Sorry, JBL, but something designed for consumers also still needs to work. No DJ or audiophile worth their salt is going to put up with speakers that don’t work 10% of the time, and I’m no different. This is purely my conjecture, but I would guess that JBL, like many companies, is making its software/firmware development an afterthought, and probably also sub-contracting it out to the lowest bidder.
#5.1 SOUNDBAR MOVIE#
A user should not need to spend an hour trying to troubleshoot their suddenly malfunctioning speakers so they can relax with a movie on Saturday night. The speaker hardware itself is of good quality, but it’s hamstrung by malfunctioning firmware and software. My research and troubleshooting over the past month leads me to believe that these are both driver (software) and firmware (onboard the soundbar) issues, and the fact that there have been no software updates from JBL at all for this product is more than disappointing. The Bluetooth drivers are buggy, but I also have to use them half of the time because the optical and HDMI seem to have lower sound quality than BT for some reason - not to mention the fact that the soundbar randomly insists on using a different input depending on the day of the week. Reoccurring issues include constant random changing of input (with no cables for that input connected), an inability to control the volume over PC using BT, amd inconsistent BT pairing/unpairing function. The longer I use the JBLBAR51, the more I find that this ~$500 USD soundbar’s behavior seems governed completely by gremlins. JBL has earned a reputation for excellent concert speakers and studio monitors on the professional side, but I can’t say that I’ve seen this quality trickle-down to their consumer products. My original update was going to be much more profanity-laden, and it would have been “**** this ****ing piece of ****” if I didn’t make myself wait a day to calm down before I wrote this. I originally rated the JBL Bar 5.1 wireless surround soundbar fairly highly, citing it’s good sound quality and unique feature set as the main highlights while commenting on a cheap remote and some annoyances here and there.
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