Roku Streambar Pro: 4K HDR Soundbar

So I spent days researching sound bars for our TCL Roku TV from the TCL made one for Roku TVs to generic sound bars to this Roku Streambar Pro. Each has pros/cons to consider and I was very frustrated the amount of time it took to find answers to things I’d think would be common sense sort of things such as why doesn’t Roku make a soundbar without a Roku built in for Roku TVs (aside from the fact the TV manufacturers make them)? Or what happens when a Roku TV owner uses a Streambar or Streambar Pro since there’s now a 2nd Roku sitting there for nothing? With a normal non-Roku TV it’s pretty obvious it’s just a matter of changing inputs but with a Roku TV the Roku IS the TV system including changing inputs.
So the Pro bar feels pretty well made. It was very simply to plug in but it was frustrating the power cord was so long when I only needed to go about 3 foot with TV mounted on wall & mounting the bar below it using a kit I got off amazon. Suppose they assume many will want a long cord such as if the bar is on TV cabinet or such but those of us with wall mounted tv need shorter for simpler cable management & hiding those cables. I can probably find a 3rd party power cord that’s shorter but I just wanted to test the thing out. The other frustration in mounting the bar is that the bar uses 1/4″ screws but the kit came with only metric screws. Yeah that’s more on the kit people but TV mounts use metric.. I used the included HDMI cable & plugged into the ARC HDMI port in part because there’s a note on the cable that’s what should be used. Powered on the tv & like magic the TCL Roku tv saw the bar & it told me I wouldn’t need the remote that came with the bar (I assume because it’s a Roku TV & plugged into ARC port). So I used the original TV remote & walked thru the simple wizard which most of the time was waiting on it to do forced auto-updates before it would continue. When done it played a demo video which there was no obvious way to cancel but home button did the trick. I was back at the TCL Roku home screen with nothing obviously different besides when changing volume the icon was different (shows a tiny sound bar) and it was obvious the sound was much better & coming out of the bar now instead of the tv speakers. So it appeared I was done.. No sign of the bar’s Roku or the HDMI port I plugged it into. HDMI4 was missing now! So that answers the one nagging question of what happens on Roku TV & that’s it acts like a stand-alone bar if you choose to leave it that way. I wanted to dig in more so in settings I found HDMI4 set as hidden so i changed that & voila! there was now a new input called Roku Streambar Pro. Cooler yet when i moved to it it showed a thumbnail preview of the other roku like picture in picture. I chose it & there was the new “hidden” Roku. And like magic there were all my apps! But the tv remote no longer worked for anything but tv functions like volume. I had to add batteries to the new remote & use that. Hitting Hom on the TV remote took me to the TV Roku home. Hitting home on new Roku remote alerted me it was taking me to the Streambar Roku with a timer to cancel. Once playing with the new Roku I found that one got setup by the roku tv & roku system without any input/help from me for Wifi, Roku acct login etc. Cool but tad concerning from security/privacy standpoint at the same time.. So both remotes power tv on & off, both volumes control the volume but each remote controls only the respective Roku. This does make sense in hindsight but nice to know & makes me wonder why Roku doesn’t document how it works for Roku TV owners. It also answers why they don’t sell a bar without a Roku since that new Roku is basically hidden & not used unless you go looking for it (or happen to setup the new remote & hit keys..) But is it?.. Setting up bluetooth streaming Pandora from phone told me otherwise. I added the phone in the TV Roku settings & like magic I could hear the music despite the TV Roku home screen up. Odd.. No controls. No info. Just music playing. I went to the bar Roku while it was playing & there it was! the bluetooth player “channel” was up on that Roku but hidden from view except I had un-hidden it. Others who had not wouldn’t even realize that was there & would miss out on part of the experience. Non Roku TV users would have enjoyed the full experience since they’d probably be using the new built in roku. So it made me wonder why not just use the bar’s roku instead of the tv’s roku? For one anyone who uses other inputs MUST use the Tv’s roku. If you ONLY roku that’s moot. Same if you use the HD tuner, you’d have to use the TV Roku. Since it’s mounted on wall only use Roku so yeah why not?! I did some testing & the menus seems comparison in speed. Apps/channels seems comparable. Then I started a movie on Disney plus & wow did it look much worse on the bar roku vs the tv roku.. On the tv it was bright & very detailed. On the bar it was dark & grainy. The hint was the tv splashed “Dolby Vision” when starting the movie & the bar flashed “HDR”. Bummer the bar does not support Dolby Vision 🙁 The movie looked so much worse it was no brainer that using the TV roku was the best option & switch to the bar roku if streaming Pandora & wanting to see the info/status. But I had to dig in more & glad i did. On the bar Roku in display settings it was Auto by default & there was UHD 4K HDR! I set it to 4K non-HDR & wow the D+ movie looked great now! Basically on par with the TV’s Roku with Dolby Vision but not quite.. So close most people would probably find it close enough. To me the Dolby Vision was a touch better but not enough to avoid using the bar’s Roku at this point and I seemed to answer all my questions except how good does the bar sound.. Streaming Pandora from an Android had me worried because it was pretty flat & tinny no matter what sound settings I chose. The music preset was near impossible to hear without turning volume wayyy up (btw the volume changes lag with either Roku compared to built in sound which was a bit annoying since it took so long to turn it up to hear then back down). I gave up on Pandora & found a streaming music channel on Roku Spectrum app. HOLY COW it was pretty fantastic! WAYY better than the sound of Pandora to point if I had only tried Pandora I would have thought this bar stunk. If it was Pandora or streaming over bluetooth or what I’m not sure but there was definitely a very noticeable difference. Now using the streaming channel it sounds fantastic, especially compared to the TCL built in speakers and after a little tweaking of sound settings on the * menu. Music sounds best with defaults but enable surround drop treble 1 notch & bunch bass a couple.. Oddly enough for tv it sounded better (could hear the people better without “distortion” from the sounds) with surround off. I figure it depends on what we’re watching. I’m very pleased with choosing the Streambar Pro at this point & would recommend it to Roku TV or non-Roku TV users alike now that I’ve answered the questions that kept me from ordering it until now.

I got tired of my old 5.1 system constantly drowning out voices or becoming drastically louder during certain scenes and commercials. No matter how I adjusted, one adjustment would kill or enhance another sound to where it just got to where I felt like I was paying more attention to adjusting the sound than what I was watching. I was a little leary about purchasing the whole Roku set, the streambar, sub-woofer, and the surround speakers, but I was glad I did because it gave me the opportunity to try each unit individually to see if I really needed them. The streambar has great sound quality with unusually good bass. Not wall shaking, window breaking, roof collapsing, bone jellifying bass, but bass that is noticible and doesn’t drown out the other sounds. The sound leveling and voice enhancement features really work. They do require some adjustment and I’ll get to that in a moment.
After 2 days I realized the streambar was doing its job as advertised, so I installed the sub-woofer. Now this is tricky, you plug it in, and then you have to go into the streambar setup app and configure the streambar to recognize it. But there are instructions going step by step, 1, 2, 3, and it’s done. And it has some boom to it. I mean real boom. You kinda have to adjust that too. But for me, it’s a keeper.
Again after 2 days, I decided to give the surround speakers their shot. Each speaker is bluetooth connected, there are no wires other than each one requireing an electrical outlet. Each speaker also must be setup individually, but the setup is identicle to the sub-woofer, with instructions included. The only difference here is during setup you discover which speaker goes on the left and which goes on the right. There is a test during the serup. Of course I was wrong the first time, but easily fixed. These too have separate adjustments.
I see a lot of comments about the inability to not have as much control over each portion of the system as you would with most sound systems. My old system had a remote that let me adjust the back, woofer, bass boost, cinematic features, etc. In fact it was confusing at times trying to get just the right setup. Of course there would always be something different coming out of the system based on whatever I was listenting to, DVD, regular TV, music, streaming from Netflix or Hulu, etc. And I would have to readjust again. Voices were constantly being drowned out, no matter how hard I tried. The Auto/PCM/Dolby…. settings made no difference.
With the Roku Streambar and friends, I really don’t see a problem, in fact I appreciate the simplicity of the settings and I’ve found that once set to my liking, I’m done. I get sound leveling, voice enhanced, big butt bass, and nice even surround sound no matter what watching. The various sound settings aren’t on the remote, they are in the Roku itself. Easy to get in the settings. The levels you get are loud, louder, loudest, off, normal, that’s all I can remember off the top of my head, but you get the picture. The volume itself is handled by the remote and you can set it up to use your TV remote sound and power if you have HDMI/ARC on your TV. I do and it works. There’s even a setting to turn off sound leveling, although I can’t figure out why you’d want to. I tried it and it sort of messed everything up.
I’m a cable cutter. Antenna TV and streaming. I’m very happy I bought the whole settup at one time and tried them out. Because I was used to surround sound from the get go I believe it’s why I decided to keep them all. You may feel differently, it’s all a matter of preference. The streambar does an excellent job of attempting to give you surround. Sounds do ping off the walls and behind you at various times. The surround speakers just makes sure I get all of it. My sub-woofer settings are a low. It rocks, and with a small house, the neighborhood knows when I’m watching an action movie.
Expensive? For the complete system yes. But so much simpler to deal with as far as adjustments. Like I said, set once to my liking and done.

Muy bien lo recomiendo

En el video es totalmente recomendable excelente resolución dependiendo a tu TV o video proyector que alcanza hasta 4K, en sonido, sin lugar a dudas es una excelente opción, pero sacarías mayor provecho con el woffer y con los speakers … una vez en conjunto los sonidos y efectos de audio hacen la diferencia, en calidad del material es muy bueno casi llegando a lo excelente. Es importante si vives aquí en Mexico revisar el modelo de todo para que sea compatible, recuerda si viene modelo con terminación MX no es compatible no con Woffer ni con speakers … busca el modelo R o X para que pueda ser compatible y configurar tu audio ..!! Ah, hay buenas plataformas incluidas, eso si, para sacar al máximo tu equipo debes de tener un buen internet ..!!! Saludos