Vizio V-Series 2.1 Home Therater Audio - V21x-J8

NEW EDIT AND UPDATE BELOW! What a disappointment. This particular Vizio soundbar is twice defective. Do not buy this soundbar. I am most disappointed because I also own a great 65" Vizio TV and an older model soundbar used in the bedroom. This one/model I purchased for my office and was planning to use it with a Panasonic plasma TV. Yes, the plasma is now considered old/outdated TV technology. However, it has a beautiful picture and works great. The following is my experience with this soundbar and Vizio support. The first SB I received would only work for about 5 seconds and then silence. And BTW - this SB is really easy to set up. Just plug in the power cord to the subwoofer, connect the power cord to the SB, and plug in the HDMI-ARC cable from the TV to the SB. Once you do that the SB recognizes the input and begins working. Easy! However, it would only stay on for about 5 seconds and then turn off. After my initial troubleshooting, I contacted Vizio support. We tried everything several times and nothing resolved my issue. (actually Visio's issue now) Vizio then shipped me a complete replacement. I did have to provide them (Vizio) a CC so they could place a hold for the price I paid Amazon in case I didn't return the SB. The second/replacement SB I received at first worked great. For a while. Again, the setup was easy and the SB worked and sounded great. The next morning I turned on the TV and SB and it worked for about 3 hours. Then it failed. Once again I tried troubleshooting it. No luck so I called support again. This time after about 1 hour - 15 minutes with Level 1 support and without resolving the issue I requested a call back from a higher level support. Crickets. No call back after waiting several hours. There is something very strange and wrong about this SB. Once it turned itself off I discovered that if I lightly touched the SB it would come back on - for about 5 seconds and then shut off. One time I got it working again and then slightly scooted it - and it shut off. Something is very wrong with this SB and I haven't a clue why it doesn't work properly. Vizio doesn't seem to know either. It's such a simple SB as it's only the bar/speaker and subwoofer. Very similar to the one in my bedroom which has been awesome! Bottom line - do not buy this model of Vizio soundbar. EDIT and REVIEW UPDATE 8-27-24 After all of the above I resend my Do Not Buy suggestion and 1 star rating. Here's why.... I received a phone call from a high level customer rep and support person and on the day I was going to return both SB's. Now it's working great. During my discussing with the support rep I mentioned that I could simply touch the SB and it'd start working for 5 seconds before turning off. She then suggested that I move the SB away from the TV as far as the cables allowed. (I had the sound bar positioned right next to and centered in front of the TV screen.) I then sat the SB on the floor about 4-5 feet away from the TV. And guess what? It started working perfectly and did so for a short test period. As you can see from the photo, I now have the SB sitting just below the TV on a shelf. It's been working perfectly and the sound quality IMO is really good from a fairly low cost SB and subwoofer setup. It seems that this 12 year old Panasonic plasma TV emits some sort of magnetic or other field/wave that interferes with the SB. Strange. Anyway, I'm very pleased with the SB and now recommend it with 5-stars.

Why did you pick this product vs others?: Perfect speaker system to give you better sound from flatscreen tvs with speakers that project sound downward. This will push the sound toward you, which makes a world of difference. The soundbar is small and I have it mounted just below the tv on the wall, it almost looks like part of the tv. The remote is simple but once you set the bass/-treble it works flawlessly integrated with the TV and firestick remote to turn on with the TV and adjust volume. Can also link up to it through bluetooth for playing music through your phone. Don't really notice sound or bass from the seperate bass speaker. All I wanted was to hear my tv and this bar adds bass, treble and pumps the volume 1000% better than the measly tv speakers. Perfect for the price point.

Bought this for one of my best friends for Christmas last year and we use it every weekend when we all hang out and eat dinner together highly recommend sounds good good bass totally good setup

After much research I decided on this model based based on reviews and owning Vizio sound products in the past. It arrived quickly and well packaged in a very highly promoted box. If you live in an area where theft could be a problem be sure to be there when it arrives or change the packaging type when asked if you prefer manufacturer boxing or not. Sometimes that is an option while checking out from Amazon online. The most awesome part was how simple and quickly installation was. I literally plugged in the bar and subwoofer and connected the HDMI cable to my tv and bar and suddenly I heard a voice. The sound bar talked me through set up! Crazy cool! As far as how it sounds. This is an area I feel like I'll never truly be pleased. As a musician that plays many instruments but prefers bass guitar, I'll never feel like there's enough bass. For "normal" ears it's probably fine. You can definitely hear low ends and it's not muddy. Or a constant low end hum. But it also doesn't rattle the floor, pictures on the wall, or cups in the cabinet. Nor can you feel it in your chest. It is loud enough and you can clearly hear dialogue. It's also nice that you can adjust the subwoofer separately from the sound bar. There are preset equalization settings and also separate treble/bass adjustments. The LED lights in the sound bar light up to show you levels on adjustments. The bar comes with wall mounting brackets and hardware. It's a good value and fair price. I'm happy with it. It would get a solid 5 star if the bass hit harder. It's close. I would happily recommend this product.

Pleasantly surprised for the cost. Very quick set up. Plug everything in, turn it on, and it works perfectly. All functions work as advertised. Nice to have separate bass and treble controls for the bar. You can really dial in a great balanced sound with the sub. The sub is surprisingly good. Smaller than a shoe box, but really pumps, with head room to spare. Works great for the bedroom, but would probably be ok for a small living room as well.