VIZIO SB4451-C0 SmartCast 44" 5.1 Sound Bar System, Black

I love the sound these produce. I have an awesome theater experience now when I want to watch tv or a movie, any visitors who have come over to watch a movie have commented about the incredible sound and are inspired to upgrade. But more than that, as I'm in a small studio apartment, these wifi speakers form the foundation of my full apartment-wide speaker system, which includes some smaller wifi speakers in the dining room area, the kitchen, and the bathroom. I use Google Home or Plex to play music and cast to "all speakers" and my entire apartment is filled with gorgeous expansive music that is full, rich and deep. The giant sub woofer is obviously the key that gives the whole 'system' the warmth and oomph, whether I'm sitting on the couch in the middle of an awesome movie soundtrack watching the TV, or projecting my favorite music throughout my apartment and feeling it through and through.For the size of my apartment (500 sq. feet) the rich full sound these output couldn't be improved or upgraded, beyond this I'd have a problem with the neighbors.I'll admit that like many reviewers on here, I was a bit challenged at first to get everything to connect - I combed through the manual over and over, I must have deleted and re-added the app, disconnected and reconnected the wifi and turned the speakers on and off for HOURS upon HOURS over the course of several days before I finally understood it all enough and got it 'right' so that it worked without further futzing whether I wanted to watch the TV or play music through various sources that cast to the wifi. Even then, there is occasionally a sense of a panic of the 'unknown' that grips me when I have a party assembled to watch a live event on TV and the sound doesn't play - I think some times it takes a few seconds or a minute (?) before the system registers where the sound source is coming from and kicks in? But I'm not knocking any stars, it's all worth it for the low cost and fantastic quality of sound.

Great sound for the price. I had trouble setting up the app connection with wifi. My phone doesn't support the Bluetooth smart thing they want you to use so I had to connect to the sound bar with wifi. It had already been factory tested so the sound bar and sub were already paired and the sound bar was not broadcasting it's wifi signal. If you reset the sound bar to factory defaults (hold Bluetooth and volume down on the sound bar for 5 seconds until all leds blink, this is found in the manual) then it will broadcast it's wifi signal and you can connect to it. You really need to connect this to the app to get to the "detailed settings" such as night mode and movie vs music settings and truevolume. You can't alter these settings from the remote. Now that it's set up it works perfectly and the sound is awesome! Comes with everything you need in the box. Google cast works perfect as advertised. I'm using HDMI ARC so my tv remote controls volume and turns the system on and off. Optical worked and allows me to control volume but not power. I have an LG smart TV that supports DTS and Dolby output. Make sure to check your tv to see if yours supports this or you may need to use the HDMI passthrough to get those audio options. Not all TVs support this audio output. Bluetooth worked great. Pairs easy enough with my phone. Still want to try using it with the Echo dot.Overall very happy!

This is a good sound system with connectivity problems. It sounds better than the 12-year-old Sony system it replaced, especially the quality of the bass (no crackling sounds during loud bass events). It's very quick and simple to set up physically. All the components are made of high quality materials. The soundbar and speakers all have wire mesh coverings, not cloth. I have the sub about 10ft from the soundbar and have no issues with the wireless connection between the two. The sub was already connected when I powered it on. The cables for the satellite speakers are long and plug into the sub, so they'll fit any room situation. It's really nice that there are no cords running from the front to the back of the room. I connected the system to my 55" Vizio TV, and the TV remote controls the soundbar volume with no problems. I'm very pleased to be down to one remote. I also like that it auto-detects if it's receiving a true surround sound signal or not and adjusts accordingly with no requirement for user input. In other words, if it receives a true 5.1 surround signal, that's what you get and it sounds great. If not, it emulates a surround signal by routing certain elements of the audio to the satellite speakers. However, it does not do this perfectly. Sometimes the satellites fade in and out in odd ways or put out low white noise. I found that decreasing the surround volume from the factory setting really helps this issue.I bought these speaker stands for the satellites, and they work well with a little effort: "Atlantic Satellite 77305018 2 Speaker Stands, Black, 2 Stands Per Pack."Now for the negatives. I connected my Vizio TV optical output to the optical input on the soundbar, and had no sound from the system. I called Vizio tech support, and they were no help. Nothing worked until I paired the system to my phone's bluetooth. Once I did that, and then changed the soundbar input back to optical, the optical input magically worked. Pairing bluetooth was a pain. I had to press the physical bluetooth button on the soundbar to get it to show up as an available device and be able to pair it with my phone. Simply using the system remote to select bluetooth input and set the system to pairing mode did not work. The good thing is that once that was done, it was a fully functional system.The wifi and Vizio smartcast app situation was even worse. The soundbar puts out a Vizio wifi network, which is how it connects to your phone, and eventually bridges to your home wifi. I messed with this for days before getting it to work. I am very tech savvy and understand computers/phones/tablets/connections. This setup was a nightmare. Through some combination of manually selecting the Vizio wifi and my home wifi on my phone, I eventually got this thing to connect and complete its setup through the app. Once I did, it downloaded two firmware updates and applied them. I haven't had any problems since then, so it seems the connectivity bugs are an out-of-the-box firmware issue. Good luck messing with initial setup. The good thing is that you really don't need to connect it to the app. The physical remote does everything the app does. However, I still recommend connecting it to the app and internet so it can update its firmware. If you want to use this system for music or audio casting, I would stick to bluetooth. Some apps with audio cast capability don't see the soundbar. Basically, the wireless connectivity is just a huge pain.All things considered, the sound is good, the price is right, and it's worth getting through a frustrating setup to eventually have a functional sound system.