VIZIO SB36514-G6 36" 5.1.4 Premium Home Theater Sound System with Dolby Atmos and Wireless Subwoofer, Black

I purchased this soundbar as a family Christmas present to replace a 10+ year old rca system. It is definitely head and shoulders above everything we listened to in the big box stores and light-years better than our old rca. The only gripe we have is the remote. It has a digital display on the remote which is not backlit so it is difficult to read in low light settings. Our Samsung q8 tv has an hdmi-arc input, so we have the soundbar run through that. That basically eliminates using the remote because we can adjust volume through the TV remote. Adjusting the settings on the sound bar is easy without the remote by using the Vizio Smartcast app. During the initial setup we found it frustrating trying to get the soundbar to connect to smart phones and the subwoofer/ surround speakers. But after you figure out how to do it, it is quite simple. The paperwork for setting up the soundbar and all the wireless connections is not very thorough. All in all this soundbar by Vizio is the best sounding system we have heard fro under $2,000 and we are very pleased with our purchase.

This product is an absolute steal at the current pricing. It delivers big, clear sound and an impressive sound stage for 5.1 content. The Atmos effects are also impressive, though certainly a far cry from the effect of having dedicated speakers mounted in the ceiling. All in all I'm pleased with the purchase. That said, there are aspects you should be aware of. I purchased this unit to provide enhanced sound in a home-office. It's were I tend to work, game, and watch movies that the rest of the family has no interest in. My setup involves a 55" Samsung QLED Q80T television, an nVidia Shield set-top-box, a Mac Mini, a PC, and several game consoles.The sound bar uses eARC/ARC. Which means it has only a single input HDMI port and a single output/eARC HDMI port. The logic is that you connect it with a cable to the eARC/ARC port on your television and then you can connect your devices to the other ports on the TV. The TV will then pass the sound to the Sound bar. I can only assume that my TV's implementation is garbage. The first issue is that the TV doesn't pass the proper Soundbar specifications to the connected components. Meaning that my PCs do not see the connection as supporting 5.1 audio and refuse to allow me to setup my sound in this way. The Shield also seemed to have issues playing back Atmos content consistently when connected to the TV (stutters, audio drop-outs, and odd sound artifacts).In the end, I solved all of the these problems by connecting all my devices to an HDMI switch, and connecting the switch to the single HDMI IN port on the soundbar itself. Now all devices detect the proper playback capabilities of the soundbar, and the issues have gone away. This means I get great audio, but introduces a couple of other annoyance. Firstly, with everything going to one port, my TV settings must be shared among all components. i.e. I'm always in Game Mode, or Film Mode, etc. You could of course manually change modes whenever you change devices, but that's tedious. I personally leave things set to "Movie Mode" at all time with my preferred tweaks.Another issue with this setup is that my TV support HDMI 2.1. This gives you extra features on modern game consoles and PC hardware such as variable refresh rate. Unfortunately, the soundbar is HDMI 2.0, as is the TV's eARC port. Meaning I lose these features with the current setup. It's not a huge problem, but notable.The final thing I'll mention is that the Soundbar occasionally sort of locks-up. That is it'll be working fine, but will suddenly stop responding to volume commands from the remote of will refuse to turn off via the remote. It's only happened a couple of times in the few weeks I've been using the soundbar, but I figured it was worth a mention.

I had no trouble setting up the system despite have nothing but a cryptic outline of how to do so with the equipment. The plastic and cloth on the equipment are a disappointment even though they look okay from a distance. However, after working for a few days, the system disconnected for no reason and after reconnecting it and reconfiguring it all over again. I thought ok that wasn't bad but after doing it now at least 4 or 5, it is getting old. Some days it takes several tries to pair it and the devices are six inches apart! And the most annoying part of the process is getting the system to learn the volume control on the remote! And now for the first time it has decided to continue to search for what... I have no idea... the surround sound is connected, balanced, the subwoofer is connected and balanced, the treble, bass, height, and center have all been set! Also I don't care what I have tried, I can't see the screen on this tiny remote at night! It is ridiculous... because this is when we use it the most!!! Cheap little thing! The sound is great, but the equipment is a joke... if a 5 yr old were allowed to play with it... it would not last 5 minutes! Especially when they become as frustrated as I am when it disconnects itself and won't play nice and do what the minimal instructions say it should do... but if you like to fight for good sound... the price is awesome, the sound is even better, and you would enjoy this system... but don't wait until the last minute to turn it on to watch your live favorite movie, show or sporting event because it will fail at the most inconvenient time, say kick off of the Ohio State - Michigan game!!! Buy yourself some patience when you order this system, you'll need it!

Was hesitant to buy with mixed reviews, price was also still to much considering it’s a updated model but luckily the price changed was right and well worth it. Perfect application for what we were looking for. Sound is better than I thought love the flexibility of controls it has. Not disappointed would recommend if you can still find this model. Easy to set up