![]() ![]() While its streaming is redundant for people who already have a Roku or other streamer in their system, the smart soundbar brings a wealth of content and enjoyable sound quality to older TVs for not very much money.If you simply want to improve your TV’s sound with a compact soundbar that takes up little space, the Yamaha SR-C20A or the Vizio M-Series 2.1 are some good choices. If you're starting from scratch or just want to keep the number of devices to a minimum, however, the Roku is a fine choice.Īs good as the Roku sounds, it's outclassed for home theater by the Vizio SB3612, and so if you're not fussed about the streamer aspect, or having HDMI, the Vizio is a cheaper, better option. What do you want a soundbar for? Is it to play from your existing sources? Get the Yamaha YAS-109. Not in the same way that the subwoofer is. It did add a lot of ambience to movies, but was it worth the $150-$200 upgrade? No. While I found the the speakers and the sound bar were in sync they were both slightly out of sync with the TV but with a bit of adjusting the sound was acceptable. The best surrounds are the ones you need to concentrate on to hear, and I found that about 3 foot away sounded good. As a result I needed to experiment with placement, as the suggested setup in the picture above made the satellites too loud. Lastly, I tried the soundbar with the Roku TV, and quickly found that while there's different sound modes - movies and TV, music and surround only - there's no way to control the volume of the surrounds. It's worth considering the sub though, as it makes it an even better system. I needed to add the Roku sub for better punch, but it makes the product twice the price. Sub made my chair move in a way the sub-less Roku simply couldn't. The jungle came alive, as it had before with the Yamaha, and the It has the unfair advantage of a subwoofer and made its prowess with the content clear. I also compared the Roku to my favorite budget soundbar, the Vizio SB3621. The Yamaha offered more of a thump with the shell trees resulting in more drama, more dynamic range and more bass. Grace Augustine's voice sounded a bit more chesty - but the jungle came to life: Bugs appeared from on high and the noises of the pachyderm thing that charges Jake reverberated around the room. The Yamaha's dialog wasn't as clear - Dr. There were glimpses of ambience on certain sounds, but it wasn't as involving when the action ramped up: I felt a lack of danger or dynamics as the Thanator was attacking. There wasn't as much of the jungle's ambient buzzing, however, and neither was there any thump when the shell trees collapsed. It was still perfectly audible within the CNET's compact testing room, however, and I found the dialog at the start Avatar's Thanator chase scene admirably clear. The Roku doesn't go all that loud, but least it doesn't distort at maximum volume. Going back to the Roku I found the organ sounded much more, er, organic and integrated within the song. Yet no matter which sound mode I chose on the Yamaha, the song's stabby organ chords sounded too harsh and difficult to listen to. ![]() I compared the sound against the Yamaha YAS-109 and found that the Yamaha made the song bigger and more majestic sounding, with still discernible bass. The song sounded much better with the Reduced Bass setting enabled. For example, I found the bass was a little overpowering for our test track Red Right Hand by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. ![]()
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