JBL LINK BAR 100-Watt Sound Bar with SW10 10" 300-Watt Powered Wireless Subwoofer -

The JBL Link Bar is a pretty straightforward 2.0 soundbar that offers a decent sound quality with stereo content. It lacks quite a bit of sub-bass as it doesn't have a dedicated subwoofer and doesn't perform well with surrounds or Atmos content either. On the upside, its sound profile is well-balanced and the bar can get pretty loud. Unfortunately, pushing the bar to its max volume isn't recommended as the bass will be compressed. Nevertheless, the Link Bar is a great option if you have plenty of devices to plug in like a Blu-Ray player and gaming consoles since it has many ports. It also acts as a Google Home speaker and an Android TV Box, which adds to its versatility, although we haven't tested them so we can't comment on how well these features work.

The JBL Link Bar is a good-sounding bar that tries to be everything at once and ends up being too much for its own good.

The JBL Link Bar tries to combine three devices into one, but all three have different issues. As a Google Assistant smart speaker, it’s laggy and slow, it turns on your TV when you just want to listen to music, and it can be hard to use your voice to navigate video content. As a streaming box, it has a limited selection of streaming apps (in the UK). Even used purely as a soundbar, it’s difficult to get audio to output from your TV’s built-in apps to the soundbar over HDMI-ARC, meaning you’re more or less restricted to relying on the soundbar’s own apps and devices that are plugged directly into it.

The JBL Link Bar lacks the cinematic spectacle of some of its rivals but gets the sonic basics right. It’s a solid music player and will prove a big improvement over the sound of the vast majority of TVs. That said, the Sonos Beam is an even more musical performer and throws greater spaciousness into the mix, too.

If you still own an older dumb TV, the Link Bar is an excellent way to upgrade smarts and sound in one go. But those who already have a smart TV will likely get more mileage out of the Beam’s better sound and music streaming abilities.

JBL’s Link Bar is supposed to be a deal at $400 (£349.99, AU$599) for the sheer fact it’s an amalgamation of different devices and services. You get a sound bar, smart speaker and smart TV platform all in one. Plus, you can add a wireless subwoofer to add some extra bass to the sound. The issue is that the smart TV portion needs to fix what’s missing.

If JBL can do it through firmware or software updates, then there’s at least a chance of improving what’s already here. We just don’t know when, or if, the company plans to do that and you may want to hold off until they address those things. If you’re willing to pay more, consider a Sonos Beam with an Nvidia Shield instead, both of which are available now and offer a more complete experience.

hkhorace wrote: ↑ Is this a nice unit?

congo wrote: ↑ Was interested at first but after reading the manual, it doesn't look like you can disable the Google assistant unless turning off the microphones is all you need to do. Also doesn't appear you can turn off Google TV either. Also on the JBL website, they don't mention the audio outputs it supports like DTS or Dolby Vision. I have other devices to stream with so don't want this as well. Thanks for bringing it to our attention OP. This may be of interest to some.

Edit: forgot to mention it's discontinued on the JBL site as well.