Vizio M-Series 5.1 Sound Bar Review (M51a-H6) | How is it this good?

[Music] recently we reviewed the vizio elevate sound bar and that thing was pretty incredible it gave you legitimate dolby atmos surround sound but it came at a price today's soundbar system is way more affordable [Music] welcome back everyone i'm caleb denison and today we're reviewing the vizio m-series 5.1 soundbar which offers virtual dolby atmos and dcsx at a very accessible price point but did they have to cut any corners how does it sound we're going to find out before we jump into it though have you experienced dolby atmos in a home setting as opposed to like a commercial theater and what did you think is that something you want in your life leave me a comment about that down below and of course like and subscribe to support the channel we appreciate it and as always we've got affiliate links to the products that we review down in the description thanks a lot let's do it [Music] what we're looking at here is a very understated one might even say boring looking sound bar and that's a very good thing it doesn't call attention to itself and it shouldn't you should hear it not see it so i think that vizio did a good job of making it kind of disappear into the room it's got a smooth charcoal gray finish and it comes with the soundbar as you see here which is about 36 inches wide it packs six drivers so that's gonna be three sort of mid woofers and three tweeters uh one two three channels there and then you get two surround speakers with just sort of that mid-range driver built into them no tweeters there and then of course the subwoofer here which is cute but it also has a pretty robust six inch driver down at the bottom let's swing around the back side of the soundbar really quick where it's really simple you've got a power port and then you've got an auxiliary input port which you could use for a smart speaker so that you could control the system and get audio from that smart speaker out of it and then you've got two hdmi connections one is for plugging a single device into the sound bar i'm not sure how practical that is anymore and then you have an earc port yes indeed this does have e-arc kind of need that for the dolby atmos and dtsx so that's really impressive at this price point on the back of the surround speakers you'll find an rca port that's how it connects to the subwoofer which gets the surround signal wirelessly and then above that is a little screw hole that you can use to mount the speaker now if you're at all familiar with vizio sound bars then you know that you get everything you need in the box so let's take a look at that i love how organized vizio makes this everything's really clearly labeled you've got two power cords one's longer than the other so if your subwoofer is further away from an outlet you could use it for that if you wanted you've got two surround sound speaker cables rca tips pretty lengthy these guys then there's an hdmi cable now i want to mention earc does work on this but this is not probably an hdmi 2.1 cable so if you are going to be doing adobe atmos or dts x high bandwidth stuff from say an xbox series x console you would want to replace this hdmi cable with an hdmi 2.1 cable enough about that remote here we've got an optical cable here a couple of velcro zip ties interesting a couple of analog cables you could connect your smart speaker with those if you wanted to and a really classy move they've actually included wall mounting hardware for the surround speakers now there are actually two different setup scenarios you can go with on this particular sound bar one is a conventional setup where you've got the sound bar up front you've got the two surround speakers positioned just behind you and to the left and the right and then the subwoofer is back there with the surround speakers because it's getting that surround signal wirelessly and then powering the surround speakers the other way you could go is have the two surround speakers flank the sound bar this is really handy for people who don't have a lot of room for an elaborate surround setup that also allows you to place the subwoofer toward the front of the room and vizio claims that in this particular arrangement it's still going to pull off some pretty impressive surround sound effects getting everything set up is pretty much just plug it in and after that it's automated turn everything on everything will sync up and connect and you'll be good to go now i don't think that folks are going to be putting these in massive cavernous rooms but it's true that if you get the subwoofer too far away from the soundbar you could have some signal drop out and that kind of manifests itself as a popping noise so if you get something like that keep in mind something's probably messing with the signal between these two components like the vizio elevate the m-series 5.1 surround sound system has a pretty comprehensive control system and it's all controlled with this particular remote control there's a little guide on the back of the remote in case you're confused by what you see on the little lcd screen up top but it's actually fairly simple what i like most though is that you get complete control of the surround levels the subwoofer level and there's a fair amount of eq options as well okay so that's enough about how it works let's have a listen and talk about how it sounds [Music] i'm here to tell you that this surround system sounds great like it has no business sounding this good for its price it's pretty stinking incredible even for vizio which is known for turning out some pretty high value sound bars so let me try to explain why it sounds so good my go-to for dolby atmos surround sound soundtracks is always going to be mad max i know it in and out i know exactly what to expect from it i've heard it at its absolute best and while this system doesn't pull off the atmos trick all that well as just a general soundbar surround system the fidelity is fantastic the surround effects are contiguous like the swirling surround effects at the intro of mad max really have a way of going around you and if there's any holes in the sound you're gonna hear them this was a perfect circle of sound not only that but the blend between the surround speakers and the surround bar was excellent perhaps one of the most notable aspects of this surround sound demo is the narration at the beginning the voice is very deep and it's very gravelly and if your system relies very heavily on the subwoofer to make that happen and there's not a good blend between the sound bar and the subwoofer you're going to hear the voice coming from the subwoofer and in this case that could be right behind you or right beside you because the subwoofer sits towards the back of the room there was no attention drawn towards the subwoofer in an undue way at all again the blend between the sound bar and the subwoofer is super smooth and the subwoofer is not being asked to do too much so it doesn't call attention to itself you know it's there though it's definitely a pounder i mean for a six inch sub it's pretty impressive it's not a super high end sub it's not really punchy necessarily but if you want to feel like you're sitting in a theater in the comfort of your own home this system absolutely pulls that off now with a lot of sound bars i hear other pitfalls like the treble is far too sharp not the case here it's perfectly balanced maybe the dialogue gets muffled not the case here it's perfectly clear sometimes the mid-range is just kind of muddy down in the lower end and it's just a jumbled mess again not the case here everything is very clear and well defined now sound bars aren't really known for being musical per se but i did listen to some music and it sounded great the fidelity that you got out of the movies translated well to music listening as well when you have good fidelity you have good fidelity now there's not a lot of instrumental separation and the sound stage isn't super deep i mean this is not an audiophile product it's not going to compete with a dedicated music system the bass is nice and rich i feel like instrumental textures are really good i mean it's again very respectable i think people go into budget friendly sound bars with managed expectations i mean as long as it sounds better than the tv speakers you've got it's probably gonna be okay right this is far beyond that this blew away my expectations and i think it's going to surprise you as well again if you're looking for an experience that's fairly close to a movie theater in the comfort of your own home this sound bar is a knockout thanks as always for watching everyone were you as surprised by the outcome as i was leave me a comment about that down below like subscribe hit that notification bell and here's two other videos i think you'll like

Channel: Digital Trends

Views: 441,255

Keywords: M51a-H6, vizio m51a-h6, vizio sound bar, m series sound bar review, Vizio M-Series 5.1 Sound Bar Review, vizio soundbar, sound bar, surround sound, vizio m series, dolby atmos soundbar, best soundbar, dolby atmos soundbar review, vizio m series soundbar, home theater, 5.1 surround sound setup, 5.1 surround sound, vizio, home theater setup, home theater system, dts x, dts x soundbar, best soundbar 2021, Best budget soundbar, soundbar review, Sound bar review, vizio atmos

Id: nqSbQf3Gcm4

Length: 8min 9sec (489 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 03 2021