Everyone’s favorite purveyor of affordable quality TVs just announced its range of sound bars for 2016. While the list looks sumptuous from top to bottom, we, of course, reserve our drooling for the flagship of the line. That will be the Vizio SmartCast 45-Inch Slim Soundbar.
A 5.1-channel “soundbar system,” it’s a set that combines a soundbar, a subwoofer, and two tiny speakers to give your home theater a legitimately immersive sound setup. As always, the soundbar can go under the TV and the two speakers can go on either end, while the subwoofer, which is slim and tall, is being recommended for hiding horizontally under furniture, like the couch or the media cabinet.
The Vizio SmartCast 45-Inch Slim Soundbar comes with a dedicated center channel that handles all spoken dialogue, while custom drivers strategically placed around the cabinet handle the rest of the aural vibrations. It comes with support for both DTS and Dolby Digital, which should make it great for folks who watch plenty of DVD and Blu-ray content, along with the outfit’s proprietary multiroom wireless system called SmartCast. An LCD display remote is included.
If you like using Google Cast on your Vizio TV, then good news, since the soundbar also comes with the tech built-in, so you can easily stream audio natively from most Android apps. That means, by the way, that it comes with onboard Wi-Fi, along with the usual Bluetooth as an additional streaming option.
Available now, the Vizio SmartCast 45-Inch Slim Soundbar is priced at $500.