VIZIO - SmartCast 5.1 Channel Sound Bar System with 5-1/4" Wireless Subwoofer - Black

After reading numerous reviews on a number of soundbars, I settled on this one. While I almost purchased the cheaper Vizio 36" soundbar system, I wanted the built-in Chromecast Audio and HDMI-ARC of this model. I'm glad I chose this system - I've been using the Chromecast Audio function nearly every day, and the overall sound and user experience of this model is excellent. It took me a day or two of tweaking the sound settings to my liking, but this system really does sound excellent with both movies and music. The dedicated center channel speaker is great for dialogue, and the surround sound is pretty neat. This system gets LOUD and puts out tons of base - so much so that I've had to turn down the subwoofer so as not to disturb my neighbors. You certainly won't be wanting for loudness/volume. Thankfully the audio and dialogue is clear enough that I can keep the volume at lower levels without struggling to hear things. Using HDMI-ARC has successfully allowed me to control volume with my Roku TV remote. The TV also turns the soundbar on and off when the TV turns on and off, which is nice. It means that I only need the Roku TV remote, and didn't have to purchase another universal remote. That said, the Vizio remote is very responsive, and I do use it, mostly to control volume and play/pause/skip when listening to music via Chromecast. I only have a few complaints. While the wifi/Chromecast/Vizio app control works most of the time, they aren't perfect and occasionally become unresponsive. It's unclear if it's the soundbar or my wifi network, but perfect reliability is hard to come by with wifi devices anyway. Trying to connect a few times, or trying through the Vizio app instead of Spotify (or vice versa) often helps. If all else fails, a router reboot and soundbar reboot can help. Again, in my experience, this is par for the course with wifi-connected products, and probably has more to do with using wifi in an apartment complex than with the soundbar itself. Second, the soundbar does randomly turn off every now and again. This has only happened while watching TV for longer periods of time without adjusting the volume. SlingTV on my Roku TV seems to be a particular culprit. I have the soundbar connected via HDMI-ARC, and some internet sleuthing suggests that this may be an HDMI-ARC quirk. It's a little annoying, and it would be nice if Vizio would release a bug fix, but the soundbar turns back on almost instantly with the remote, so I'll live. Finally, as some reviews point out, this system is not plug-and-play. Since it really is a 5.1 system, there's a lot of tweaking of speaker levels, bass/treble/sub levels, etc. to be done to produce the best sound. I found the default settings to be too heavy on the low and high ends for both music and movies, but after adjusting things, I'm quite pleased with the sound. The Vizio app is a huge boon, much easier to adjust settings in the app than with the remote. The soundbar automatically switches from Movie to Music sound profiles (and bass/treble settings) as you switch between inputs, which is great, but the sub/speaker level settings don't switch - so you'll have to tune these settings to best balance music and movies. Even with a few quibbles, I'm pleased with this system, and I agree with the reviewers that list this as the best system under $500 or so.

. I was looking for a replacement audio system for an older Bose Cinemate II system. Wanted the HDMI ARC ability to be able to turn on the TV and sound system automatically. This system does have all that along with a nice contemporary design. Looked good sitting under my 55” Sony TV. Not too wide or small. Sound was not all that bad AFTER you adjust the settings to your liking. Will take some time to play around tweaking things as there are a number of settings beyond simple bass and treble. Setup was pretty easy (after all, it's just cables to connect!) and the cable lengths seemed appropriate for the surrounds. Speakers did have some weight to them and definitely did not feel real like cheap plastic ones. I personally did not like the silver finish to the speakers and sub. A solid black finish would have made these blend in better with the TV and setup. For me, this was used in the family room main TV and did not want to use the surrounds as back speakers. I placed them off to the far sides. The surround speakers do fill in the audio ‘width' a bit. Where like most single sound bars you get a very center-focused audio experience, placing surrounds to the sides fills this empty space in some. I am one of those that has a love/hate relationship with the center channel speaker! Simply cannot stand the hyper-focused and sometimes ‘hollow’ sound. While the audio volume can get loud (relatively speaking), if you like to crank up the volume and have a larger room it may be lacking and get into an over-driven sound. While I can't comment on others who reviewed this as 'perfect' sound or have nine !’s in their review, there are things to consider. First, the remote. While a nice touch, is simply just not thought out well (or done on the cheap by Vizio designers). It has an LED display that is so difficult to read unless in bright light. There is no remote backlight so forget trying to configure the system in anything but a brightly lit room. There are level indicator LED’s stacked vertically in the sound bar (typical for Vizio sound bars) that are, well, odd. In trying to indicate different setting levels, the LEDs light up bottom to top and each LED has two brightness levels. Takes some getting used to. I returned it as I simply could not (after dozens of tries) get a setting to where the system sounded good to me (and more importantly, my wife!). Had a hard time balancing out the hyper-center sound that is typical in almost all soundbars by using the rears as fronts. It may have been due in part to my TV provider (Dish), but some channels sounded fine but then for others the audio had an annoying “pop” in the bass for vocals. If I lowered the bass then the other channels sounded flat.

Ordered Vizio E6 5.1 system after reading lot of reviews and deal price. So far the experience has been very good, Sound quality is top notch almost on par with high cost systems. Connection has been smooth and easy. Vizio has provided all essential cables, and that's really great considering the cost. My brief analysis on usage so far - 1. Sound-bar and Subwoofer sound quality is good. 2. Surround theater experience has been good, remote has setting to increase surround effect and other settings, though no setting for satellite speakers. 3. Remote has several settings, and is lightweight easy to use. 4. Came with all essential wires, no need to buy anything from outside. 5. Satellite speakers and subwoofers are not very bulky, hence don't occupy much space. 6. Perfect sound system solution for small room's /apartments. ew points where i felt could have been better to improve overall experience. 1. Satellite speakers sound almost non existent feel during overall experience. Unfortunately there is no setting to increase satellite speaker volume or tweak them. I really tried to hear any sound coming from them increasing the surround effect, though no success so far. This has been my major disappointment so far. I was really hoping for satellite speakers adding to the overall experience, but so far no sound felt. 2. Remote settings cannot be seen in dark, we need to have light around to see and operate if needed. 3. Manual or some kind of guide/instructions on how to achieve best surround sound theater experience could have been of great help. Using that info. module could be placed accordingly to achieve best effect. Though no regrets, one can move around and check what's best setting for them. Overall satisfied with the product considering the cost and overall quality!!!..Look forward to it running well for at least few years.

I was originally looking for just a Soundbar/sub-woofer combo but came across this adding two surround sound speakers and I'm glad I did. Setup was a breeze, and the wiring was very convenient for me since the Subwoofer is wireless and the 2 satellite speakers plug into the subwoofer, not the soundbar. So it was a lot easier to have wires behind me instead of having to snake towards the front where the TV was. I paired this new system with my new TV, which was a TCL 6-Series Roku 55inch. I initially had some audio synchronization issues. After resetting the soundbar and messing with the audio options in the TV, I realized that I had to change the Audio from "Auto" to whatever the second to last option was. Apparently the bottom option (which would theoretically be the most advanced) was causing a lag so I chose the option above it and have never had any issues since (and yes surround sound still works very well). I do have it setup with my TV through ARC HDMI so my TV can turn it on/off, although I have noticed sometimes it doesn't turn off when the TV turns off (the soundbar does but the subwoofer doesn't, then the system turns back on in standby). To solve this I had to turn on "Eco" mode with the soundbar but the issue here is that if I mute the TV for something and then go to un-mute it, the soundbar will have turned itself off if enough time passed. Overall I'm very happy. I'm sure there are more advanced systems, but for the cost and fullness of sound, you can't beat it. One of the first things we watched had a doorbell ring in the episode, but it only came out of the left side speaker which happened to be where our front door was located. My whole family turned to look to see who was at the door before we realized it was the show! Very cool

Sound Quality : I have a LG 2.1 channel sound bar which works perfectly fine. i wanted to try out surround sound speakers for watching movies. this 5.1 channel sound bar makes such a huge difference. its like being in an actual theater!. Actual surround sound speakers make it so much better than the virtual surround provided by few sound bars. The sound quality is really good too, much better than the Bose solo and few other LG,Samsung sound bars in this price range, plus you get 5.1 channels for ~180$. Settings: you can control the bass, treble, Center( dialog), surround balance/volume and subwoofer from the remote or the vizio smart cast mobile app. has 3 EQ modes - Movie,Music, Direct. You can enable/disable surround sound, TruVolume, Night mode. The remote is not that great , i find the app more easier to control. Chromecast / Google home : this has built-in chromecast support , so you can cast songs directly from the mobile apps for Spotify, Pandora, Google music etc. It uses your wi-fi to play songs directly. i prefer this to bluetooth , as you can text/call without stopping the music plus it wont run your phone battery down and no need to switch inputs on the sound bar. I can ask google home mini to play songs on the sound bar. it will automatically turn on the soundbar and play the music. i can play/pause/stop all with just voice controls without touching any remote. Tips : - To control the volume of soundbar from other remotes and for better sound quality, make sure you are connected to TV via the HDMI ARC connection on both ends and that you have enabled the HDMI-CEC mode on the TV. i can control the sound from my Roku remote. i ask my google home to turn on/off the TV and the sound bar automatically turns on and off with the TV. with this, all i need is one remote to control TV and soundbar. - Make sure to turn off the Eco mode. this causes issues with casting songs and can be little slow in powering it on. Cons: - No display on the sound bar. hard to decipher the LED flashes. - Remote could have been better. but i use the mobile app anyways and one less remote to use.

Setup was very easy, just minutes. Used Vizio Customer Support and they quickly resolved one issue I caused after setup; great and easy support source. Sensational improvement over standard tv sound system. 5.1 system separates sounds of tv or Pandora broadcasts in ways I never knew existed: a transforming experience. Remote, and especially the Vizio SmartCast App downloaded to my Android phone makes finite sound adjustments a snap making quick adjustments with various tv and music broadcasts. Made our 18' x 16' Family Room a music hall. Perfect in this room providing tremendous volume, bass, treble separation, etc. With some standard tv broadcasts of sports events our tv often made crowd background noise make commentator speech difficult understand. With 5.1 you can separate sounds/speech in ways you never knew existed; a transforming experience. Vizio packaging was great, contains anything and everything you'd ever need to set it up; no annoying trips for items like cables, etc.. Very well thought out. I agree with other review that tried/returned other soundbars from other manufacturers and then "hit the trifecta" after finally buying/trying this unit. Would I recommend this product? ABSOLUTELY! I'm getting my brother-in-law to get one himself right now. Store set-up demonstrations don't do any justice of what this system can do. Only once you set it up in your own home will you understand what this system will do. We keep on laughing every time we turn it on knowing what we have truly missed up to this point. We've had multiple Sonos Player 1 speakers in the house prior to this. To understand what you get with this Vizio sytem for the price of only one Sonos speaker will blow you away.

I have connected this Visio Soundbar SB3651-E6 to my Visio P65 and have been having issues with sound dropping out when switching inputs and then the TV stops responding (freezes) and I have to unplug the TV, hold the power button in for 10 seconds then plug it back in then it returns to normal. I have connected HDMI ARC out on the Soundbar to the TV's #1 HDMI input then I connected my Frontier FIOS Video Server to HDMI in on the Soundbar. I also have my computer plugged into HDMI #2 on the TV and Amazon's Fire Stick plugged into HDMI #4 on the TV. The problem starts when switching inputs between devices, the picture always remains on but the sound stops working and I have to reset the soundbar by unplugging the power cable from the soundbar then press and hold the power button for 10 seconds (that resets it) plug the power cable back in turn it back on then it starts working OK again. I have it setup this way because when I tell Alexa (yes I also have Alexa connected) to turn on or off the TV both the TV and Soundbar respond respectively, that's because it's using ARC. If I use Optical in from the TV to the Soundbar I can remove both HDMI cables from the Soundbar and plug my Frontier box directly into HDMI #1 , The problem with this connection scenario is that you have to increase the volume almost double then when it's connected thru HDMI and turning the TV and Soundbar on or off together using Alexa will not work!, only the TV shuts off, the Soundbar remains on until you shut it off with the remote or use the power button directly on the Soundbar. When it is working the sound is incredible, much better than using the internal speakers, surround sound is great. Connecting the soundbar,subwoofer and rear speakers was very easy too. I hope Visio has a fix for this ASAP.

But for under $250 it's kinda hard to pass this us. Sure I'd have better sound if I just added to cheap polk speakers to my 2.1 set up (don't like center channels) but the heat output is just too much for the man cave's AC unit to keep up...the summer like weather right now has the room up to 82 degress with no PC or HomeTheater running so I had to look for a cooler solution. This HT in a box fit the bill. Set up was pretty easy, just plug the TV's HDMI Arc into the Soundbar. Slap in the power cords, find the sweet spot for the sub, and then run the wires to the rears - make sure you find your sweet spot before running the rear wires or you may find yourself rerouting them later. The sound itself is quite loud and clear, the sub is kinda, meh. My old logitech PC speakers with a smaller sub and enclosure produces deeper, cleaner bass than this sub does. To me this thing sounds more like a deep buzz than a low hum on occasion. But too much bass bothers the folks I'm trying to isolate myself from downstairs, lol. So no real problem for me. I ended up having to turn of eco mode on since the TV occaionally switched back to speaker first mode instead of ARC and I'd have to go into the TV settings to turn it back and the reboot the speaker system. Not hard work, but frustrating when it happens. I mainly use my nVidia Shield TV and the only issue I have is that in Netflix on Movie or Music EQ the rear surrounds play in stereo. It's a separate audio feed than the fronts and center, but there's no left or right. Switching to Direct Mode and it works as expected, however Kodi, Plex, VLC, and Youtube will play no 5.1 sound in direct mode and I have to switch back to Movie or Music and it plays perfectly with separated left and right rear. No clue what cause the problem. The biggest issue is with Dish, the sync issue is unbearable and there's no adjustment to resync it. Only good thing is that I don't watch regular TV at all. No sync issues with an OTA Antenna or the Shield. Honestly, sure I'd love to have a full size system but the heat limits me. The window in the Man Cave can only hold an 8000BTU unit and the room is 420sq feet with pretty bad insulation (and did I mention upstairs). So this is a perfect compromise. Great sound; Negligible heat. So a winner for me.