Review: Vizio VSB210WS Sound Bar with Wireless Subwoofer

Written on Aug 1, 2009 by Steve and filed under Reviews, VIZIO

It’s a generally accepted belief that a 5 or 7 dedicated channel surround system is pretty much always the better choice over a sound bar, but there are times when it’s just not feasible.  Whether your space is limited, or you don’t want to deal with wiring speakers all over the place, there is absolutely a market for good quality sound bars.  Vizio’s latest sound bar product (model VSB210WS) has the added bonus of a wireless subwoofer.  A subwoofer is always good to have, and the fact that it’s a wireless subwoofer makes it even more appealing to those looking for ease of setup and flexibility of positioning within their room.

The Vizio sound bar with wireless subwoofer is a smart-looking system.  It will blend in with many types of decor and if you have a Vizio TV, then it’s sure to blend in well.  The sound bar has a mesh front over with a brushed metal Vizio badge right in the middle.  The rest of the housing is high gloss black plastic with “chrome” edging.  On the bottom of the sound bar housing are some metal brckets that double as a stand or wall mounts.  This same motif is applied to the subwoofer as well (mesh front cover, high gloss black cabinet).

Specifications

• Sound Bar: 4 x 3″ mid/bass transducers, 2 x 3/4″ aluminum dome tweeters
• Sound bar frequency response: 80Hz – 20 kHz
• Amplifier: Integrated Class D at 15×2 channel and 0.01% THD
• Wireless subwoofer: 6.5″ long throw (high excursion) drive
• Subwoofer frequency response: 35Hz to 80 Hz
• Wireless range: 30 feet, clear line of sight
• Inputs: SPDIF, 2 x RCA on back of sound bar; 24v DC on backs of both sound bar and subwoofer unit
• Sound pressure level: 90 dB @ one meter
• Dimensions: Sound bar- 39.95″ wide x 4.8″ high x 4.3″ deep; Subwoofer: 11.2″ wide x 12.3″ high x 11.9″ deep
• Weight: Sound bar – 9.1 lbs, Subwoofer – 16 lbs

Setup

Vizio works hard on making sure their products are easy to set up and this system is no exception – I don’t think it could be much easier.  The contents of the box consist of the sound bar, subwoofer, two power supplies and other small  bits (manual, remote, RCA cable, mounting hardware), so it’s very easy to unpack.  Once everything is plugged into power, and you’ve connected one set of the audio input jacks to your audio source, you’re ready to go.  The power button on the sound bar unit controls the entire system (even the wireless subwoofer).  Also, the sound bar and subwoofer should already be “paired”, which was done at the factory.  (If things aren’t working correctly, the manual describes the pairing procedure).

The other major piece of setup will be where you place the subwoofer and this may take some tweaking.  With other systems (and larger subwoofers), the position of the subwoofer was not as critical since the sound seems to fill the room wherever you put it.  However, this Vizio subwoofer didn’t produce that same kind of sound and I could always tell where the subwoofer was (instead of feeling/hearing it all around me).  Definitely try different positions and orientations until you find a spot that works well for you.

Usability

Getting set up is a breeze, and skimming through the instruction manual, the sound bar doesn’t look too hard to operate.  There are just a few buttons along the top of the sound bar: power, input (to switch between inputs), Vol +, Vol -, Mute, TVVOL (enables the SRS TruVolume leveling to prevent loud commercials), TSHD (toggles SRS TruSurround HD effect on and off).  The remote control has the sames set of buttons, with two extra ones – to increase or decrease the volume of the subwoofer.  The controls are pretty self-explanatory, and my confusion started when reading the manual about the LED array the shows the system status.

The LED array is made up of 10 LEDs: 7 white, 1 orange, and 2 blue.  What gets confusing is the description of how this array works.  The first LED is the power indicator.  The next 6 (white) are the volume indicators and they have 3 levels of brightness for a total of 18 “notches” of volume (“this one goes to 18“).  However, the volume is not the only thing that these 6 LEDs indicate.  They also indicate subwoofer volume while flashing; LEDs 2, 4, and 6 act as input indicators (3 inputs on the back).  The 8th LED is orange to show subwoofer link status.  The 9th shows SRS TruVolume status and the 10th indicates SRS TruSurroundHD status.  If I’ve lost you – don’t worry, I felt the same way.  Regardless – once you get a feel for how it works, you’ll probably think no more of it.  The nice thing is that the array stays lit only for 5 seconds after you make an adjustment.  Vizio wouldn’t want to distract you from your favorite movie.

Performance

While I had this system set up, I watched several different types of programming: movies, sports (baseball games), and other miscellaneous programming.  I wanted a chance to test the TruVolume leveling system and I wanted to evaluate how the TruSurroundHD effect did as far as producing actual surround sound.  The Vizio sound bar was hooked up to the audio output from my TV and the TV’s internal speakers were turned off.

When watching movies, the sound bar did a good job of really making the “center channel” more audible.  The center channel is where a lot of the dialog is heard.  With the built-in TV speakers, you would have to turn up the main volume more (which makes everything louder), but the sound bar did a good job of really highlighting the dialog.  Also during movies, with the TruSurroundHD enabled, there was a slight amount of surround sound – I would give it a fair rating.  Not quite enough to make you think the monster was sneaking up behind you, but enough to be a nice improvement over non-surround sound.

During sports programming or other programming, the center channel is not quite as necessary, but the surround sound gives you more of a feeling that you’re actually in the ballpark.

One of the other main features of this Vizio sound bar is the TruVolume feature which limits the audio output so you don’t get commercials that are louder than the movie that you’re watching.  This feature is effective, but I also found that it doesn’t distinguish between regular programming and commercials, which is no surprise.  For example, when I was watching the lobby attack scene from The Matrixwith the TruVolume system turned on, a lot of the gunshots and higher output sounds seem “flattened”.  With the system off, it sounded just fine – with distinctive, loud gunshots standing out from the background of spent shells hitting the floor to the sound of techno music.  So, the TruVolume system works, but you may not want it on all the time (like when watching a movie).

Conclusion

While the surround effect is not amazing and the TruVolume audio output leveling system will limit all audio (not just the commericals), there’s definitely something to be said for a sound bar with wireless subwoofer for the price at which you can get the Vizio VSB21oWS.  The sound bar is still a significant improvement over the built-in speakers and a wireless subwoofer is really pretty awesome.  The wireless actually works very well – there was no noticeable delay of any kind and it worked out of the box.  I do wish the subwoofer was a bit more powerful and had a bit more frequency range on the lower end.  The LED indicator/status array was a bit wonky, but it’s definitely something that’s possible to get used to.  Major kudos to Vizio for making this system so simple to setup and use.

3.5 out of 5 stars