Get Them Here
So after reviewing the new JBL Charge 5 and being pleasantly surprised by it… I decided to check out the new JBL Bar 5.0 Multibeam sound bar… yeah the name is a complete mess… but the sound bar it self is actually very solid. Its got support for virtual dolby atmos and dolby vision, its got an ethernet port, there’s a lot going on under the hood here, but the stand out characteristic about this sound bar is that it has so much bass that you’d think there’s a subwoofer in the room… but there isn’t.
Now when it comes to pricing the bar isn’t half bad. It retails for $350 and its more than enough for a bed room or small to medium sized living room. But one important thing to point out here is that I doesn’t look like JBL sells a separate optional sub woofer or surround speakers to pair with this sound bar and build out your sound system like other manufactures do like lets say bose or Sonos. Nonetheless this JBL sound bar is great by its self but I just wanted to point that out.
Now first lets talk about the design of this sound bar… its fairly subtle, we’ve got a grill on the front and physical control buttons up top that are flanked by a pair of perforated grills. But there’s also a display panel hidden underneath the grill on the right side that shows you basic stuff like your volume level, and source. Now this display panel will turn on for a brief a second and then shut off completely which is good cause I absolutely hate when sound bars have a constantly powered on on light cause it can be very distracting when you’re trying to watch a movie. But thats not the case with the bar, it is strictly heard and not seen.
Now size wise the bar has a length of 28 inches, a width of 3.9 inches and a hight of 2.3 inches. Overall the bar has a small foot print and it is fairly low profile. Its not super thick like lets say the Sonos Beam. But finally there’s the power cord… the bar plugs in via an AC port and there’s no external power brick to worry about hiding. So over all the bar should be able to fit and disappear in any set up.
But now lets talk about ports, the bar has 2 HDMI ports… there’s an HDMI in and an HDMI out port. Now you wanna plug into the HDMI out port and plug in into your TV’s HDMI ARC port which is usually HDMI 3 on your tv. Now I do want to point out that JBL throws in an HDMI cable which is nice. Now for the best experience you want to use an HDMI connection with your sound bar… But if you’ve got an older TV that doesn’t have an HDMI ARC port then there’s still an optical port if you need it. But keep in mind you are going to have to supply your own optical cable.
Now regarding this HDMI in port… its an HDMI 2.1 port with 4K 60 hertz video support. And really this is for someone who is going to be using a blue ray player to watch their dolby vision content. If you’re going to be mainly just streaming your content then this port is just going to go unused. But finally there’s the USB A port on this sound bar… the US version will actually allow you to use it to play music off of it…
But now lets talk about wireless connectivity… this sound bar can be connected to your wifi and I has support for both AirPlay 2 and chrome cast. So whether you’re an iPhone user or an android user as long as your device is connected to the same wifi as this sound bar you can stream music to it from any app. But just keep in mind your Airplay 2 or Chrome Cast connection is contingent on your wifi connection.
So if your sound bar is in an area of the house with spotty wifi, or if you’re someone that tries to minimize the amount of client devices on your wireless network to alleviate congestion… then you can always get a wired connection going with this JBL sound Bar cause it still has an ethernet port.
But if you want to you can always use a bluetooth connection with this sound bar. Either you don’t want hook up your sound bar to your network, or you just want to quickly and easily share your sound bar with a friend with out having to share your wifi password. Now bluetooth connectivity on this sound bar is solid… but if you are trying to play a video there is a slight latency, where as if you were using a wifi connection instead there is no noticeable latency.
But finally this brings us to the media controls on this sound bar. Up top you’ll find a volume up and volume down button. And personally I really like when sound bars have media controls on them cause this way you or guests can control your media directly from the sound bar itself if you’re playing music. However you can’t actually pause your music or skip a track. Which I think is a little annoying. Now this sound bar does come included with a remote control… but still you can only adjust your volume with it.
But now lets talk about the sound on this sound bar. Regarding speaker set ups this sound bar has a total of 5 oval transducers. You’ve got your main 3 front ward firing transducers and then you’ve got these two transducers on either side that are your multi beam transducers that focus mostly on the higher pitched tones and they try to bounce sound off of the walls to simulate a surround sound effect. And then there are a total of 4 passive radiators that shoot out the top and bottom of this speaker which really give this sound bar a whole lot of wall shaking bass, cause its bass has a table to bounce off thus amplifying it. And this sound bar has a total out put of 250 watts. But just so that there isn’t any confusion, this sound bar has support for virtual dolby atoms and virtual surround sound meaning that its using algorithm tricky and trying to bounce sound off of surfaces to create a surround sound experience. Now pro tip, when you first get this sound bar you do want to go through the atmos calibration process so that your sound bar can get a feel for the lay out of your room… But since this sound bar doesn’t have any actual upwards firing transducers or any surround speakers you’re not going to get a true dolby atmos or true surround sound experience. But nonetheless the Bar 5.0 is still a very impressive piece of hardware. But so that you can hear for yourself we’re going to jump into a sound test.
So obviously like you may have just heard anything is going to sound better than you’re TV’s built in speakers. Your TV mostly like just has a pair of downward firing transducers that bounce sound off of the table. But the biggest issue for your TV’s built in speakers is going to be just the bass. If you’re watching a big action set piece or if you’re just gaming… if that bass gets going then your TV’s speakers is just going to be a rattling mess. Which just sounds awful but it can also take you out of the viewing experience.
Where as bass rattling isn’t an issue for this sound bar. And in general the bass on this sound bar really is its stand out characteristic. Since it has a pair of passive radiators that shoots out the top and a pair that shoots out the bottom which then get amplified if this sound bar is sitting on a table… this sound bar will start rattling the floors and walls almost like there was a dedicated subwoofer in the room.
Now a proper subwoofer is going to rattle the walls even more… but for a self-contained system like this sound bar has a way above average amount of bass for a sound bar in general of this size and price. But bass isn’t everything… this sound bar still preforms very well when it comes to mids and highs. Sound signature wise this sound bar does put a decent amount of emphasis on the mids so dialog is still prominent and doesn’t get over powered by this sound bar’s sheer amount of bass.
Now overall I really like this JBL sound bar… except I don’t like that it doesn’t have a companion app. Cause most soundbars these days now have an app where you can easily adjust their bass, treble, their latency and switch sources all from your phone. Instead you gotta do all of that with this sound bar’s built in display I mentioned earlier. It gets the job done but I still which there was just an app cause it is pretty common.
But finally the last thing I want to point out here is that even though this sound bar is fairly feature packed, it has wifi, and its a part of the JBL family… unfortunately you can’t pair it with any JBL party boost speakers which I feel is a big shame. But since there is Airplay 2 and Chrome cast support you can pair it up to other wifi smart speakers and sound bars and get them to play in sync. But in general I do wish JBL would bring party boost support to their other products just cause party boost is so good.
So with all that being said, I really like the JBL Bar 5.0 Multibeam sound bar… besides desperately needing a new name, for me its very easy to recommend this sound bar. From a sound quality standpoint this sound bar sounds very balanced but still has a good emphasizes on the mids so dialog is easy to hear in almost all situations unless you’re watching a Christopher Nolan movie. But like I mentioned a few times already this sound bar’s stand out characteristic is just its sheer amount of bass. Due to the placement of its passive radiators this sound bar is able to shake your walls and floor and get you really immersed in your content. Now this sound bar doesn’t have as much bass as a proper subwoofer… but nonetheless its still very impressive and it should be able to satiate most people especially in this price range.