There are two improvements that I would like to see in the TCL Home App. There doesn’t seem to be any way to delete an AI Sonic Adaptation profile, and I would like the ability to remove a profile. I would also like the app to display information on the current sound format (Dolby Digital 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Atmos, PCM etc.) that the soundbar is playing. Summary I can easily recommend the TCL A65K Soundbar and Wireless Subwoofer to anyone looking for a simple Dolby Atmos soundbar that looks great, takes up very little space, sounds great, and doesn’t need to use an optical port for connecting to the TV. The TCL A65K provides a theater-like experience, with clear dialog, and punches well above its weight compared to larger and bulkier soundbars.

I recently paired this TCL A65K soundbar and subwoofer with my 65-inch TCL QM9K television, and I have been very impressed with the results. Out of the box TCL includes everything needed for setup: the soundbar, wireless subwoofer, power cables, HDMI cable, wall-mount kit, remote control, and batteries. But you'll also want to download the TCL app since it gives you access to additional sound customization options and system controls. What I like best about the A65K is its form factor. I read online that this model is part of TCL’s UltraThin Designer Series and it certainly is that. The soundbar is surprisingly slim and very light. The size is absolutely ideal, particularly for our TCL TV, where it sits on the stand in front of the TV and becomes practically unnoticeable. Compared to the soundbar it replaced this unit is probably about a third of the size which makes the entire entertainment setup look much cleaner and less bulky. Setup was quite simple. It was essentially plug-and-play, ie, connect everything, power it on, and it worked immediately with the TV. HDMI eARC helps make setup easy.  Honestly I didn’t feel the need to make many adjustments right away because the default "Standard" sound profile already sounded very balanced.  That said, I did use the AI Sonic Auto Room Calibration feature which analyzes your room and adjusts the sound output accordingly. After calibration, dialogue became noticeably clearer and the overall sound felt fuller and more balanced for our living room layout. Voices in movies and TV shows especially benefited from the tuning. For such a compact system the real test is whether the sound quality can measure up, and in my opinion this soundbar/subwoofer combo absolutely delivers. The wireless subwoofer adds solid low-end bass without overpowering the room, while the soundbar itself produces clean, detailed audio across movies, sports, streaming shows, and general TV viewing. Dialogue clarity is excellent, which is one of the biggest things I look for in a sound system. "Voice" mode really helps bring it out, and I've done some tweaking with the "Custom" setting to enhance dialogue as well. Like most soundbars, I expect it will take a little more time to fully dial in all the settings to my preferences and I’m still making small tweaks here and there. But so far I’ve been genuinely impressed with the overall performance. The combination of sleek design, easy setup, smart calibration features, and strong audio quality makes this a fantastic upgrade for my TCL television setup and at a reasonable price point. If you want a soundbar that looks clean, doesn’t dominate your entertainment center, and still produces rich, room-filling sound, the TCL A65K definitely fits that bill.

I went into the TCL A65K with a bit of a weird comparison point. I’m currently downsizing from a full 5.1 floor standing speaker setup because my multi-purpose theater room has slowly turned into a playroom. So while I wasn’t expecting this slim soundbar system to fully replace a much larger speaker setup, I was curious how close it could get while taking up a fraction of the space. The first thing that stands out is the design. This is easily one of the better-looking soundbars I’ve had in my room. The main bar is slim, clean, and blends in fairly well. The subwoofer is also small and slim enough that I can tuck it away behind a blanket ladder and not have it stick out. Setup was also very simple. The sub paired automatically, and HDMI eARC handled most of the work. I did set up the TCL Home app, but I wouldn’t say it is absolutely required. In fact, I preferred using manual settings so I could fine tune things myself. I ended up turning the sub down to -1 and dropping the center channel to -3 while boosting the front channels to +6. That gave me the best balance. For testing, I watched Encanto with my toddler for literally the 15th time this week. On one hand, I’m getting tired of it. On the other hand, it’s actually a great test because I know the songs, dialogue, and little background details painfully well at this point. Dialogue was impressively clear, though just a little thin at times. That’s not too surprising, since midrange is where a lot of soundbars struggle. The bass was not lacking at all, and I actually had to dial it back a bit to keep it from muddying up the midrange. What impressed me most was the overall punch of the system. For something this slim, it held up better than expected, even compared to my much larger speaker setup. The channel separation was also better than I expected. During songs like We Don’t Talk About Bruno the backing vocals had a nice sense of space across the front soundstage. With the front channels turned up, it actually gave me a little bit of that discrete speaker feel, which was impressive for a compact soundbar. That said, I would not describe the surround or Atmos effect as truly immersive. The front soundstage is wide and sounded pretty good, but I didn’t really hear sounds wrapping around the room or coming from above me in any meaningful way. It creates a bigger sound than TV speakers by a mile, but it still feels more like a strong front-facing system than a true surround replacement. Build quality is a little harder for me to judge. The look is fantastic, but the main bar is surprisingly light. I’m from the era where weight equals quality, so the lightness gave me a little pause. It may hold up just fine, but it was almost curiously light when I picked it up. One other disappointment is AirPlay. The Best Buy listing I saw showed AirPlay 2 as a capability, but TCL’s own information did not appear to list it, and I couldn’t find a way to enable it through the TCL app. That’s a pretty big bummer for me, and may even become a dealbreaker because it means I can’t easily connect it into my whole home audio setup without using an adapter. Overall, I’m impressed with the TCL A65K. It looks great, sets up easily, has strong bass, clear dialogue, and a surprisingly wide front soundstage for its size. It doesn’t fully replace a true surround system, and the lack of AirPlay support is disappointing, but as a clean and compact soundbar for a living room, playroom, or smaller theater setup, it has a lot of positives!