BAR 5.1 Surround

Overview

The Bar 5.1 Surround is a 2019 soundbar from JBL, sold with a 10-inch wireless subwoofer. The bar is 1018 mm wide, 58 mm high and 100 mm deep, comes in black and can be wall-mounted with the bracket kit in the box.

JBL lists five racetrack drivers and two 1.25-inch side-firing tweeters in the bar. The bar is rated at 5 x 50 W and the subwoofer at 300 W, 550 W in total. JBL's MultiBeam technology creates the surround effect without separate rear speakers.

The TV connects over HDMI ARC (an HDMI cable is in the box) or optical, and an HDMI input takes one more source. The bar connects to the home network over dual-band Wi-Fi, with Chromecast built-in and AirPlay for streaming, and works with Amazon Alexa. Bluetooth 4.2 is also built in. The USB Type-A port plays MP3 files on the US version; on other versions JBL states it is for service only.

The bar comes with a remote control with batteries, has touch controls on the bar, and also works with the TV remote. The box also contains the power cable and the manuals.

What the specs mean

• 5.1 speaker setup: five channels plus a subwoofer channel. The ".1" is the wireless subwoofer; the surround channels come from the bar itself through MultiBeam and the side-firing tweeters, not from rear speakers. There are no height channels, and the system cannot be expanded with rear speakers.
• HDMI ARC: the Audio Return Channel sends the TV's sound to the soundbar over an HDMI cable, and lets the TV remote control the bar. The newer eARC is needed for high-bitrate formats such as Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Atmos, which the Bar 5.1 Surround does not support.
• Audio formats: Dolby Digital.
• HDMI passthrough (4K, HDR10, Dolby Vision, HDCP 2.3): a console or streaming box connects to the HDMI input, and the bar passes 4K video with HDR10 or Dolby Vision on to the TV.
• Room correction: the bar can calibrate its sound to the room it is placed in.