TCL Alto 9+ 3.1 Dolby Atmos Sound Bar with RAY·DANZ Technology, Wireless Subwoofer, WiFi, Bluetooth, Works with Hey Google plus Chromecast built-in – Black, 540W, TS9030-NA

(HIGHLY RECOMMEND)-After reading online technical reviews I purchased this sound bar to complement my new 65R635 4K TV. I connected the sound bar via eARC from the TV and the setup could not have been easier. Using the ROKU OS to adjust the TV and sound bar settings is particularly useful. Once connected I had an issue with the sound bar for some reason refusing to go past the default input TV home screen when the TV was turned on. I called TCL technical support and they were able to walk me through how to solve the problem that was not documented in the TV or sound bar setup instructions. Want to give TCL technical support a shout out here. I have contacted other manufactures technical support centers and almost every time have been frustrated by either not being able to reach a real person, if I do reach a real person I know more about their product than they do, or they give up if they cant solve the problem following the instructions that are already in the user manual. Was able to reach a real TCL tech support person who was very knowledgeable and stayed on the phone with me until the problem was fixed. To me this alone was worth the price of the sound bar! Below is my summary assessment of this sound bar's Pros and ConsPros-Great value for the money! Very large sound stage with clear dialog and decent bass, Doesn't sound better than my dedicated Yamaha RX-6A and Anthony Gallo speaker setup but great for everyday listeningCons-No way to tweak the sub (i.e. cross over frequency, phase, volume,...) like you can with a dedicated sub All you can do is lower the overall bass level. Accordingly the bass is a bit boomy with no way to tame it-Documentation is sparse. (i.e. sound modes include one called Boost in addition to TV, Movie,... with no explanation of what this setting is used for-Hard to determine sound bar status (i.e. Off, Awake, Sleep...) Not a problem now after talking with TCL tech support because it just works turning on when I turn on the TV. But this is very disconcerting when trying to trouble shoot a problem

Ok beginner review here. I wanted this because I need the center channel. The acoustics of my room are horrible and most soundbars just wash out all the speach and we find that we have crank the volume to undersatnd what the said. I picked this becasue of the the 3.1 having a base and center chanel.I unpacked and installed the soundbar. There is an included template to mark the screw holes on the wall. Once mounted just connect one cable to the TV and plug in the soundbar and subwoofer to power. It is paired up what a TCL 65" Ultra 4k tv using the included HDMI ARC cable. The TV instantly recognized the subwoofer and it just worked out of the box.Now for the sound. First impression was "meh" but later I found that the streaming service I was using, was not encoded for surround sound simply basic stereo. With a no surround this doesn’t really do anything significantly better than the speakers except for the center channel and subwoofer. My ohhhhh moment was when I stumbled on a stream that had encoding for ATMOS. OK huge difference. How did I know it was encoded? Well first there is a digital display that tell you what the encoding is. I had far different experience. I for the first time in my house had a decent audio experience. I can understand what people are saying even during action scenes.The negative is that it lacks any documentation to really tell you about anything outside of setting it up. Another is the TV add an icon to the menu for Atmos 9+ but if you select it, it says it find the soundbar. I was told that it is not used, and I can confirm it is working.Another parting note. The volume level scale is different that your TV so if you lets say put your volume on 20 normally, it would be a 50 with the same volume out when using the soundbar

Pros: relatively high value for the capabilities you get at the price.Cons/Flaws: 1) Lip sync, the correlation between the video and audio playing together, is slightly off with a slight audio delay. 2) Dolby 5.1 processing is either lacking or not very good when using 'optical' input.First off, I needed a sound bar for an older Plasma TV. As most know, the industry no longer produces plasma TVs (since 2014) even though plasma still produces the best picture quality of any Hi Def screens beside the very expensive OLED TVs. Imagine if they had stuck with plasma technology , we all would be enjoying even better pic quality and lower prices than we are now! Anyway, rant over.The reason I mention the plasma TV is because of its age, I don't have it set up for wifi even though it is technically capable. Because of that, I could not upgrade the firmware on this soundbar while speaking with tech support. The technician claims that may have solved the issues/flaws, but who really knows. So my problems with this sound bar might not be applicable for everyone.The biggest issue was with the lip sync. There is a slight, but noticeable delay with the audio coming from this soundbar even with it on its fastest setting. The remote does allow you to alter lip sync, but even the fastest setting resulted in a delay. TCL even mentions this in the instruction booklet, which makes me think they are aware of the possible problem with some TVs. Using HDMI ARC helped some to the point that many people would not notice or care about the delay. But, I specifically want to use this sound bar with the optical input, because the TV I'm using it on actually has decent speakers on its own, so the combination of using both the TV speakers (at lower volume) and a sound bar provides a richer experience and enhances the surround sound effect. I usually set up all but the highest range theater sound systems like this. Doing so with this unit results in the TV speakers always being ahead of the soundbar speakers with both using the same source.This brings me to my second, significant enough, issue with this system. The Dolby 5.1 processing on this unit is either not available or seriously lacking feature on this soundbar. I played with the settings and just could not get it to sound great. Now this unit is not a true 5.1 channel soundbar (for that you would need 2 extra speakers that usually go behind the listeners), and given the price you wouldn't expect it to be. But, most soundbars (2.0 to 3.1) in this price range still process Dolby 5.1 encoding, which many devices use like your cable box, to produce a 'simulated' or fake surround sound effect. This unit just didn't process certain sounds on the 5.1 setting coming from the source (cable box). You probably wouldn't notice this unless you're watching a high action impact movie or something similar, which was the case with me. Then if you switch the setting to PCM instead of Dolby 5.1, you hear the sounds you were missing, yet the basic sound quality goes down dramatically. This was the case when using HDMI Arc as well.So because of these 2 issues I had to return this unit.