This is a baby TV soundbar made by Redmi pay close attention to the TV part because that’s where the conversation will be centered on. It’s US$60 which makes it the same price as a Xiaomi 16W bluetooth speaker so it’s an incredible value. And I have been playing around with it for the past week thanks to Mi Store Zim.
Light package, decent connectivity options, clean and simple
So it’s a very lean package. You get the elegant-looking speaker, some mounting screws and protective rubber boots if you wish to mount it to the wall, and a S/PDIF cable. The speaker itself has 3 connectivity modes. You have bluetooth, 3.5mm aux, and S/PDIF. I doubt many people will use the last one.
The controls are on the right face which includes the power button to turn it on and off, the volume buttons, and the input button which switches between the 3 audio input modes it’s got. It’s such a clean sound bar with just the essentials. Not let’s go to the main order of business. The sound.
Sounds very good for the price and size
There are 3 major aspects of this sound bar’s audio that pleasantly surprised me. The surround sound, the richness, and the volume.
The surround sound is quite pronounced. A lot more than what I get with my US$350 Sony headphones. If you are playing music from Spotify or movies on Netflix, it does an impressive job of separating the left and right channels. It’s got a wide sound stage which nicely fills up a small room providing a surround sound effect. It’s very immersive especially when you are playing a video or audio with very pronounced left and right sound effects. Dare I say you might be fooled into believing it is a Dolby 5.1 channel surround sound speaker.
Richness is a lot more than I expected from a sound bar this compact. Naturally, you need big drivers for big sound but also you need high-quality drivers or speakers to produce that big sound that is crisp, clear, and rich quality. You just do not expect it from a sound bar this slim.
Suffers a bit when you push its limits
So being an audio enthusiast I really took it through its paces. If you were wondering, no it does not come with a subwoofer which hurts its low end. If we were to look at the full spectrum of sound from the lowest bass notes to the highest-pitched treble, this sound bar is comfortable in the middle 60-70% of that range.
When using it as your speaker to watch TV shows on, it’s a solid speaker. And it is so because a lot of the audio in sports and TV shows falls within this middle 60-70%. And as for music, well that is where you start to come across some shortcomings of not just this soundbar but a majority of standalone soundbars.
Bass-heavy tracks like SA house music and HipHop music do not come as alive as they should. You find that the bass is not as pronounced as it should be and at volumes higher than 70% you tend to hear the bass drowning out everything else. And at the same volume levels, you also start to hear a bit of crackling in the high pitch tones that are outside of what the drivers are comfortable with.
Still a decent package for the price
That said, this is not a speaker you buy so you can use it to edit videos or master your music or host a party. It’s not designed for thunderous sound output even though it’s got some impressive volume. It’s designed to just serenade you as you watch your favorite sport or TV show. It’s the perfect replacement for TV or laptop speakers hands down. Both on price and performance.
Again for US$60, this seems like a pretty good bargain for a soundbar. It looks beautiful, it sounds great and if you think it’s just what you were looking for, you can grab one from the Mi Store at Eastgate Mall. You can check out their catalog on WhatsApp by clicking here.
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