Sony 2.1CH 60W Bluetooth Soundbar with Sub

What a great replacement for a receiver/5 speaker system! 3 wires. Audio input, power cable for bar, power cable for sub (to put wherever you want!). No more rat's nest of speaker cables snaking their way around your room, no more receiver as part of your 'component stack'. The box it comes in is huge. They had to come up with a box that is long enough to fit the bar plus sub (like 50") and tall and wide enough to fit the sub. So the result is A LOT of styrofoam packing compared to what you will usually find in consumer electronics. As much as UPS hates to handle boxes this huge (I worked there for many years), this thing is really well protected and I think the chances of it being damaged in shipping is smaller than for most other electronics (like TV's). That's a nice little plus if you are considering if it's worth the risk to save $15 on amazon vs picking it up locally. The 'effect' thing. This was my biggest question after reading the other reviews that led me to purchase. Several other reviews mentioned this comes out of the box with the 'effect' turned on, which significantly reduces loudness. After playing around with it and reading the manual, here's the scoop on that. First, some background. These bars are supposed to simulate surround sound. They will never be as good as actual speakers sitting behind you, but they can fake it really well! All I was really looking for was 'decent' sound from this for movies. Solid thump from the base, clear dialogue, sharp sound effects, etc. Any 'surround' effect would be bonus but not important to me. I've only watched some tv and streamed a netflix show so far but am already very impressed by sound immersion this thing creates. It really is AS IF sound is coming from all around you. Not in that direct bird-tweeting from that left-rear surround speaker way but in a general 'I really feel like I'm walking through the park in this scene' sort of way. I really didn't expect it to change much about quiet, non-movie watching but it's really does! I have no idea what the wizardry is behind this is. All sound is just vibrations in the air and all speakers do is move to create those pressure waves. So I guess that speakers that need to fool your ear into thinking the sound is coming from somewhere else is just a matter of them subtly changing the timing of sending out the individual sounds. The wider the soundbar and the better the tuning will create more of a 'soundfield'. I have no idea how it knows which frequencies to 'mix' and which ones to just send out clearly (dialogue is incredibly clear!) but it seems to do it very well. The remote lets you toggle between several pre-set effects like 'movie', 'tv', 'music', 'sports' etc. I was surprised at how much of a difference it makes. 'Movie' really makes for great ambient sounds and crystal clear dialogue. 'Music' makes for a good balance of all the sounds and doesn't attempt to sharpen dialogue while subtly tickling you with ambient sounds like 'movie' does. Back to the 'effect'. You can only toggle between the pre-set's when the 'effect' is on. When you turn 'effect' off the sound volume really does go way up. I'd say about double. Apparently that is the difference between all the speakers just pumping the sound straight out vs 'mixing' it between the speakers as it applies all sorts of depth simulation and sound cancellation trickery. If I'm sitting close to the tv and want to feel like I'm 'in' the movie, I'll be leaving that effect on because it's doing something more than just lowering the volume. If I want to fill a great area with louder music then I'll turn it off. Maybe that is a key difference with higher end units is that they don't need to sacrifice volume to create that sound field. Even with 'effect' on it seems to get as loud as I'd ever need it to be. I replaced a 10 year old mid-range kenwood receiver with mid-range stereo speakers and lower end sub, center, and surround speakers. The only thing my older setup MIGHT have been better at was booming out strong mid-range sound from the stereo speakers when cranking music. Even when I bothered to properly try to position and tune my rear surround speakers it never created anything close to the immersive impression that this soundbar does. Easy to set up, sub was already synced. Bluetooth sync to my phone worked right away and I was surprised that I could walk about 30 feet away before it started to lose the signal. Got rid of all sorts of eye-clutter with this upgrade. The only component I have is the xbox (mostly for streaming) and I set that behind the tv because the controllers are wireless and don't need a line-of-sight remote. Mounted the soundbar to the top of the tv and have the kinect sitting on top of that. All you can see is the tv, the sound bar, and the kinect. Not very long ago your 'main' setup implied having many speakers and a visible component stack (receiver, dvd/blue ray, ps3, xbox etc). Now it can be so simple without sacrificing the experience. I do realize that I can get a better sound with a 7 speaker dolby digital setup. But to get a nearly-as-good solution and eliminate all that clutter is a trade-off I'm very happy with!