I just realized this is Europe thread. My bad. For US users, the review was posted in May 2020.
Camelot One
3.0 out of 5 stars Great potential for truly wireless surround sound, but currently with some serious bugs
Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2020
Verified Purchase
Short summary: The completely wireless surround speakers make the JBL Bar 9.1 a unique product that COULD be perfect for my needs. But there are some trade-offs and significant bugs. I am hopefully JBL will fix the bigger issues with a firmware update, but as it sits today, I plan to return it for a refund.
Longer review:
First and foremost, you should understand that the 9.1 in the Bar 9.1 name is just that, a name. This isn’t a 9.1 surround sound unit; it is a 5.1.4. (5 main signal drivers, 1 subwoofer, 4 Atmos/DTS:X effect drivers)
You should also know that JBL is shipping different accessories depending on location. The US version I received from Amazon came with the main sound bar, 2 wireless/rechargeable surround speakers, 1 subwoofer, 2 power cables (bar and sub), 1 HDMI cable, and the wall mount hardware for the bar itself. Unlike the UK version, mine did NOT include the magnetic cover end caps for the charging ports, USB micro charging cables, or wall mount hardware for the surround speakers. I don’t need any of those things, just pointing it out because so many of the online review sites mention it including these extra accessories.
I was not able to test the eARC because my 2017 model Sony TV doesn’t support it. Instead, I am feeding the Bar 9.1 with an HDMI cable from my nVidia Shield TV (2019 version) into the HDMI IN on the bar, then an HDMI out to the TV. With this setup, I am able to get Dolby Atmos and DTS:X on the Bar 9.1 when playing media from Kodi and Amazon Prime Video. (Disney+ is currently blocking Atmos due to coronavirus bandwidth issues) I don’t have a Netflix subscription to test with.
Almost immediately I ran into some serious issues and limitations with the Bar 9.1. For starters, I couldn’t get it to complete Auto Calibration. The older Bar 5.1 had an external mic input you could use for calibration. Plug the mic in, set it in your preferred seat, and let it do it’s thing. JBL decided to eliminate that option for the 9.1 and rely solely on a mic built into the soundbar itself. Auto-Calibration requires 2 steps, first you put the surround speakers next to where you will sit so they can send audio to the soundbar mic, (step 1) then you move them to where they’ll be placed for surround sound and repeat the test. (step 2). Despite multiple attempts and moving the surround speakers all over my living room, I couldn’t get it to complete step 1. And obviously, it won’t let you start step 2 until step 1 is complete. There is absolutely no way to manually calibrate it. The remote gives you Low, Medium, High options for the Rear channel level and Atmos effect, as well as 1-5 volume settings for the sub. But there is no way to set individual channel levels or distance. So if Auto-Calibration fails, you are just stuck. I was eventually able to get it to complete both steps by moving the soundbar about 4’ in front of my TV and placing the speakers up on some tall stands. Obviously, this did not give me a proper calibration for the room, but it at least confirmed the hardware wasn’t defective.
I’ve also had the issue than in 10 days with it, there have been 3 times I’ve gone to turn it on and found it completely unresponsive to the remote and the buttons on the bar itself. Each time I had to pull the power cord for a few seconds before it would come back to life.
I sent an email to JBL support detailing the problems and everything I had tried. 4 days later, I received a most unhelpful reply back. I’m pretty sure someone ran the calibration section of a foreign language manual through Google Translate. Nothing new, just a completely messed up version of what I’d already read in the English manual. 3 more emails back and forth like that before I realized I was never going to get help from them.
And a final complaint is that they’ve stripped away a lot of the features you would normally find on a soundbar in this price range. (or even a lot less) There is no EQ of any kind. As mentioned above, no way to manually set individual speaker levels or distance. There aren’t any user-selectable sound modes such as Action, Movie, Music, etc. There is a Night Mode option, but it gets reset every time the bar is turned off, and you can only access it by holding Mute for 5 seconds then Volume down. There are a couple of other long press, multiple key combinations, all of which you’ll only find on internet forums. They aren’t documented in the manual at all.
It isn’t all bad though. Even without being correctly calibrated, the bar sounds pretty good in my living room. The volume is there, the quality of the sound is there, even the surround sound effect isn’t too bad. It’s really just the Atmos sound lift that is noticeably out of sync. And I’m hopeful this is something JBL can fix with new firmware. The completely wireless surround speakers are extremely convenient if you don’t have a good way to permanently mount your surrounds. Dialog can be a bit muffled with a stereo signal, but not too bad. I haven’t had any issues with it on 5.1 channel (and above) content. It is certainly better than it was on the older Bar 5.1. The sub has plenty of punch for everything I've thrown at it.
I’m convinced this COULD be a really amazing sound bar if they can work out the auto-calibration and power problems. I can live with everything else. My guess is, Corona virus shut-downs cut short a lot of the last-minute testing, and they started shipping before they’d worked out all of the bugs. I’m going to wait until the very end of my Amazon return period to give JBL a chance to fix the issues with a firmware update. But JBL support has proven to be a complete waste of time, so if the Bar 9.1 isn’t working right by the end of my return window, it is going back.
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