If you’re looking for a room anchoring centerpiece, booming unparalleled sound, and a hub to your smart home, look else ware.
This Yamaha sound bar was my first exposure into Yamaha’s modern home theater lines. I’ve known them to make high quality receivers and speakers, but they are new to the sound bar and multi room audio market.
This sound bar is made to disappear into your home. It has a nondescript look. That’s good if you want to ignore it, but it’s bad in that it SURELY does NOT look premium. Plain cloth and printed buttons make it look a bit dated already, even though it’s a new release. I’ve divided the rest of review into the setup, the tech, and the sound:
**The set up**: Set up is quick and easy through an ARC cable if your TV is capable. Including downloading the related app and making an account, TOTAL set up was MAYBE 5 minutes max. It's plug an play. That's why sound bars are taking over this tech area, its the thing JUST WORKS. Using ARC mode, you run one cable to the TV from the soundbar, and power cable from the soundbar to the wall and that’s it! I used this with both Vizio and Samsung TVs and there was literally no set up required. It JUST WORKS with the TV’s remote. A few sound customizing settings are only available via the included (and very cheap looking) remote, but you won’t need to adjust those often. The app is very simplistic, it connects via WIFI (which you’ll need to do to enable voice commands), and it gives you the ability to change volume, source, and voice volume. After my app was connected, it required re-paring several times which was quite frustrating.
**The tech**: As of September 2019, this sound bar is compatible with Alexa, allowing you to give commands and receive simple tips like weather and sports scores directly to the sound bar (no other hubs required). If you have another alexa enabled device, you ARE able to control this unit through the other devices. That, however, is pretty limited to “Play **** on sound bar”, and that’s about it. If you’re using this in place of an Echo, you’ll be thrilled with its speaker capabilities (it is a sound bar, after all!). As of now, though, it’s NOT capable of multi room audio through Alexa; NOR can it pull off Yamaha’s proprietary audio solution “music cast”. From a “smart“ standpoint, think of it as a super high quality Amazon echo that DOESN’T currently support multi room play.
Yamaha speakers with Music Cast tech can all be tethered together with a smart app to play the same source audio and be driven by a single app. Yamaha has a bar that supports this, but you’ll pay a few hundo more. This bar is NOT music cast enabled. If you want multiroom audio, look else ware. If you’re on a budget and this doesn’t matter to you, then this may be your bar!
**The sound**: so of course, this isn’t going up against super high-end home theaters. Its purpose is to be easily set up, disappear into the wall, and give a bang and oomph to your TV with basically no exposed wires. That it does. If you’re expecting 300$ sound, you’ll be pleased. It competes with similarly priced sound bars that DON’T include Alexa capability. With the added benefit of Alexa, you’ll find yourself using this more than any sound bar you’ve had in the past. IF you’re upgrading a similar unit based on sound alone, I fear you’ll be disappointed. The sound is great for a soundbar…. But it’s a low-mid end sound bar. At this price segment, you get what you pay for, and it won’t compete with the luxury guys, but at ½ the price, why should it! Smaller home theaters will out preform this, but they come with ugly wires, heavy cables, and they surely won’t be as smart.
IN CONCLUSION…
This leaves this sound bar in an awkward position. While its sound is booming and its profile is slim, it can’t pull off multiroom audio through Alexa, but it works as an Alexa speaker. This leaves it being able to be driven by an Alexa command “play Bach on the sound bar”; but it won’t easily take other Alexa commands “turn the sound bar down” and worst of all CANNOT “play Bach on the sound bar and on my kitchen echo” as it doesn’t currently support multiroom streaming. Couple with the fact that Yamaha has awesome software that pulls off multiroom streaming on its own (music cast) in OTHER Yamaha bars, that ISNT available with this bar, I’d have to reconsider going with another model.
If you’re replacing a dumb smart bar, and this is your only Alexa unit, this bar is for YOU! I cannot emphasize that enough as it blew my old name brand sound bar out of the water. It’s at a great price point, classy look, it’s easy to hook up, and the sound is far above average. If you’re looking for a super smart bar with multi-room support, you’ll need to look else ware (but you’ll be paying a premium.)
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