Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Recently bought an new TV for the main room and retired the (absolutely superb and last of the breed) Panasonic plasma to the exercise room/office. My way better half is not an equipment geek. I have a perfectly fine 2 channel system back there, but she wants ONE button to turn it on, and ONE button to change the sound level. Period. Whenever she wants to watch or listen on the main system, I get to fire it up. You know the drill - turn this on, THEN push this button, THEN change remotes and push THIS botton, THEN genuflect and pray to the electron gods, etc. SO, I did my usual 20 hours of review and data reading. Did NOT wanna spend a bundle; you can get stupid with sound bars very quickly. This bar caught my eye, brand new, hardly any reviews. For this price, I figured what the heck. She complaines about the TV speakers but she's not a sound geek like I am. SO, let me be clear. This is not a comparison of TV speakers to a bar nor is it a comparison of an old bar to a new bar. I've never owned a bar. Up to now I've considered them sacriledge. The speakers alone on the main system retail for about $7k. The digital and vinyl music and TV sound up front are pretty decent with 280w pushing it. This is a comparison between a pretty decent 5.1 system and an inexpensive soundbar. Wow. How on earth anybody can do that sound quality for under $200 is amazing. NO, it doesn't blow the windows out. NO, it doesn't equal a $10k sound system. BUT the voice production is, as advertised, wonderfully clear. As long as you sit in front of it, the dynamic range of music from a youtube music vid or a hidef music documentary are really just fine in this 12'x14' room. There's no separate sub, of course. While this tiny little thing does a truly superb job of providing bass sense with the bass booster thingie on, it OF COURSE won't pound your floors. There's a sub connector if you want to add one. All that said, I'm just ecstatic. I'm sure there are other great bars out there, but this one up against the sound quality of my main system does just fine. I'm sorry there are people not happy with this on the few ratings it's gotten so far. I'm awed. (Disclosure, I AM biased toward Yamaha stuff. That amp is an ancient RX-V3800.)