VIZIO M-Series 5.1.2 Premium Sound Bar with Dolby Atmos, DTSX, Bluetooth, Wireless Subwoofer, Voice Assistant Compatible, Includes Remote Control – M512a-H6

10 reviews for VIZIO M-Series 5.1.2 Premium Sound Bar with Dolby Atmos, DTSX, Bluetooth, Wireless Subwoofer, Voice Assistant Compatible, Includes Remote Control – M512a-H6

1. 

   5 out of 5

   Christian – April 15, 2020

   This thing is perfect for people that are not looking for real surround sound, but it is loud and the sound is really good! Perfect gift for my parents!

2. 

   5 out of 5

   Sam – April 17, 2020

   7/20/21: After looking into many surround sound and Dolby atmos products, I decided on getting this 5.1 Vizio M-Series sound bar, and I am very happy with my choice! The 5″ subwoofer is small, but pretty powerful and doesn’t draw attention to itself during heavy bass moments in film or video games. Dialogue is crisp and clear, and the sound truly feels like it is around you. Since it doesn’t have any upfiring speakers, you won’t get that true overhead sound, but it does its best to replicate it virtually. Setup was fairly easy, the subwoofer automatically connects to the soundbar once everything is plugged in, and it instantly recognizes the TV after being plugged into the HDMI eARC. Bluetooth connectivity was great, but I had a problem of switching from Bluetooth back to the TV, where my TV struggled to recognize the sound bar again until I restarted the TV, but that may just be an issue with my TV (honestly not a big deal, definitely not a deal breaker for me, it’s easy to restart the TV! 😆). Since everything is relatively small and light, this is a great sound system for those who move around a lot. Also, I love that VIZIO provides all the extra cords and cables, as well as the wall mounting hardware! Super cool :) The only thing that I was kinda upset with is that they sized down the subwoofer from the original product model of 6″ to this model’s 5″, but it does the job and I am okay with that :) overall, if you’re looking for a really great soundbar for under $500, this is a wonderful choice!10/21/2021 Update: Still an amazing sound system!! :) So happy with my purchase. Only issue I had with it is that if I put my TV into “sleep mode”, the soundbar isn’t recognized, and I have to restart my TV in order for the soundbar to work. Honestly this is such a minor issue (and most likely an issue on the TV’s part) that it doesn’t hinder my enjoyment of this sound system at all. All my friends and family have been very impressed by its surround sound capabilities, especially for a soundbar! :)

3. 

   5 out of 5

   Haden McDonald – May 15, 2020

   After doing a lot of product hunting, I was really excited about this soundbar. I almost jumped the gun on a few others, but I’m glad I waited for this one. If you’re looking for an entry soundbar to go in your family room and don’t know what Dolby Atmos is, then I’ll be honest: this is not the home theater setup for you. There are plenty of other systems that perform well for hundreds of $ cheaper, including the Vizio V series line of speakers, which you can also get in 5.1.If you have heard of Atmos or want the newest middle-ground speaker, then this is it. Before you click the “Buy Now” button, make sure you are ready to take advantage of Atmos, though. You’ll want to make sure your TV supports it (if it has eARC label on an HDMI port, then you’re good), the content you’re watching supports it, the device you are using supports it, and that all of your settings are correct across the board (for example some TVs disable ARC by default and this should be enabled). If you have all of those things, then this tops it off. The included HDMI cable is ARC so you can use that to connect the soundbar. Make sure you use the port labeled eARC on the soundbar and the TV. HDMI is the best method, you don’t want to have to use optical if you don’t have to.For my full review:Pros:*All-around sound is great. I’ve watched only a few hours of various types of shows and it does a good job of handling lots of dialogue, or a sporting event, or a highly dramatic scene. You won’t be absolutely blown away, but depending on what you were using before this could be a major game-changer. At the end of the day, it sucks me into the content and that’s all I need.*Left and right speakers have PLENTY of cord length. I didn’t look into it, but I would guess somewhere between 20 to 25 feet of cable for each side speaker and they connect to the sub which is wireless but obviously needs power. One end of each side cable has an L-shaped plug while the other is straight. Make sure you know which one you want to feed through the tube of a speaker stand before setting up so you know where your cable is going to go. Only the straight plug will fit through most stands. Read the manual for setup, but in case you miss it, the blue plug is the left speaker and the gray plug is the right speaker. The speakers themselves have color-coding on the inside of the ports as well to help.*Soundbar itself is kind of big compared to others but has a pretty low profile which makes it great for fitting right in front of the TV and not being in the way.*Upfiring speakers are much better at providing Atmos sound compared to the digital/”fake” up-firing speakers that I have heard in some other soundbars.*Remote is a nice upgrade with the digital display that makes it easy to change inputs.Cons:*Depending on what content you’re watching and if it’s in surround sound, I noticed that it can take the speaker about 5-10s for it to start playing a sound while the TV is already playing video. It was also out of sync (ahead) by about half a second, but I corrected this in TV settings by adding delay.*Bluetooth was slow to connect, even slower to start playing music compared to the video as mentioned in the bullet above. Not terrible, but there shouldn’t be such a long delay between pressing play and it actually playing music. That’s why I give it 4 stars on Bluetooth. Everything else about BT is fine.*EQ and level settings on the remote are… bleh. What’s strange is you can go through the levels, like Bass for example, and change it to either + or -. Only once in each direction. And when you hit something like “+” you now have to pick between + or – because there is no way to return it back to neutral for that setting. I wish there were more levels to the levels. I would definitely recommend turning Bass and Height Speakers to +, possibly also turning the side speakers to +. For the weird EQ settings on the remote, I gave it 4 stars on remote.I am personally pairing these speakers with an LG 65NANO85 2021 TV, a Chromecast with Google TV, and tried it with Netflix (Sophie documentary was a dolby atmos title, according to Netflix). If you are using Netflix, you need to be on the premier plan to get Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, by the way. I had only planned to watch about 10 minutes at first, but once I sat there, the visuals and the speakers absolutely drew me in and I couldn’t stop. Not only did it sound crisp and clear, but I felt like I was in the room. I couldn’t really notice the Atmos effect while watching, but it made me feel surrounded and it felt very natural. It was one of the closest feelings I’ve had to being in a movie theater sound system at home that wasn’t some audiophile’s home setup.For $500 (It will likely fall to $450 on sales, maybe even a $400 price tag sometime??), I truly believe it is a good value. This is practically the cheapest way to get into true Atmos entertainment right now and I’m definitely happy I did. Since this is a pretty new product at the time of review, I’m hoping others get in on what a great system this is. You’re not going to be getting perfect audio and this isn’t the top-of-the-line stuff, but I really think this will check a lot of boxes and be a very convenient solution for a lot of people that want to enjoy their shows and movies immersively.

4. 

   5 out of 5

   Brandon TBrandon T – May 17, 2020

   First impressions using this with my laptop, this boy loud… and the lowest volume is still pretty loud especially with a sleeping roommate, this has a night mode for that reason and it works pretty well. The box arrived damaged but then again it did just travel 7000 miles its pretty common for packages I get. The product box itself was flawless as well as the product. Its a little big for my current desk but that will change when I get back to the states. The bass is pretty good not as good as a stand alone subwoofer but for this size it is acceptable. The virtual surround sound is pretty good for a stereo speaker makes a big difference for everything I listen to. The speaker its self gets very loud, louder than I will ever need. I have only found one problem with the speaker so far and that when you turn up the speaker volume on the bar itself and listen to audio there is like a static sound but I have only heard that once and haven’t heard it since but I felt like I should mention it, update it seems to only be a problem whenever I have TruVolume on also another problem I have seen is that when I pause a video for a while and then go back to replay audio there will be no audio for like 2-10 seconds until the speaker starts playing audio its perfectly in sync its just a delay between when you get audio this got to the point where it is actually very annoying so I decided to try to fix it and I believe I did, if you’re using this with a laptop you will probably have two options to select from in your device playback just select the Vizio one it has little to no delay like I stated before and I haven’t noticed a drop in audio quality just a huge boost in QoL because now when I hit play on a youtube video I had paused I get sound instantly rather than 10 seconds later. For the price this thing is a beast I feel bad since I’ll never be able to see its full potential due to living in the barracks but I use it for Youtube and music mainly and it does that well.

5. 

   5 out of 5

   Cpt Roland Jarvis – June 27, 2020

   This is a winner. I wanted to add ATMOS to my older curved 4K 3D TV which can NOT do ATMOS. How did I do it? I have apple 4K TV (an applied black box you attach to your TV, which already reads Dolby Vision and HDR10 to my 4K TV. It also reads Dolby ATMOS). You can not buy a curved or even a 3d TV anymore :-( So to buy a TV that can play Dolby ATMOS I would loose 3D which on this TV is gorgeous (you should see “The Life of Pi” on it). Solution: This Vizio Sound System, Because you can put two inputs into the sound bar and the one output goes direct to the TV passing on the information. The Sound Bar reads the ATMOS from the small Apple TV 4K box and distributes it to the sound system. Perfect. The other input was from by DVD, but sadly my DVD does not produce ATMOS to send on. I had to up my game with a new DVD play. Wow, that was a good idea. It not only gave me the features I needed to include upping the resolution on non-bluRay but the ability to watch any worldwide “Zone.”. I had a couple of 3D DVD’s from other countries I never was able to watch until now. Since this sound system had two inputs I just plugged the DVD HDMI into the second HDMI port on the sound bar and presto, DVD ATMOS. Now, without, upgrading my TV I can watch all the streaming channels (all available as apps on the Apple TV 4K) with Dolby ATMOS and the new high grade visuals. You can read other reviews on the fantastic sound, ease of setting up and quality of the Vizio ATMOS sound bar, I just wanted you to know you DO NOT need an ATMOS TV to enjoy ATMOS sound.

6. 

   5 out of 5

   Dan B – July 16, 2020

   I got this for our bedroom where I wanted qaulity sound with bass without having a dedicated subwoofer. This is an all in one package that sounds great. Do not expect this to have a booming bass like you would get from a sound bar with a dedicated powered sub, but you will be surprised on the bass you do get with it. You get a good full sound profile in a small package. Definitely worth the $99 I spent.

7. 

   5 out of 5

   Joe M. – August 6, 2020

   Edit 2/1/21: I was able to figure out to turn off the audible voice that was calling out which input selection you were making each time you changed it. Pressing and holding down the mute button on the remote disables both the audible voice and it also turns off the small power light on the soundbar (the light still comes on when you switch inputs or make volume changes).Original review: So far so good. I am a diehard Bose guy and reluctantly downsized my home entertainment setup to reduce clutter in our media center. We previously were rocking a pieced together 3.1 AV setup, 1 Bose center channel, LH and RH bose 301 Bookshelf speakers and a Yahama 10” sub powered by a newer Denon AVR. The vizio Elevate simplifies the whole setup with a very cleanly designed central soundbar and wireless subwoofer. We don’t currently have room to run the rear satellite speakers that come with it, so we are just using the soundbar and sub.1st things first….everyone in here complains about the setup process. I had mine setup just fine using the SmartCast app. Not connectivity issues (I am on gigabit wifi), if I have one complaint it’s that the app doesn’t explain what some of the sound settings do (a little help rollover caption would help).The sound is a 90/100. The dialogue is crystal clear, even better than the Bose provided. Mid level treble is a little flat or “canned”, it is lacking a little depth, this would probably get better if I was running the rear satellites. One thing to note is this soundbar makes you much more aware of how different movies or shows are audio mixed. Some shows have their levels subtly different and this soundbar will highlight that. Anything Atmos is fantastic!!! The outer sections of the soundbar rotate up and the coverage is incredible. If only everything could be Atmos mixed!! The subwoofer is incredibly powerful, I find myself having to adjust it down to a safer level for most TV watching.CEC auto input switching is a bit of a ghost in the machine. For some reason, regardless of which hdmi input we plug our Apple TV into, the soundbar always seems to default to the Apple TV as the first input to watch when you turn the TV on. Additionally, switching inputs the soundbar has this annoying voice that will announce what input you’re switching to. It’s a nice feature but there’s no way to turn the voice down, it’s annoyingly loud.All in all I am very happy with this purchase. Crisp clear dialogue is the most important thing for me when watching any movie or show and this thing delivers in every way for that metric. Great surround sound, extremely powerful sub, mid level treble really wants to be cranked up volume wise, otherwise it feels a little flat. I am happy with this purchase! Interfaced well with my Vizio 75” Quantum X TV.

8. 

   5 out of 5

   Jeff Baygents – September 5, 2020

   I used to have been in IT for about 30 years so I wanted to share with others on how I was able to get this Vizio sound bar to natively work with a Roku streaming box, now using just the Roku clicker.I was having issues with the ROKU Streaming Bar on my Vizio TVs due to locking up and had to return it. I wasn’t sure if this Vizio sound bar would be adept enough to work seamlessly or if I’d have to use 2 remotes (which I was dreading). We needed some kind of sound bar or speakers because our Vizio TV speakers were rattling and couldn’t handle the normal higher volumes. So, anyway, after installation and some settings changes, I was able to get it to work with using just the Roku remote control. Here’s what I did.I mounted this Vizio sound bar on top of my Vizio TV, which is installed on an articular wall mounted arm. Then, I followed all the instructions for the sound bar to ensure it would work fine with the TV, which it did. On this note, however, I did initially ensure I didn’t turn on anything special with the sound bar settings and kept it with mostly the defaults for Movies. I didn’t want any features to conflict with anything, in case it wouldn’t work with the Roku later. Also, some people were asking if it does come with its own sound bar emote and if it has an LCD panel on it. That answer is Yes to both questions; however, the LCD panel is just a one line small display so, don’t think of it as a full screen thing like a digital smart remote, as it’s not.Now, the TV I use is a 50-inch size, 4K, about 3 years old, and is a lower end model series but it does have CEC and ARC. Although I didn’t need it at the time, I knew that those 2 functions were an upcoming thing that might be needed down the road for other connecting devices. As it turns out, they were both needed in this case. So, for TV settings, go ahead and enable CEC and, if you have as setting for it, ARC should be enabled.Then, ensure your Roku streaming box is fully setup for this TV, initially via HDMI #1 (or ARC). Also, ensure you configure the Roku remote to control the volume and on/off power to the TV. This step is very important. Once that’s done, disconnect the Roku from the HDMI port of the TV.Then, follow the sound bar instructions using your TV remote and the sound bar remote. It will want you to connect into your TV’s HDMI ARC port. After you’ve configured your sound bar (just start out with basic settings), continue with these next steps.The only other TV setting you might need to change is that I had disabled (selection: OFF) the TV speakers (the internal ones, not the sound bar). I did go ahead and change a setting on the TV audio section was to make the audio levels self-adjusting to avoid sudden loud volumes when it played commercials, etc.The next step is to plug in your (already configured) Roku streaming box into another HDMI port. I used HDMI #2 port. I only tried this with the current 2022 model ROKU Ultra. So, to confirm, your Vizio sound bar is plugged into the HDMI port identified as “ARC” and the Roku streaming box is plugged into another HDMI port. After the ROKU fully started up, I used the TV remote to switch over to the ROKU to ensure it would work and it was okay. I wasn’t checking the sound bar yet.Yours might actually already be working for you. So, these next steps you might not have to go through; not sure but wanted to relay exactly what I did the very first time. I then powered down both the TV and the Roku. I then unplugged both and plugged them both back in but did just the TV first and booted it up fully before I plugged the Roku back in and started it back up.So, with both the TV on, sound bar on, and Roku on, I used the TV remote to switch over to the Roku and set that TV remote aside. I then was able to adjust the volume using just the Roku remote. However, I did notice that I had to get the volume to around numbers 50-80 for good measure. Before, when just on the TV (internal) speakers, I would have the volume numbered around 35.I then used the TV and the sound bar remotes to tweak some audio settings and everything seemed to still be okay later using just the Roku remote to adjust the sound bar’s volume.So, I sincerely hope this helps others.

9. 

   5 out of 5

   BDGBDG – September 5, 2020

   I just set the unit up to replace an 8 year old 5.1.2 soundbar setup. For the money this a very good soundbar. The dialogue mode is excellent, the bass response is awesome, it looks sleek, the build quality is very good, fits great under my TV and in my smallish living room, and the sound stage is very good.The setup is challenging as the app doesn’t want to connect to the bar so that requires a number of app restarts, the high end response could be better, the rear satellites are a little weak, the Chromecast audio skips. I read reviews and viewed videos so I knew about some of the short comings and sometimes the app takes a second or 2 to change the setting but I’ve experienced that with other “remotes” that are going over the internet so none it surprised me.Overall I’m satisfied.

10. 

    5 out of 5

    Catalin GRUI – September 29, 2020

    This is great overall. The revolving speakers are awesome, the upfiring ones as well. My wife and I often find ourselves impressed when watching a movie by the sounds coming from all around us. And with Dolby Atmos, it’s amazing how you can actually pinpoint the location of the sounds. The subwoofer is very loud/strong as well. Even on the lowest volume setting, you can hear a clear, strong base. And on higher settings… it’s awesome and you can feel the explosions and low sounds. Overall great, highly recommended all around.