Amazon.com: YAMAHA - True X BAR 50A Sound Bar with Dolby Atmos, Wireless Subwoofer and Alexa Built-in – Black : Electronics

This Yamaha sound bar is exactly what you'd expect from Yamaha. It's got a fantastic sound quality to it. I love that you can control the volume and bass with separate controls. Sometimes, it's hard to find a balance with sound bars when movies are bass heavy in the action/adventure scenes. It was extremely easy to install - that said my pet peeve is that every new device needs you to install an app on your phone or tablet to complete the WiFi installation and push updates to the system. I did end up putting a black piece of gaffers tape over the subwoofer connection light - it's incredibly bright. The subwoofer is much larger than my last sound bar - almost like a mini Yamaha amp which is actually pretty cool.

Blows away the Sonos beam 2 in terms of Atmos movie sound stage as a stand alone soundbar. Dialogue, minute background noises and height effects are presented with minimal processing and realism. Wraps sound around the viewer and it gets loud enough for a small to medium room.

To get straight to the point, it doesn't have that powerful of bass like it claims. There is a little bass, just not not as strong as I would like.Sound quality is what you'd expect from an expensive Yamaha soundbar, it's extremely crisp and clear, and even has options to bolster voices, for when your movie blasts background music while people are talking. Could easily hear everything with this soundbar.However, my previous, Polk Audio sound bard and separate subwoofer, sounded just as crisp and clear, but had a much stronger, wall rumbling bass, for half the cost.I really had high hopes for this with its dual subwoofers, but the bass is just kind of meh, and unimpressive. The rest of the features and sound quality are easily 10 out of 10.

I recently bought a Yamaha keyboard and I was blown away with the sound. I also own a Yamaha receiver that controls my years old 5.1 surround sound, and it has done a wonderful job handling anything I throw at it. So, I have a lot of respect for the Yamaha sound.On the other hand, my wife has been complaining for a long time about the cables laying around the living room area, so I started looking into soundbars and wireless speakers. However, being an audiophile myself but reluctant to overpay for a soundbar, I started watching many reviews and discerning through the marketing hoopla trying to convince you that soundbars sound better than 5.1 systems. In my opinion, soundbars are a setup that typically overpromises and underdelivers. But, hey, I was willing to try something new, and when Yamaha brought this soundbar to the market, I was curious to know how a manufacturer as committed to quality sound like Yamaha understands these. According to the online reviews, you could not go wrong. Supporting the latest wireless and sound technologies it promised a great experience for both movies and music at a more reasonable price compared to the usual big boys.The reality is that, out of the box, just physics started to tell me that the soundbar would not compete well with my surround sound. It looked small. But, I kept going believing that the awesome Yamaha brand was behind it and a pleasant surprise could be around the corner. Then, I connected the pieces very easily (I went for the soundbar and the subwoofer and I stopped short from getting a pair of the satellite speakers that add $300 to the package. I just wanted to be sure that my selection was the correct one). I downloaded the app on my phone and was ready to fire some high quality music. Just with the first song the disappointment was huge. How in the world could a Yamaha soundbar sound this bad? At the end of the day, how a $600 dollar soundbar could sound so poorly. And I still was $300 away from something that resembles a more involving sound? I was in complete disbelief!I thought, well, it is just the first song, let’s keep trying, and explore the app, maybe the secret is somewhere in the settings… But, no, it went from bad to worse. I finally threw some movies at it and it was equally disappointing. The only plus was the subwoofer that I found very well rounded and satisfying. But the rest of the sound was poor across the board. It did not scratch the sound I get from my 5.1 surround.I seem to know what Yamaha sound is, but I am certain that the people that put this soundbar together are not the same people that assembled the keyboard I have or the receiver. Anyway, curiously enough, what the disappointment did was to make me love my 5.1 surround system even more. Right after trying the Yamaha soundbar, I fired my best music through my 5.1 and the sound seemed glorious to me. Even my wife was smiling… her ears could not lie. The truth was evident. So I returned the soundbar.I always try to stay balanced when I write reviews, so I was arguing to myself that this soundbar could still be a good option for a small apartment? Maybe for a person less picky about sound than me? But then the price is glaringly looking at you, and it is easy to say that you can get a similar experience for a far lower price and from a different brand. I was forgetting to say that the app was just terrible. Just a piece of junk that does not even deserve any other comments.To close the review, recently I had the opportunity to experience a Sonos soundbar system and I have to say that it was very close to the sound experience I get from my 5.1, just that you will have to be willing to pay deep into the thousand plus dollars to get that level of sound, and I still believe it needed some tweaking.I’ll keep looking tough. I might hit gold one of these days. Great sound at a great price. We will see.

Sound bars have come a long way. We have a Bose component system in our bedroom and a five-year-old top-of-the-line soundbar with Blutetooth subwoofer in the living room. We replaced the living room system with the Yamaha True X Bar 50A sound bar. The old soundbar did not connect to wifi. Its rather crude remote provided the only access, but it did work. Setting up the 50A was a very different experience.You have to download a phone app to set up any of the Yamaha True-Voice sound bars. It was easy to find and set up on my iPhone. When I opened the app, it showed an animation and said it was searching for sound bars. That wasn't true, exactly. It turns out that it was searching for sound bars that had already been set up. After waiting an embarrassingly long time, I touched the continue button and the real setup began. The process was very easy. It took just a few minutes to complete. Expect to wait for the firmware to update. You don't have to do anything to make that happen. Once setup finishes you are ready to go.You connect your 50A in one of two ways: via a special HDMI port on your TV or via fiber optic cable on the TV. Our TV didn't have the special HDMI port, so we used the provided fiber optic cable to connect the TV to the 50A.I tuned to the Metropolitan Opera streaming app on my Firestick (Amazon streaming product). I chose a 2022 performance of a favorite opera. I chose Movie mode on the 50A. It has several modes you can select. Each offers a different set of boosts and dips across audible frequencies. The Movie mode provided me with the most pleasing theater effect. There is both an overall volume control and subwoofer volume control on the remote. It was easy to get the sound I wanted. What great sound it was!The soundfield was perfect! Every instrument in the orchestra was easily located across the screen. Singers were heard in the correct positions. The overall frequency response was incredible. It felt like I was at the Met. I had a subscription there for years and I know how the house sounds. The 50A and the quality of the recording brought it to life. I love this product!THE BAD NEWSThat's the good news. Sadly, there's some bad news too. Without the optional (and currently unavailable) surround speakers, the full depth of the hall couldn't be reproduced. Yes, it was a magnificent stereo experience, but I miss the sound of the hall that the surround speakers supply. I expect that Yamaha will release the Bluetooth surround speakers soon. They are expected to cost $150 each. That adds another $300 to the system pricetag. I'm sure they will be worth it.The second flaw is probably correctable if Yamaha pays attention to this reviewer. The Alexa experience is useless in our house. We have Echo devices everywhere in our house. In order to prevent chaos, we use different "wake words" for devices. The 50A can only be addressed as "Alexa." Sorry, Yamaha, that's taken. In the Alexa phone app, when I went to the 50A device listing, I discovered that Yamaha didn't provide wake word selection. The 50A has to be named "Alexa."If that wasn't bad enough, the 50A responds at full volume. Let me explain. The soundbar is set up to deliver full-throated theater sound when turned on. The last thing I need to hear is the 50A responding to an Alexa command at that volume. Yamaha needs to provide a way to let Alexa respond at a more reasonable level.Because of these problems, we pressed the microphone mute button on the sound bar and had to abandon the Alexa functionality. That's too bad since we wanted to play Amazon Music through the 50A. I hope a future firmware fix takes care of these problems.Yamaha makes several similar Atmos sound bars. This is the most powerful and expensive. It's the only one with Alexa built in (if you care). By the way, there is an Amazon Music app that runs on your TV or firestick/cube that will let you play music through the sound bar. The 50A has the most power and deepest base. It flawlessly delivers the most critical audio. It should be amazing with games and all sorts of TV. This is one of those products that is worth the extra cost, especially if you have a large room to fill with amazing sound.

This sound bar set comes in 2 pieces along with a remote. It’s easy to set up and works with an app for control. You can also connect it to Alexa via Bluetooth. The HDMI cord is needed to connect it to your TV I happened to have one on hand. The sound is clear and the bass is not too strong to cause too much vibration. It’s kind of over priced for what you receive. But it works as designed.