The Long Search for a Sound bar - Part IV (JBL wins)

For the past several months (heck, years even), I've been looking for a sound bar for my htpc (Home theather PC, which is basically a personal computer attached to a television).

My old htpc / fileserver used an HDMI cable to output video to my tv. It was able to pass through audio using the same cable as well. The problem was that the tv speakers left much to be desired. You had to crank it all the way up, and still at times couldn't hear the dialogue from some movies. Music never sounded full enough, without that bass.

When that pc broke down, I assembled another, this time with a system unit running on just 50 watts. Unfortunately, it didn't have the same pass through technology on my old unit. So in order to listen to music and watch movies, I just used an old pair of desktop speakers.

Using speakers, I could now listen to music even without the tv on. Unfortunately, the speakers were tinny, so everything sounded bad. It was tolerable to some degree, but again, it didn't have the power to fill up a small living room like ours.

There was always an option of getting better computer speakers. I could even get a decent home theater speaker set up. But i dont have the space for big home theater speakers, and the patience for cluttered cables even from small PC speakers. So the best option for me was a sound bar. A definite upgrade from TV speakers, less the clutter.

Since my last search for a sound bar speaker last October, I've decided to put it off for a while and wait what Thanksgiving sale in the U.S. could offer me. I've been doing online shopping for years and having it shipped here to the Philippines. And for the last four years, I've been buying items at heavily discounted prices during Thanksgiving sale via Amazon. I'll blog about that on another time.

I waited until a few days before Thanksgiving and started to look around Amazon for a good deal. I also checked out Slickdeals a couple of weeks leading to the holiday.

I managed to find a few decent sound bars at roughly 99usd. There were a few well known brands around that range, give or take a few dollars. There were several less popular brands at even half the price, especially when Black Friday came around.

At about 100 - 150 usd, you can even get more than the entry level models that came with subwoofers, wired or otherwise. Some even came with bluetooth. For 6,600 pesos, those are definitely a steal, especially when the basic system here already sells for about 5,000 pesos.

There were models from Philips, Samsung, LG, Sharp, Sony being sold at half their price which when bought here, would actually cost thrice or even up to 5 times as much.

JBL for the win, baby!

While browsing slickdeals for soundbars a day or two before Black Friday, I saw an entry about JBL sound bars. It seems that some of them were already being sold at Brick and Mortar stores (term to refer to actual physical stores to differentiate them from their online counterparts). The entry level version, SB100, was being sold for 99 us dollars.

I checked via Amazon, and it was still going for about 150 US dollars, although the item page listed a discount of 89 dollars (down from SRP 239 usd).

I've seen that particular model being sold in the Philippines via some online websites for about 11,000 pesos which was the cheapest. I saw one at S&R being demoed and it sounded spectacular. I wasn't going to buy one for that price, but at 150usd (around 6,600 pesos), it was a steal. But if you factor the shipping price (based on the box dimensions, I was thinking about roughly 4,000 pesos), you'd be better off buying it here, save on the wait, and you could still get warranty and services support.

So i just placed the item in my online shopping cart, and hoped that it go down to 100 usd. If you factor in the shipping, it would probably total to around 8,000 pesos, which would be 3,000 less than the cheapest one you could find locally.

Still, there was an LG sound bar being sold already locally for 5,500 pesos. The next cheapest sound bar was around 8,000 as well. I was thinking I could get one already sans the months of waiting. If I ordered online, since it was near Christmas, I was thinking I'd likely get it by the middle of January.

A better option was to get the other models with the subwoofers being sold at 100-120 us dollars. But with the additional size of the subwoofer, the shipping cost would raise the costs beyond what I'm willing to pay for a subwoofer.

I was originally eyeing the cheap 3 thousand something sound bar from Philips, but which required me to buy a DAC for 800 pesos. So that would end up costing me 4,000 pesos already. Or the 5,500 sound bar from LG, which had the RCA inputs, but was readily available. I was thinking if the additional 2 - 3 thousand pesos would be worth it. Based on what I've heard during the demo, it definitely was.

So I decided to wait. If at any time it went down to 100 dollars, then i'll go for it. If not, I'll just go for the other ones that do. I'll look for better options than the one being sold for 5,500. Worst case scenario, I'll just go back to Robinson's Galleria and buy the one I've eyed there.

JBL SB100. Fresh from the box.

I didn't have to wait too long though, as a few hours before Black Friday started, the JBL SB100 went on sale for 99.95 usd (roughly 5,000 pesos with sales tax and shipping to my courier, who would in turn ship it to me here in the Philippines which I would have to pay for). As these sales were unpredictable (due to availability of stock) I immediately checked out the item for payment. In as short as 5 minutes, I already paid for it, and just waited for the confirmation email.

The rest of the 2013 Black Friday sale saw other sound bars (not JBL makes though) being sold at roughly the same price. Some had the subs, but I never felt the need for it as im not a heavy bass type of guy. Still, I felt the JBL was worth the price of 8,000 including shipping here to the Philippines).

I also took the rest of the Thanksgiving holiday to snatch a few more things on discount, unfortunately, I missed out on the 99usd xbox 360 sale (these are still being sold for about 12,000 pesos in the Philippines for crying out loud).

I did manage to buy 2 sets of Calvin Klein clothes, a Nautica shirt and a Micros short for Thirdy, a logitech wireless keyboard for myself, a Kenneth Cole leather wallet for Chea, 4 PS3 games for a co-worker of mine and a Rubbermaid closet kit that I've been eyeing for several months now (unfortunately, it wasn't on sale at the time, but they're not available locally anyway).

The reason I ordered the other smaller items, since they were on sale, any savings I got, went to the shipping. So even if the shipping costs me about 3,000 pesos, it practically paid for itself as the other items would be put in the same box as the sound bar for shipping. The Kenneth Cole wallet only cost about 1,300 pesos. If i bought it locally (if it was available), would probably be sold at 2,000 pesos at the cheapest. So with that savings, it means I have 700 pesos that can now go to the shipping. The CK apparel set for Thirdy cost about 700 pesos each. Locally, that would only buy you the pants.

So the savings I get from buying the smaller items, are actually paying off the shipping costs from the US to the Philippines.

Now, the hard part is the waiting. Usually, it takes a few days to have the items sent out by Amazon to the courier that I use. But since it was a record breaking Thanksgiving sale that year, I was expecting it to be delayed a bit. Then you have to wait for the courier to receive all the item, pack it in boxes, and then ship it here to the Philippines. Usually that would take another 4 weeks, and if you get lucky (I'm being sarcastic here), your package gets held up at the US customs for checking, and/or get held up again at the Philippine customs.

Anyway, at about 10 am on February 1, 2014, I received all of my Amazon ordered items at home. This was the first time I had packages shipped directly to my house. I used to have these things delivered at work. But I ordered big items that I didn't think would fit in the backseat of our car. So i opted to have them delivered to our house in QC. It was good that I did too as the boxes were big (two of them) and were heavy (especially the closet kit). Not to mention, I was able to receive it on a Sunday as they received the items in their warehouse on a Saturday. I didn't have to wait a day or two.

My two packages. The box lying flat on the ground contains the speaker.

Since it was my first time having it delivered to my home, I was worried they wouldn't be able to find my address. But the delivery guys managed to do so on the first try, and they didn't even need to call me. Some times, they don't get to deliver the packages on the first attempt, so they'd go back to their warehouse and try again the next day or so. And since I saw on Saturday night that the boxes were unloaded in their warehouse, I was hoping they'd deliver it the next day that I decided to stay in for the day. Fortunately, they did deliver it and I was at home to receive the packages.

The main box taken out of the shipping box.

A remote control and a 3.5mm to RCA cable.

TOSLink cable for optical in/out

Manual. There's a PDF version online if you ever lose this one.

After signing and taking pictures (as evidence that I received the boxes), I started unpacking things (took a video of it too to make sure that I received everything in the box, which I did).

The soundbar with its packing materials

The sound bar was inside a bigger box, along with the smaller items. I originally wanted the courier to pack everything inside the sound bar box itself and remove some of the packaging inside. But I guess they decided against it, fearing it would break the sound bar without the packing materials inside.

The sound bar itself.

As it turns out, the sound bar didn't use RCA ports but rather a 3.5mm jack as a line in port. The 3.5mm to RCA cables included was for attaching the cable to RCA jacks on your tv. Since my htpc didn't have RCA plugs, I had to rush to the nearest hardware store (Ace Hardware in SM Novaliches), to buy a 3.5mm to 3.5mm jack.

Bracket if you ever need to mount it on a wall.

Bottom of the sound bar.

I tried it in, but couldn't get it to work with my htpc's rear audio panel, whereas the front panel worked immediately. Playing some songs, it sounded absolutely wonderful, especially coming from a pair of plastic desktop speakers.

A closer look of the connections. The power switch and plugs are on the left. On the right, you have a 3.5mm jack, a mono plug for an optional subwoofer, and the optical output.

It took me a while to configure things on my htpc, so I could get audio from the rear panel (I wanted the cables tucked away discreetly).

After that, I tried out a few songs and a couple movies, and I just fell in love with what was coming out of the sound bar. Everything was clear, especially some ambient noises with movies. There was enough bass especially for music. I haven't tried to crank it all the way up, so  I don't know how loud the sound bar could go, but I was able to turn it up to the level I wanted.

The only complaint I could think of was there wasn't a display that would show if I had turned up the volume to the maximum already. Looking at the manual, there isn't anything in there addressing the same thing. I was at least hoping that the volume buttons on the sound bar would turn a certain color if it reached the maximum or minimum settings. No such luck.

The 32 inch long sound bar speaker against my 37 inch LCD Tv

Anyway, the JBL SB100 sound bar sounds great. It's definitely an improvement on the TV's built-in speakers. It only has two connections (analog line in and an optical in) so that's a negative somewhat. But then again, a sound bar really is just designed to be connected to a single source, most of the time a television. If you have an AV component, this isn't the speakers you'd attach them to. With the additional audio in, you have an option for another video source like a blu ray player, a game console, or in my case, an htpc.

Another con would be the price. It's pretty hefty at 8,000 pesos (including shipping). But if you buy it locally at about 11,000 pesos, then it becomes impractical. You could get a 5.1 or 7.1 system for the same price or less on a basic home theater system (the ones that come with a cd, dvd or bluray player) or a somewhat premium PC speaker system.

But since I got it practically at 5,000 pesos (with the shipping cost covered by the savings I had with the other items), it's worth every peso. The sound is absolutely wonderful, and everytime I listen to anything come out of it, I am just amazed at the premium quality of the audio.

Hopefully, this will last me a few years. By that time, I might be thinking of getting a better home audio setup so I could listen to music stored on my htpc anywhere in the house.