Vizio S4251w B4-5.1 Sound Bar with Satellite Speaker Review

I have this sound bar for more than four months now and I could say that I am very happy with my purchase of this sound bar unit. I was lucky enough to buy this at Costco on sale for $229.00 last June.

I originally want to just get a sound bar as I just want a good stereo speaker for Karaoke use and don't want to run any speakers around the house. However, the price of this product with coupon beats the price of the other soundbar that I am considering so I took the plunge and I am happy with my decision. If you are looking for a speaker stand for this unit to hide the wires, I suggest that you get the 'Pyle PHSTD1 Adjustable Height Home Theater Speaker Stands". The price is cheap but the construction is solid and hold this speaker well. 

Here's my experience on the sound bar.

1. Sound Bar: This unit produce an excellent sound. Initially, I have my TV setup as the hub for all the sound source. With this setup, I was not able to distinguish the separation from Front Left/Center/Right channel. After a few weeks owning the system, I decided to hook-up my blu-ray player directly to the soundbar unit and noticed that when I start a movie a "Dolby Digital" light turned on at the lower left corner of the bar for about 2 seconds then disappear. I also noticed that when the "Dolby Digital" light turned on that the sound separation is a lot better so I did more research on this and found out that my LG LED TV downgrades all signal coming from and HDMI source to 2 channel only. The sound goes loud even on lower setting.

2. Subwoofer: The sub produces a nice base sound for my needs. The manual says that it should come in paired with the bar already but I have to pair mine to make it work. I was playing with the unit and have to reset it twice to the manufactures setting, the first time I reset the unit, I have to pair the sub again but the second time I reset the unit, the sub works just fine. So, I'm not sure if the sub is just losing connection to soundbar or if there may be different codes that the units work and it is a hit an miss when you reset the unit. Anyway, once it is paired, I did not have any problem losing connection again. I have the sub hidden on the side of the couch behind a coffee table and you really can't tell where the sub is coming from. It just feels like it is part of the front speakers when you have 2.1 setup or part of the whole surround when you have surround activated.

3. Satellite/Surround ON: The satellite speakers adds a new dimension to our movie experience. 
The satellite speakers clearly separates the sound. As I played some sample file from Dolby website, streamed to my LG bluRay player, my kids were turning left to right and/or looking behind to figure where the sound is coming from. There are sample that produces a lot of rumbling from the base with sound going around front to right to left and my kids like me to repeat the video over and over because they say that they are riding a roller coaster. The surround really feels like a 5.1 surround. I did not measure the wire that came with the satellite speaker but I think it may be around 13 feet. I mount the speaker into the speaker stand so I can hide the wires and I only have about a foot allowance from 1 end of the couch to the other end with about 4ft wire hidden on the pole.

4. Remote: The remote works well for me. Other reviewers said that if you are not pointing the remote in the bar that you don't really know which mode you are in or mode you are changing. This is false because the remote will not change anything on your setup unless the bar receives the signal. I'm not sure how to explain this clearly but let say that the remote was it treble mode and you press the menu to make change to the Bass mode without pointing it to the soundbar it will not change any setting on your unit until the soundbar gets the signal. Now, after realizing that you are not making any change to your unit, you point the remote to the bar and press the + or - button, the unit will pickup what setting you wanted to change and adjust those settings accordingly.

The system also work with my LG TV remote and my Uverse Remote out of the box. This may be good news for some but not for others. My TV produces enough sound for regular TV viewing so I don't need the soundbar all of the time. I only need to use the soundbar for Karaoke and Movie viewing. If you want to use this unit as your main speaker then all you have to do is disable the TV speaker or just let the TV speaker run with the soundbar speaker. If you don't want to use the soundbar 100% of the time then you will have to turn the Vizio Remote settings to "OFF". If you have Universal Remote that you can use an Aux button to control volume then you can program that button separately. This does not work for my Uverse remote as the Uverse Remote volume control only controls the TV volume. I tried to make the system learn another button from Aux option to no avail.

5. Blue Tooth: I was able to pair this on my cell phone without any problem and played music using the TuneIn Radio app. The connection is solid on the first floor. I was also able to bring my phone to the 2nd floor and still get good connection. The only time I lost the connection was when I put the phone at the farthest place I put my phone on the 2nd floor unit. Giving that they say that bluetooth range is 30 ft. I can say that it exceeded that range.

Note: Not all TV's output a 5.1 surround. Older HDTV's downgrade the 5.1 signal to 2 channel PCM so if you hook this directly to your TV, you may not get true surround experience. I have my TV hooked up to Optical, my blueRay to Digital Audio and my Karaoke to the RCA. When I have the surround "ON" The Karaoke (RCA hookup) produces the same output level to all speakers, The TV (Optical hookup) which downgrade audio to 2 channel seem to create a faux surround (I hear the audio clearly through the front channel speakers and the satellite speaker produces the background music and other sound), the BluRay player and streamed movie from Netflix produces a real surround experience where you will feel the sound move in between the speakers.