Vizio Sound Base – Sound bar without the bar

Vizio is the new kid on the block in Canada, and they have brought a great set of home entertainment products with them. They have a reputation for being innovative and their Sound Base is a good example. In addition to the great sound bars that Vizio offers, they have their Sound Base – like a sound bar but an even simpler way to improve your TV viewing.

Design

The term ‘Sound Base’ is a good descriptor of this piece of equipment. The stand is designed to have your TV sit right on top of it and can hold pretty big TV’s up to 60 pounds of weight. It is nice and small, only 21 inches wide and 3 inches tall (15 ½ inches deep) so it doesn’t take up much space.

The Sound Base is a 2.1 system with a two 2 ½ inch drivers and a 5 ¼ inch subwoofer that is built right into the Sound Base. Connectivity to your TV is quite simple with two digital inputs – one being optical and the other coax. In addition, it has a couple of analog inputs with a pair of RCA jacks and a mini-jack. No HDMI ports but for TV viewing the other connections will work well. It also has wireless Bluetooth capability so you can stream audio directly from your devices when you aren’t watching TV.

Sound

The Vizio Sound Base has pretty good bass given the subwoofer is built into the stand rather being standalone. It comes with Dolby Digital decoding, in addition to DTS TruSurround, DTS TruVolume, and DTS StudioSound so it is capable of providing the improved sound that Dolby is engineered to support. For a fairly small unit that is relatively inexpensive, it has very good power, excellent bass, and decent sound making it a great way to improve the sound on your TV.

Remote

The Sound Base comes with a simple and very functional remote that makes it easy to control your entertainment sound. The remote has a “quality” feel to it, which is nice to hold on to since it is ergonomically designed. It is not overly complicated because it has just the buttons it needs making it very simple to use. In addition to the remote, the front of the Sound Stand has some conveniently located controls so even if you can’t find the remote you can still easily change setting and control the volume.

Vizio is one of top home entertainment brands in the US and in fact are #1 in Smart TVs and soundbars. Even though the Sound Stand is not a full-fledged soundbar, it is in the same category because like a soundbar, it is extremely simple to set up and it sits nearby the TV, in this case directly under it. If your space is at a premium and/or on a tighter budget then the Sound Base is an excellent choice. It is also a great way to augment the sound for your TV in the spare room, kitchen, study or other secondary places. Consistent with the Vizio’s aggressive pricing approach, it is a very economical way to get much better sound for your home viewing.