VIZIO M-Series 5.1 Premium Sound Bar with Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Bluetooth, Wireless Subwoofer and Alexa Compatibility, M51ax-J6, 2022 Model

We needed a little sound system for a new 43 inch TV in our bedroom. After researching, we decided on the VIZIO M-Series 5.1 channel system. It had a reasonable price for its application (the foot of our bed). Our expectations were that it would provide simple, basic, sound that would be louder than the TV speakers.After getting everything connected, queueing up a sound-centric movie on Netflix, and sitting back in bed, we fired up a movie.We were blown away! The VIZIO M-Series 5.1 sound system far exceeded our expectations and produced an excellent, immersive, surround sound experience!The little subwoofer really packed a punch! It was SOLID! No cheap, hollow, plastic sound there! It gave the 12-inch subwoofer we have in our home theater a run for its money!Then there’s the little surround speakers! They delivered very distinctive surround sound from the movie. We had them placed on the nightstands to the sides of our bed.All that said, we are very happy with our new VIZIO M-Series sound bar system. In one scene, where the camera was spinning around the room, the surround speakers gave the impression of the circling sound.Cools things about the VIZIO M-Series sound bar system:Atmos compatible.The wireless, self-powered, subwoofer that the surround speakers connect to.The surround speakers have very long cables connected to the subwoofer so that they can be placed almost anywhere in the room. They can also be mounted to the wall with the included mounting kit.Volume control through the TV’s remote. No configuration to the TV remote was needed when connecting the sound bar to the TV with the supplied HDMI cable. (But HOW?!?! eARC technology through the HDMI cable)The sound bar is packed with 6 speakers. Two per channel. (Left, center and right.)Easy setup! We didn’t even need to tweak the sound!If you are still reading this review, here are some off-the-subject details about what we did with the TV in our bedroom.We purchased a modern black TV cart to put our new TV on and replaced the legs with wheels so that it could be stored in the corner of the bedroom, when not in use, and could be rolled to the foot of the bed when we want to watch TV in bed.We mounted the TV on a table-top stand that allows the TV to rotate from horizontal to portrait when stored away. The stand is very sturdy and stable.We placed the M-Series sound bar on the top of the TV cart, in front of the TV. The base of the TV stand has enough gap under it to hide away the sound bar’s cables.The wireless subwoofer was place at the other end of the room where the head of the bed is. As I mentioned earlier in this review, the surround speakers were placed on our nightstands.See the included photos.

This soundbar has the right flexibility, sound quality, and loudness at a very reasonable price. You'll be hard-pressed to get so much for so little in another brand. I'll say I'm happy with how this brand caters to budget conscience customers, without punishing them for being in that group.I've been watching 5.1 movies through my Apple TV and Fire TV (I have both). My TV is arc, not the updated eArc my soundbar supports, so I did have to move some things around to get the Apple TV to play the sound correctly.If you have this issue, you may also find that it's better to plug your Apple TV into the SoundBar's extra HDMI (not to the TV directly), and then plug SoundBar's main eArc HDMI into your TV's Arc HDMI. It has to be Arc or eArc for this to work seamlessly. The SoundBar with then have a dual function. It will be the bridge input for the Apple TV (allowing you to switch your TV to the Apple TV input as you did before), but it will also know how to automatically serve out audio to the soundbar of any other devices connected to your TV when you switch its input. So in other words, when the SoundBar is connected to the Arc or eArc on your actual TV, your TV will detect the SoundBar and when you switch to any other input on your TV, its audio will go out through the SoundBar, even when you're not switched over to the input of which the SoundBar is directly plugged.The Fire TV can continue to be plugged into one of the TV's extra HDMI ports without throwing out the sound. Fire TV will know how to downgrade the sound correctly for arc so it can use the 5.1 available on your 5.1 soundbar. It has to downgrade because arc has a lower bandwidth than the upgraded eArc. Apple TV, on the other hand, is not as kind to older or outdated protocols so may throw 5.1 out altogether if not connected with the workaround.If Apple TV is plugged directly into your soundbar, the soundbar is able to handle the full high-fidelity sound first, without it having to pass through your TV's older arc port which causes Apple TV to throw out 5.1 sound either making it mute or having to be forced down to stereo.I have my Echo plugged in through Aux. I haven't figured that part out yet to get this seamless. It seems the Alexia sounds a bit low or I'm not sure if the sound is coming out as expected. I am asserting that I have to read the manual more to learn how the inputs work or when it automatically switches. I still have to work with that. There is a remote that allows you to manually switch the inputs of the SoundBar (i.e. Bluetooth, Aux, Aux VA (Voice Assistant), USB, HDMI, HDMI arc. HDMI eArc will be your default.But again, I didn't get that sick feeling one can get when you're not sure if you should have bought something or not. This is really good for both movies and music. It's a Sunday Morning right now and I'm playing Lashun Pace before church and the sound is ... well, impressive.

Pros:- Good sound for the price. Bass from the quite small 6" woofer is surprisingly tight and strong...for the size- Decent options for editing sound profiles- Easy to setup and get workingCons:There is basically just one con and many have addressed this in the reviews. Inconsistent operation.- Strange and loud pops, twice, from the soundbar so far- Volume decreased by itself 3 or 4 times, but not in the last couple weeks.- HERE's the BIG ONE: it eventually just stops working altogether. I believe the real fix for it is to pull the power from the soundbar. Many times I've just done everything such as reconnecting cables, restarting the TV and then pulling the power on the soundbar, but my most recent tests seemed to indicate that removing the power from the soundbar is the quickest way to get it back up and running. This is a clear indication that Vizio has an issue somewhere. I've confirmed that it IS on their most recent firmware version so that is not the issue and it obviously was not the fix that many had hoped for. I considered returning it but since we just moved and there has been so much to deal with, I'm just going to place this soundbar on it's own power strip with an on off switch so that I can quickly and easily reset the bar when needed.SummaryMost people would not want to have to deal with these kinds of issues with a brand new product so my recommendation is that most buyers stay away from this product. But since the sound quality overall is pretty good, at this point I'm fairly confident that my workaround of power resetting the bar every week or two will be quick and easy and cost effective. I actually had to do this, but less frequently with my old 10" Kliptsch Subwoofer so not a biggie for me.UPDATEI did put the soundbar on its own power strip which is easy to reach yet still hidden. When the soundbar decides to stop working, which these days is about every 2-3 weeks or so, I turn off the power strip for a 1-3 minutes and then power it back up. That gets ts it working again. Also, it's been many months since we've heard any of the odd pops we heard soon after the purchase.So given the price I paid and the pretty good sound out of it and this easy workaround, I upped the rating to 4 stars. Still, shame on Vizio for letting this out without a proper fix.

After doing a lot of product hunting, I was really excited about this soundbar. I almost jumped the gun on a few others, but I'm glad I waited for this one. If you're looking for an entry soundbar to go in your family room and don't know what Dolby Atmos is, then I'll be honest: this is not the home theater setup for you. There are plenty of other systems that perform well for hundreds of $ cheaper, including the Vizio V series line of speakers, which you can also get in 5.1.If you have heard of Atmos or want the newest middle-ground speaker, then this is it. Before you click the "Buy Now" button, make sure you are ready to take advantage of Atmos, though. You'll want to make sure your TV supports it (if it has eARC label on an HDMI port, then you're good), the content you're watching supports it, the device you are using supports it, and that all of your settings are correct across the board (for example some TVs disable ARC by default and this should be enabled). If you have all of those things, then this tops it off. The included HDMI cable is ARC so you can use that to connect the soundbar. Make sure you use the port labeled eARC on the soundbar and the TV. HDMI is the best method, you don't want to have to use optical if you don't have to.For my full review:Pros:*All-around sound is great. I've watched only a few hours of various types of shows and it does a good job of handling lots of dialogue, or a sporting event, or a highly dramatic scene. You won't be absolutely blown away, but depending on what you were using before this could be a major game-changer. At the end of the day, it sucks me into the content and that's all I need.*Left and right speakers have PLENTY of cord length. I didn't look into it, but I would guess somewhere between 20 to 25 feet of cable for each side speaker and they connect to the sub which is wireless but obviously needs power. One end of each side cable has an L-shaped plug while the other is straight. Make sure you know which one you want to feed through the tube of a speaker stand before setting up so you know where your cable is going to go. Only the straight plug will fit through most stands. Read the manual for setup, but in case you miss it, the blue plug is the left speaker and the gray plug is the right speaker. The speakers themselves have color-coding on the inside of the ports as well to help.*Soundbar itself is kind of big compared to others but has a pretty low profile which makes it great for fitting right in front of the TV and not being in the way.*Upfiring speakers are much better at providing Atmos sound compared to the digital/"fake" up-firing speakers that I have heard in some other soundbars.*Remote is a nice upgrade with the digital display that makes it easy to change inputs.Cons:*Depending on what content you're watching and if it's in surround sound, I noticed that it can take the speaker about 5-10s for it to start playing a sound while the TV is already playing video. It was also out of sync (ahead) by about half a second, but I corrected this in TV settings by adding delay.*Bluetooth was slow to connect, even slower to start playing music compared to the video as mentioned in the bullet above. Not terrible, but there shouldn't be such a long delay between pressing play and it actually playing music. That's why I give it 4 stars on Bluetooth. Everything else about BT is fine.*EQ and level settings on the remote are... bleh. What's strange is you can go through the levels, like Bass for example, and change it to either or -. Only once in each direction. And when you hit something like " " you now have to pick between or - because there is no way to return it back to neutral for that setting. I wish there were more levels to the levels. I would definitely recommend turning Bass and Height Speakers to , possibly also turning the side speakers to . For the weird EQ settings on the remote, I gave it 4 stars on remote.I am personally pairing these speakers with an LG 65NANO85 2021 TV, a Chromecast with Google TV, and tried it with Netflix (Sophie documentary was a dolby atmos title, according to Netflix). If you are using Netflix, you need to be on the premier plan to get Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, by the way. I had only planned to watch about 10 minutes at first, but once I sat there, the visuals and the speakers absolutely drew me in and I couldn't stop. Not only did it sound crisp and clear, but I felt like I was in the room. I couldn't really notice the Atmos effect while watching, but it made me feel surrounded and it felt very natural. It was one of the closest feelings I've had to being in a movie theater sound system at home that wasn't some audiophile's home setup.For $500 (It will likely fall to $450 on sales, maybe even a $400 price tag sometime??), I truly believe it is a good value. This is practically the cheapest way to get into true Atmos entertainment right now and I'm definitely happy I did. Since this is a pretty new product at the time of review, I'm hoping others get in on what a great system this is. You're not going to be getting perfect audio and this isn't the top-of-the-line stuff, but I really think this will check a lot of boxes and be a very convenient solution for a lot of people that want to enjoy their shows and movies immersively.

This thing has no business sounding this good, given what it costs. It is a tremendous value for a simple, home theater audio in a box solution.Now the "good for what it costs" part is important. It doesn't break the laws of physics, you can certainly spend more and get more, but the little dedicated subwoofer really does a solid job in compensating for the relatively small speakers in the main unit. It also gets surprisingly loud for its size without introducing meaningful distortion.Are you going to put this thing in a giant, dedicated home theater or a huge great room with a cathedral ceiling and be happy with the results? Probably not. But in a bedroom, an apartment or an average-sized living room or den, this is likely going to give you results you are happy with for both movies and most casual listening.When you give it a workout across a bunch of different genres of music, you find the results vary between adequate and excellent. There are some basic physics reasons behind why you normally need much bigger speakers to get truly excellent high fidelity sound. So occasionally the results are a bit flat and uninspired. But it does a pretty remarkable job for what it cost and how big it is. What you will notice if you listen with a very critical ear is that there is some muddiness in the mid-range and the bass rolls off too early because the little sub runs out of steam, but that almost seems unfair to criticize at this price point. Most people won't even notice any of that.On the other hand, don't get super excited about the strength of the Dolby Atmos effects here. Atmos is designed to create a 3d sound field and place sounds in the physical space around the listener. It is a cool new technology and movies are starting to be mastered in it. Normally that 3d sound effect means you have to have additional channels physically mounted in the ceiling. Like all of these sound bars, it doesn't have actual ceiling speakers and instead has to make do with pointing some speakers up at the ceiling to bounce the sound off the ceiling indirectly.If you stick it in a basically square or rectangle shaped room with an 8 foot ceiling and no obstructions, it does sort of work. But if you have a cathedral ceiling or sloped ceiling or anything other than the basic box shaped room it likely won't do much of anything. On the other hand, the more basic, 5.1 surround sound effects are perfectly adequate, assuming you can place the little rear speakers properly.Installation wasn't hard, although note that there are specific requirements that the system sit in front of and a certain distance below the TV because of the Atmos, up-firing speakers. The rear surrounds connect to the subwoofer with standard speaker wires and the separately powered subwoofer then connects wirelessly to the main unit. The little sub is ported, so it can't be set absolutely flush against a wall. It all came pre-paired up and worked perfectly right out of the box.I have a modern tv, and was able to connect with eARC/HDMI successfully. I also paired my phone to the device using bluetooth and that worked easily too. I can control the volume with both the TV remote and the Apple TV remote control, and so I will almost never need to use the included remote for much of anything beyond initial setup.There is a reason why this unit got such good reviews on the big audio review channels. It really is a good value for the price.