I was looking for a small, low-profile soundbar to match up with my TCL R617 TV, which is an amazing TV with one huge downside – its puny, tinny speakers. I wanted a soundbar that tucked nicely between the TV and its clearance from the stand and this Soundcore soundbar fit quite well. So far I’ve found it to be a pleasant addition to my living room set up and definitely compensated for my TV’s primary inadequacy. However, given its size and position in the marketplace, it may not be for everyone.
It doesn’t say anywhere in the product description, but this soundbar is powered by two 20W speakers, which were enough to fill my small living room with sound. Both the music and movie modes (which are essentially EQ settings) sound decent. As with a lot of soundbars out there, you can opt to keep this as an always-on Bluetooth speaker to run music to, and it performs adequately for this purpose as well. I wasn’t expecting miracles from a speaker this size, but at the same time, I’ve seen more compact speakers pack more of a punch than this soundbar. Mids and highs perform really well, but the bass is fairly tepid, which is kind of a must when using utilizing this speaker for movies.
This soundbar offers the usual gamut of connectivity options – optical, RCA, and Bluetooth. I (and anyone sane planning to use this in any modern television set) opted to use optical in exclusively. Through optical, the response is excellent and there wasn’t any perceptible lag. My method for testing lag wasn’t that scientific – I simply ran the TV speakers in tandem with the soundbar. Oddly enough, this soundbar didn’t offer ARC via HDMI, which was a definite surprise. I’m not sure if it’s because “mini” soundbars like this guy simply don’t offer this connectivity option, or if the manufacturer deemed it unnecessary, but it’s still a puzzling omission in a 2018-era product regardless.
I’m giving a cautious recommendation to this soundbar. I would suspect that this would be a great get for average bedrooms, but those with cavernous living spaces should look for a bigger set of speakers. The price also implies a premium, which the feature set belies. I would have liked to see a center channel – which would been a tight squeeze for this size of speaker – but at the same time would have helped the bass response.
