JBL Bar 5.0 MultiBeam Soundbar, Bluetooth Channel Soundbar with Built-In Subwoofer, Featuring Dolby Atmos and MultiBeam Surround Sound Technologies

I bought this as a treat to myself because I was irritated that the DTS:X soundbar that I had, had no native content from streaming services. As soon as I connected to Netflix, the Atmos symbol came on over the applicable content. I selected stranger things to try it out, the sound was amazing, it sounded like Vekner was talking in the room which was pretty creepy!! Have tried lots of content and it sounds great, particularly the Atmos soundtracks which is why I bought it. For every day use it's just as good, I like the multi channel audio particularly for speech, as my old 2.1 set up had the mumble problem. Problem solved with the JBL! I really love it and so impressed with the value for money

Everytbing was very straightforward very easy to connect panasonic tv controls it.better sound quslity than a lot i tested around the same price! Good bass response and surround effects and clear treble.some dont and sound muffled

***Update*** I’ve purchased a second “as new” used warehouse deal from Amazon. The reason for this is I have a cheap portable projector screen (tripod type) for use with a Xgimi Horizon Pro projector (excellent projector btw) and needed something I could quickly set-up that was small but packed a *reasonable* punch. Typically, I’m using the projector in the main bedroom. I had considered (& even ordered from Amazon) a Creative Stage 360 (the cheapest Atmos soundbar money can buy as far as I knew) which worked out about £40 less than a warehouse special JBL 5 Multibeam but I had 2nd thoughts thinking that the JBL would be the better (& more convenient solution as there’s no wired passive sub) - so I cancelled the Creative & ordered a 2nd JBL 5 Multibeam. Glad I did too - as I hadn’t realised that I hadn’t set the 42” LG Oled Tv or the AppleTv 4k up to use Bitstream rather than pcm - subsequently meaning I had not been listening to the JBL at its best (at least with the best sound source). What a difference. So for the bedrm / smallish rm (say 4m x 4m) it genuinely sounds very good (note we have a Sennheiser Ambeo in the living room with an 83” OLED so I know what a decent soundbar sounds like & had 2 high quality Marantz Atmos setup’s at my old house each well north of £2k each) so; you know for <£200 this is pretty f*cking good! Seriously.Btw, as to my 2nd Warehouse deal; even better - this time it literally looked brand new, was in an outer Amazon box - I genuinely could not split it from a brand new one - except for a small “Amazon warehouse” sticker on the box. Original manufacturer clear circular seals unbroken (although this was £196 whereas my original one was £187). Remember to calibrate the soundbar in the room of choice! Enough now …. my original review words follow:I don't like taking too much of a risk with Amazon's warehouse deals but this was very well priced (£187) and stated it was “as new”. Whilst the packaging was a little damaged (there was another for sale that said its' packaging was damaged) mine wasn't supposed to be - plus it shipped in JBL's normal box I.e. Amazon didn't re-pack it which didn't help HOWEVER - its more than ok for a study under an LG 42" OLED in my case which is used as a PC monitor on a gaming system (& backup for work on the opposing side of my study) so my expectations weren't too high. The small LED display on the front is very useful and whilst the remote could be more practical (there are hidden features e.g. adjusting bass - where you have to hold a button for 5 seconds & then press volume) it’s more than enough for the job. HDMI CEC works perfectly so the TV remote works perfectly . In terms of its Atmos, virtual Atmos rather; don't expect too much - it is what it is (it is projecting sound rather than emitting it from dedicated ideally place Atmos speakers) as it's quite a small unit BUT it really is 1/2 decent for a small room and sounds great with music. As you’ll read above, despite thinking I’d set the TV eARC up correctly- I actually hadn’t - so post writing my review (on my second purchase of one of these I realised my error) the subsequent results were better. For its small footprint, ease of use and above all performance vs price, this is pretty neat.

This speaker is amazing value considering it costs pretty much the same as any small portable speaker from other well known brands. The volume, vocal clarity and bass are seriously impressive and I am seriously impressed, if I had to pay 3 times as much I would pay that for such is the sound quality on offer, even at low volumes not muddy at all. I have other speakers to compare to including atmos av receiver system and although it does not compare to full surround, depending on the room it certainly gives more space and spreads the sound to give a wider soundstage, all in all, JBL have never let me down

I had this bar set up in a few minutes out of the box. You just plug it in, add the batteries to the remote, and connect the included HDMI lead to your ARC / eARC connection on your TV and the other end to the HDMI Out / eARC, ARC port on the soundbar.The bar requires a firmware update or you will likely receive readout problems. It was the same thing with the JBL 9.1 bar. The bar will fail to display what sound format is playing - remaining blank, or will incorrectly display it - so it might say Dolby Surround when Atmos is playing. A firmware update is needed. I set this up via the Google Home app on my phone, it doesn't work via the JBL bar phone app, so forget that! However once the update was installed (via Google Home) the bar was stuck on LOAD. This is concerning because if it doesn't stop saying LOAD, the bar is effectively ruined. I unplugged the soundbar and when I switched it back on again it still said LOAD. Thankfully, this went away after a few minutes. Phew! It has done this on both the JBL 9.1 and the JBL 5.0 now.Even if you don't have eARC and only have ARC, you'll be able to get Atmos via the TV apps, because the TV streaming apps only use compressed Atmos, which ARC can handle.If you play Atmos from the TV streaming apps, you will only get compressed Atmos, the bar will say Dolby Atmos DD+, if you play Atmos via an Apple TV box, it should say Dolby Atmos Multichannel PCM, which is an almost lossless Atmos and better quality. At least that's the theory, because even after the firmware update, sometimes the bar reading doesn't say anything, and other times it says DD+ when it should be showing Dolby Atmos Multichannel PCM, via the Apple TV box. Frustrating.EDIT. The bar is now reading the correct sound format. It corrected itself. It was probably lagging behind after the firmware update. Make sure your TV is set to AUTO in sound settings.The bar has Dolby Vision passthrough but not HDR10+ so you can plug your Apple TV box / 4K player directly into the HDMI IN socket on the bar if you want to.THE SOUNDIt's excellent. FAR better than the TV speakers. Much clearer on regular shows that have 2.0 or 5.1 and the bar provides good sound from Atmos content. It isn't proper Atmos, it's virtual Atmos, you can only get proper Atmos if you have detachable back speakers and speakers in the ceiling, but it does an okay job of replicating this for the money. It has upward firing speakers built in. There is NO sub because the sub is built into the compact bar. The bass is good enough but it won't be as good as a separate subwoofer.This bar is great for a bedroom or a small living room, but probably not for a larger living room. The sound is great for me though whether playing concerts via YouTube, Atmos or regular TV content. Don't forget to alter the bass to your liking - see the instructions, and perform a calibration test too, see the instructions. Both work via a hold of a remote button. Easy to do.It comes highly recommended.FURTHER MORE.The bar has started saying Chomecast Airplay Ready, it reads across the bar every two minutes. This also happened on my JBL 9.1 soundbar, but it went away on its own. Unplugging the bar seems to remove the message but others have complained it comes back again or won't go. This is concerning, as it is quite annoying. I might have to remove the bar in the Google Home app and re-add it. If this persists I will have to return the soundbar.POSSIBLE SOLOUTION - WHICH ISN'T IDEAL.Once you've updated the firmware on the bar, remove the bar from Google Home phone app. The updated firmware will stay on the bar, unless you factory reset it. So the correct sound readouts should still show - Atmos, Dolby Surround etc. Every time you switch the bar on it will say SETUP WI-FI but it will only do this once when you switch it on, and it's better than seeing the Chomecast Airplay Ready message every 2 minutes. It is frustrating that modern technology always has issues, and is never perfect, but if you want a solution, there it is. Once you've updated the firmware, there is no real reason to do it again.