Soundbars are difficult. They have to be sufficiently big that they sound higher than the dinky audio system in your TV, however they have to be low-cost sufficient that you simply don’t balk at upgrading your sound after simply spending some huge cash on a TV. I didn’t get to spend sufficient time with Amazon’s $119.99 Fireplace TV Soundbar, however I can verify it sounds larger than it seems.

What I didn’t hear was loads of element. Voices rumble with applicable quantities of bass — however within the very audio-unfriendly surroundings we listened to the soundbar in, dialogue was a bit of more durable to trace.

Solely folks spending $120 on a soundbar don’t essentially need pristine element. They need it to be loud and to have all of the bass that TV audio system sometimes lack. With the garbled state of contemporary film and TV dialogue, it’s already tough to listen to what persons are saying, so the shortage of element within the speaker I heard may not be a difficulty — and once more, this was a really quick demo. We’ll want to spend so much extra time with the Fireplace TV Soundbar earlier than we are able to say it’s value it over one thing just like the $99 Vizio V-Sequence. That one sounds very good for a $100 soundbar.

However I believe what I’m most enthusiastic about with this bar is the stuff we haven’t gotten to check —just like the setup course of. Many soundbar makers attempt to use software program to enhance on the audio system and make them sound costlier than they’re. However that software program may be fiddly and annoying to make use of. The promise of the Fireplace TV Soundbar is that it’s going to work with any Fireplace TV product with no messy setup required. That might make it immediately extra interesting than the Vizio V-Sequence for lots of present Fireplace TV customers.

And it really works with non-Fireplace TV stuff, too. It has each Bluetooth and HDMI with assist for ARC and eARC. The speaker is a two-channel stereo setup with assist for DTS: Digital:X and Dolby Audio. There are additionally bodily buttons on the highest. That appears foolish till you’re cooking dinner, the audio is cranked so excessive your ears are bleeding, and your have to decrease the amount is bigger than your want to search out the distant.

It appears like we’re slowly transferring away from that interval when soundbars all have been completely managed by distant, and that’s a really welcome factor.

The Amazon Fireplace TV Soundbar is out there from Amazon beginning at this time.