Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I knew, like I know that the sun rises in the East, that this soundbar could not possibly be as good as the ratings suggest. But I was drawn in by the Siren's Song of all those glowing reviews. So I took the plunge. And surprise surprise, this thing is terrible. The first warning sign comes when you pick the thing up off your porch and marvel at how light it is. High-quality audio amps are not light. Neither are high-quality speakers. And definitely not "subwoofers," whatever that term means in the context of this product. It seems to weigh about as much as two cans of soda. And not those can-and-a-half monsters what the young folks drink these days. You can twirl the thing in your hand like a majorette's baton. And the sound quality? Put it this way: there is no way in Heaven or on Earth that this soundbar will make your television sound better unless you currently watch Hulu on an old 20-inch 4:3 Panasonic CRT-type box. Certainly the speakers built into our 10+-year-old 55 inch LG LCD are miles better. I'm not an audiophile, but I have some basic knowledge. I know what a decibel is. I understand how 120 Hz differs from 120 kHz. I know why FLAC is a better audio format than MP3. And I definitely can tell a good speaker from a bad one, when the difference is this glaringly obvious. The audio quality of this soundbar ranges from harsh and fuzzy to harsh and screechy. Throw in a little bass boost and the built-in ".1" takes you down into the "harsh and boomy" range, albeit not far. The magnets in any of the on-board speakers can't weigh more than a dime, so they can't push around much air. They're really only capable of making angry buzzing noises, like a disturbed yellowjacket hive. The three different preset EQ curves only serve to make the sound more annoying in one of three specific tonal ranges, so you can tune your disappointment to your liking. The remote is decently constructed, and the fact that it comes with a full set of audio cables is a nice touch. You don't want to find out after the fact that the HDMI cable you've had in a drawer for ten years can't carry ARC. And overall the unit is attractive, though the whole piano-black thing is just a magnet for fingerprints. These factors are why I gave the unit two stars instead of one. Here's how mad I am at myself for getting suckered into buying this thing: I'm not returning it. I knew to the very core of my being that this was too good to be true, and yet I bought it anyway. I don't deserve my 47 dollars back. I'm going to box it back up and give it to Goodwill. Then I'm going to sit in my living room and think about what I've done. Maybe next time I'll know better.