VIZIO M-Series 5.1 Premium Sound Bar with Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Bluetooth, Wireless Subwoofer and Alexa Compatibility, M51ax-J6, 2022 Model

This soundbar has the right flexibility, sound quality, and loudness at a very reasonable price. You'll be hard-pressed to get so much for so little in another brand. I'll say I'm happy with how this brand caters to budget conscience customers, without punishing them for being in that group.I've been watching 5.1 movies through my Apple TV and Fire TV (I have both). My TV is arc, not the updated eArc my soundbar supports, so I did have to move some things around to get the Apple TV to play the sound correctly.If you have this issue, you may also find that it's better to plug your Apple TV into the SoundBar's extra HDMI (not to the TV directly), and then plug SoundBar's main eArc HDMI into your TV's Arc HDMI. It has to be Arc or eArc for this to work seamlessly. The SoundBar with then have a dual function. It will be the bridge input for the Apple TV (allowing you to switch your TV to the Apple TV input as you did before), but it will also know how to automatically serve out audio to the soundbar of any other devices connected to your TV when you switch its input. So in other words, when the SoundBar is connected to the Arc or eArc on your actual TV, your TV will detect the SoundBar and when you switch to any other input on your TV, its audio will go out through the SoundBar, even when you're not switched over to the input of which the SoundBar is directly plugged.The Fire TV can continue to be plugged into one of the TV's extra HDMI ports without throwing out the sound. Fire TV will know how to downgrade the sound correctly for arc so it can use the 5.1 available on your 5.1 soundbar. It has to downgrade because arc has a lower bandwidth than the upgraded eArc. Apple TV, on the other hand, is not as kind to older or outdated protocols so may throw 5.1 out altogether if not connected with the workaround.If Apple TV is plugged directly into your soundbar, the soundbar is able to handle the full high-fidelity sound first, without it having to pass through your TV's older arc port which causes Apple TV to throw out 5.1 sound either making it mute or having to be forced down to stereo.I have my Echo plugged in through Aux. I haven't figured that part out yet to get this seamless. It seems the Alexia sounds a bit low or I'm not sure if the sound is coming out as expected. I am asserting that I have to read the manual more to learn how the inputs work or when it automatically switches. I still have to work with that. There is a remote that allows you to manually switch the inputs of the SoundBar (i.e. Bluetooth, Aux, Aux VA (Voice Assistant), USB, HDMI, HDMI arc. HDMI eArc will be your default.But again, I didn't get that sick feeling one can get when you're not sure if you should have bought something or not. This is really good for both movies and music. It's a Sunday Morning right now and I'm playing Lashun Pace before church and the sound is ... well, impressive.

We needed a little sound system for a new 43 inch TV in our bedroom. After researching, we decided on the VIZIO M-Series 5.1 channel system. It had a reasonable price for its application (the foot of our bed). Our expectations were that it would provide simple, basic, sound that would be louder than the TV speakers.After getting everything connected, queueing up a sound-centric movie on Netflix, and sitting back in bed, we fired up a movie.We were blown away! The VIZIO M-Series 5.1 sound system far exceeded our expectations and produced an excellent, immersive, surround sound experience!The little subwoofer really packed a punch! It was SOLID! No cheap, hollow, plastic sound there! It gave the 12-inch subwoofer we have in our home theater a run for its money!Then there’s the little surround speakers! They delivered very distinctive surround sound from the movie. We had them placed on the nightstands to the sides of our bed.All that said, we are very happy with our new VIZIO M-Series sound bar system. In one scene, where the camera was spinning around the room, the surround speakers gave the impression of the circling sound.Cools things about the VIZIO M-Series sound bar system:Atmos compatible.The wireless, self-powered, subwoofer that the surround speakers connect to.The surround speakers have very long cables connected to the subwoofer so that they can be placed almost anywhere in the room. They can also be mounted to the wall with the included mounting kit.Volume control through the TV’s remote. No configuration to the TV remote was needed when connecting the sound bar to the TV with the supplied HDMI cable. (But HOW?!?! eARC technology through the HDMI cable)The sound bar is packed with 6 speakers. Two per channel. (Left, center and right.)Easy setup! We didn’t even need to tweak the sound!If you are still reading this review, here are some off-the-subject details about what we did with the TV in our bedroom.We purchased a modern black TV cart to put our new TV on and replaced the legs with wheels so that it could be stored in the corner of the bedroom, when not in use, and could be rolled to the foot of the bed when we want to watch TV in bed.We mounted the TV on a table-top stand that allows the TV to rotate from horizontal to portrait when stored away. The stand is very sturdy and stable.We placed the M-Series sound bar on the top of the TV cart, in front of the TV. The base of the TV stand has enough gap under it to hide away the sound bar’s cables.The wireless subwoofer was place at the other end of the room where the head of the bed is. As I mentioned earlier in this review, the surround speakers were placed on our nightstands.See the included photos.