Hisense AX5100G 5.1ch Soundbar Review

Those of you soundbars are sometimes chased away by the steep worth tags that include them. Some set you again into the R30,000 division and it’s powerful to get a fairly first rate audio expertise on a funds. That is the place the Hisense AX5100G is available in. This soundbar is bought in two fashions. You get the Hisense AX3100 mannequin. It comprises solely the soundbar and subwoofer. You then get the Hisense AX5100G mannequin that comes with the identical soundbar and subwoofer but in addition packs in two rear audio system. Combined collectively, it is a 5.1 sound system that guarantees a encompass sound 340W expertise for below R5,000.

Hisense AX5100G 5.1ch Soundbar Review Below

Hisense has divided these fashions into two variations to cater for many who are solely searching for a soundbar in addition to these searching for some rear speaker sound too. The reality is, you possibly can slap Dolby Atmos and DTS encompass sound throughout a product but when a sound system doesn’t have rear audio system, the expertise usually falls flat. I can’t clarify how large of a distinction having rear audio system make in an leisure room. Everything all of the sudden turns into extra immersive. You can hear raindrops behind you, monster screams as you get chased by means of the jungle in a recreation and explosions that wrap round you intimately.

The Hisense AX5100G is a 340W speaker set. The energy is split throughout all three audio system. It comes with DTS:X, Dolby Atmos help, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital, essentially the most fashionable codec help and Hisense’s AI-optimized sound equalizer. There’s additionally Bluetooth 5.0.

So for this assessment, I’m overlaying each the Hisense AX5100G and Hisense AX3100. If you might be choosing up the soundbar-only mannequin, simply ignore all speak concerning the rear audio system. However, I truthfully don’t see why anybody wouldn’t take a look at the complete 5.1 system when it provides such nice worth for cash within the first place.

The Hisense AX5100G is all packed into one field. Inside, there’s the soundbar itself, the subwoofer and a great deal of cables. This soundbar wants three energy cables as a way to work. One energy cable is used for the soundbar itself, one for the subwoofer and one for the rear speaker set. Those audio system are then related by an RC cable. Thankfully, every thing you want comes within the field together with mounting brackets for the soundbar and screws for the rear audio system do you have to resolve to mount them in your wall.

In the right world, a model would offer you cool speaker stands to place up someplace in your leisure room the place you possibly can place the rear audio system. Sadly, this isn’t an ideal world so the rear audio system must be put in in a roundabout way or one other. At least Hisense offers you screws and plugs for that. There’s additionally a distant that packs some chunky buttons used to function the system.

Everything is neatly packed within the field and the rear audio system are included in a separate compartment. There’s additionally various documentation right here which explains the right way to join all of it collectively however in case you’ve arrange a speaker system previously 5 years, this isn’t something new. The soundbar additionally comes neatly wrapped in plastic and incorporates a wrap-around paper that reveals off some options of the gadget.

The general design of the whole system is sort of easy. All the audio system function a black wood casing with a steel grille entrance. The soundbar packs an HDMI port for eARC, USB for firmware and media playback, optical audio, an aux port and a coaxial port. The subwoofer solely has a figure-8 port and a button for syncing the subwoofer to the soundbar. The left rear speaker additionally packs the identical energy port and sync button however there’s additionally an RCA port to hyperlink the audio system collectively.

Both the subwoofer and left rear speaker additionally embrace a blue LED mild to sign its connection standing to the soundbar. There are some points with this mild however I’ll get to that in a bit.

I received’t say that is Hisense’s most trendy soundbar round but it surely will get the job accomplished. The soundbar has a decently-sized LED display on the entrance that reveals the amount, enter and different particulars. There’s additionally a pink standby mild.

Setting up the system was pretty easy. I merely eliminated by present soundbar and plugged the brand new one in. I did the identical factor for the subwoofer because of each audio system utilizing the identical energy plug. The rear audio system have been extra of a mission as a result of they must be behind you they usually can’t magically float within the air now, can they? So I lastly determined to get some floating cabinets put in to accommodate these audio system.

I then ran some trunking and looped the audio system collectively. I did have to chop the cable off and substitute it with some longer electrical wiring simply to have a neater setup. In the top, I had the rear audio system behind me and a few further shelf area for different cool stuff.

There’s nothing sophisticated concerning the Hisense AX5100G on the subject of its efficiency. In reality, the included distant was barely used because of the Roku TV help on the soundbar. This meant I might straight management the soundbar’s bass, treble and equaliser from the menu system on a TV.

The controller let me flip up the bass and treble however I might additionally do it on the Hisense U80H itself too. You’ll additionally want to alter your TV settings to accommodate your eARC and pass-through modes. This approach, the soundbar is aware of what sound format is coming by means of. Auto, for some cause, doesn’t work as there’s audio lag on the sound. I discovered utilizing Pass Through was one of the best guess.

Apart from altering the EQ, bass and treble, the precise controller for the Hisense AX5100G is pointless upon getting eARC arrange. You can regulate every thing on the TV utilizing your TV distant.

When it involves the sound high quality of the Hisense AX5100G, it performs fairly nicely. The huge push right here is, after all, the 5.1 help and that could be a actual game-changer in case you’re going from a normal soundbar or TV speaker setup. The extra rear audio system add new dimensions to your sound expertise and I used to be shocked to listen to how nicely they carried out. In reality, for his or her dimension, they really ship fairly a punch.

The sound high quality from the rear audio system was nice and loud too. Of course, you’ll must be watching one thing that helps 5.1. I instantly loaded up some YouTube movies with 5.1 sound demos. It was actually magical to listen to stuff flying from the entrance soundbar to the again of my head.

These audio system make an enormous distinction in all content material. Be it watching The Last of Us and listening to the atmosphere of the world round the primary characters. While gaming, it was nice to stroll previous somebody who was speaking and listen to them behind me as I walked away. Not to say when taking part in Dead Space, the clanging of pipes and the screams of monsters behind me freaked me out such as you received’t consider.

I examined nearly every thing on this method and it was all first rate. I did discover the soundbar to be a bit harsh on the excessive sounds. This meant that voices had excessive, hole pitches to them which muzzled out the sound results on the remainder of the content material. Sort of like these sounds have been sharper than every thing else. Everything I watched and performed had this problem. You might simply hear the voice at work however explosions, music and different results didn’t pack the identical punch. However, you possibly can tweak the bass and treble ranges to enhance this however solely barely.

The system handles Dolby Atmos nicely too. Sure, it doesn’t have any precise up-firing audio system however its reliance on virtualization was nice. The room full of sound throughout Dolby Atmos content material. Even although some sounds have been nonetheless overly sharpened.

I did have a number of technical points with the Hisense AX5100G which you will or might not relate to. Firstly, the subwoofer and rear audio system by no means flip off. In reality, at night time after I powered down every thing, they saved looking for the soundbar which resulted in an annoying blue mild flashing on a regular basis. It does stabilise until the soundbar is turned on. This means, with the horrible worth of electrical energy, these audio system proceed to make use of energy even in case you go away for a number of days. Those lights don’t cease flashing. The solely method to forestall that is to unplug the audio system.

So each night time I needed to go and pull the plug out of the again of every speaker and every single day after I wished to make use of them, I needed to go plug them in. There was nothing worse than sitting right down to get pleasure from a recreation after an extended day, getting comfy and realising I needed to rise up to plug the audio system again in.

It is all a bit cumbersome and I by no means thought I might be climbing into mattress at night time and having to get again out to go unplug audio system in order that they don’t devour electrical energy. Hisense might have added one thing right here. Maybe a change or computerized shutdown.

The soundbar additionally has its fair proportion of issues. For some cause, it resets its quantity to 50 each time it loses energy. So mainly, after each loadshedding session I had, I might flip the soundbar again on, launch a recreation or present and nearly get blown away by the amount. I then needed to hurry and faucet the amount button as quick as humanly doable to show it down. Keep in thoughts that fifty is extremely loud and would positively trigger hostility in a flat or advanced.

The soundbar additionally has a really quick power saver mode that sees it flip off after quarter-hour of inactivity. For a speaker set that leaves the rear speaker and subwoofer on always, this energy-saver mode is sort of ironic. Fifteen minutes is approach too quick for this to occur. Keep in thoughts that when it turns off, it makes a shutdown sound and the TV goes black because it resorts to TV audio system. The second you do something, it turns again on, makes a startup sound and the TV goes black once more.

Apart from that, I do benefit from the Hisense AX5100G. The 5.1 expertise will change the best way you devour your content material and contemplating this speaker system is barely R5,000, it’s positively a cut price. But its unbelievable price ticket does include its personal set of points and I don’t know if the difficulty is well worth the means to listen to monsters screaming behind me.

Find out extra concerning the Hisense AX5100G 5.1ch soundbar on the official web site right here.