Multichannel home cinema speaker systems
are all well and good, but let’s face it: you might not have the money for one,
or the inclination to rearrange your living room around a telly. So what to do
if you still want to beef-up your flatscreen’s inevitably woeful sound?
Enter the soundbar. At $600, this Samsung
model sits in the middle of the price range. But while it might look basic, it
has a few tricks up its sleeve to help justify the price. First, the subwoofer,
which houses all the connections, is wireless, making positioning easier
(pairing with the soundbar itself is automatic, too). Second, it supports
Bluetooth audio streaming. And third, the soundbar itself splits in two – so
you can have stereo speakers sitting on stands or even on the wall.
The remote control is comprehensive, and
can also control your telly if it’s compatible. It also lets you choose from a
variety of processing modes, which include ‘Music’, ‘Game’, ‘Cinema’, ‘Sports’
and ‘Off’. Guess which one we preferred.
Convincing cinema sound
To get started we put the E551 to work with
a Blu-ray of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol in an external player
(the Samsung doesn’t have one built in) and try to set some trousers flapping.
We have to say: for such a stripped-down
system it does a pretty good job. Turn all the processing off and dial in the
subwoofer volume, and there’s a nice, natural tone to voices. Big bangs,
likewise, thud fairly convincingly and dynamic shifts are handled without too
much trouble.
The
E551 might not set your world on fire, but it does a far better job than a TV’s
internal speakers – and its versatile configuration means it could be ideal for
students moving digs every year.
There’s an inevitable disconnect between
the sub and the soundbar (pardon the wireless pun) due to their size
difference, but it’s nothing you can’t moderate by playing about with the
volume levels.
A good, well-thought-out effort all round,
then. The E551 might not set your world on fire, but it does a far better job
than a TV’s internal speakers – and its versatile configuration means it could
be ideal for students moving digs every year.
Use it with
MI:
Ghost Protocol
Check your brain at the door and revel in
the big-bang thrills of this old-school summer action blockbuster.
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Details
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Price
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$600
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Ratings
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4/5
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