You just bought a brand new television and the sound quality isn’t what you expected so what do you do? You get a sound bar of course! The problem with television speakers is that they simply get the job done. They often don’t deliver the louder, fuller, and richer sound one desires especially for the movie watching experience.
Today, the Soundbar is one of the most important home theatre items in households around the world. No longer is true surround sound achieved inexpensive speaker setups using obnoxious wiring, bulky tabletop amplifiers, and complicated stereo tuners. Soundbar’s offer enhanced amplified stereo sound, convenient portability, and most importantly – affordability.
The BlitzWolf BW-SDB1 Soundbar is a step ahead of today’s Soundbars. A few of the many features the BW-SDB1 offers is Bluetooth v4, HDMI ARC (allowing for input/output two-way sound), and 4 preset built-in equalizer effects. Luckily, this is where the BlitzWolf BW-SDB1 soundbar comes to the rescue. For the past few weeks, I have been testing out this soundbar. A proposal that offers a discrete performance from the point of view of sound at a price appropriate to the offer.
Unboxing
Our Soundbar shipped to us in dual boxes with frustration-free packing. It was packed tight and firm, with no loose items inside the box when we received it.
BlitzWolf BW-SDB1 is obtained in a simple carton with white and green colors. We find only the name of the company and the model on it, as well as a list of supported functions.
Inside the package of the BW-SDB1 we find in addition to the Soundbar, a user manual, a power cord, the remote control, an optical cable, and a double RCA-mini stereo Jack cable.
In fact, we find a pleasant remote control, ergonomic and very pleasant to the touch. This accessory allows you to control the soundbar in all its functions, in addition to the set of four equalizations presets.
Design & Features
BlitzWolf BW-SDB1 combines aluminum and plastic. The first one was made of nets protecting the transducers on the front and top of the loudspeaker, while the rest is already plastic, with a painted surface on elements in contact with the grids. The whole has been preserved in a typical black color of this type, which is decorated only with a silver emblem with the manufacturer’s logo. The whole, despite the fairly simple aesthetics, can be liked, especially that you can not see any defects that could marry the equipment or suggest careless execution.
BW-SDB1 is a soundbar adapted for TV sets from 32-42 inches. It has dimensions of 90 x 8.7 x 4.3 cm (width x depth x height) and weighs 1.8 kg, so it is easy to transport and you can easily try it in the living room, bedroom or kitchen, wherever there is a sound source. Inside, six full-range drivers and two diaphragms responsible for the bass are hidden, which, at these sizes, is quite a lot.
In the middle of the top panel, there is a small panel with buttons that allow you to turn on the system, change the source and volume. However, this is not very convenient, because the buttons are small, with a few perceptible clicks – so it’s better to just use the remote control.
- The rear panel is the space for all inputs, ie:
• Power Supply,
• Digital Coaxial,
• Optical Toslink,
• AUX input 3.5mm,
• USB,
• HDMI ARC.
Added to this is the possibility of pairing a loudspeaker with a Bluetooth source, which was used for the BT 4.2 standard.
So we have almost a full range of inputs, allowing you to connect almost any source, of course, bypassing the more exotic ones. Only an additional HDMI input is missing in order to take full advantage of the benefits of HDMI ARC and limit the number of cables. However, at a price of less than $ 100, you should not require all possible options. The most important thing is that each of the available connections works efficiently – just connect the cable and voila.
With Bluetooth and USB connections (where we usually hook up a pen drive with music, unfortunately only in mp3 format), in addition to controlling the volume, we can also change songs and pause and resume playback. This is especially convenient when we use streaming services, where the phone gives easy access to millions of songs.
In addition, BW-SDB1 allows you to use one of the four predefined equalizer settings. Their change is always communicated in English with a warm, feminine voice. We can choose:
- music (Music) – the most versatile sound, striving to balance the purity of the sound and its dynamics,
- movies (Movie) – accentuated vocals and bass, to make the sound effects more noticeable,
- sport (Sports) – mode playing the most edges, slightly brightened, but also with audible artifacts,
- news (News) – here the focus has been on the diameter, cutting off the sopranos and bass, which dims the reception of sounds.
An option that some people will like and some will hate is permanently set to save energy. When you turn off the sound source (except Bluetooth), the soundbar will also turn off. It will behave similarly in the case of a five-minute inactivity, although this is not always the case, because with digital connections pause of the film is not perceived as cutting off the source, so we can safely get ready for sandwiches or tea for the rest of the screening. In the interval between the episodes of the series, after returning, however, we can already turn off the loudspeaker.
Sound Test
BlitzWolf emphasizes that the BW-SDB1 has a power of 60W and a total of eight transducers that give clean and spacious sound. But is it possible to achieve that much from such a tiny thing? Apart from the power which was measured in an unknown way, it is hard to expect a deception of the laws of physics. However, the description of the sound itself, due to the fact that the equalizer cannot be turned off completely, applies to the Music mode.
The bass is noticeable. He can be quite point-like, but his character is warm and softened – the overall impression of the presence of the bottom is more important, not the amount of information transmitted. Fortunately, this is not the “dummy” sound, spreading over the remaining bands and poorly controlled. One can get the impression that the engineers tried to use the potential of what they had at hand, rather than artificially live it, which would probably translate into strongly noticeable distortions. BW-SDB1 offers an entertaining, but not exaggerated, bass layout with satisfactory control. It is true that below 60 Hz a fairly large drop begins, so you can not count on a spectacular descent, but the bottom is enough to stimulate the senses with more dynamic effects.
Medium tones are calm and safe. They do not try to pull forward, do not create artificial analytically, and their main attribute are the vocals, pushing back the instrumental sections. It does not mean, however, that the latter are quite staked – fortunately, the instruments or effects in the films remain legible, insulated and sound for a long time, providing high saturation with sounds, making the BW-SDB1 pretend to be a little bigger speakers than they actually are. Reservations can only be made if you want to listen to wind or string instruments touching the soprano – they lack some voicing, individual sounds are too blurred, which deprives them of their naturalness.
The vocals, due to their underlining and a general warming of the midrange, have a pleasant, almost natural overtone. Their intimacy, combined with a reasonable resolution, allows for a clear reception of speech and singing, although sometimes they lack a claw.
The treble is a bit weaker than the lower parts of the band. They start strongly, which is supposed to increase the sense of dynamics and the size of the stage, but the downside is the appearance of some vitreousness on the sopranos. It is not overly offensive, because it is inhibited by the progressive decline of the higher parties, which have their most-highlighted point in the vicinity of 6 kHz, but at times it can overstimulate it. The sound of the instruments is quite natural, but the appearing inequalities distort their timbre. As a result, this soundbar is more suitable for movies or popular music than for listening to the classics. This is not surprising, because this is his destiny.
In terms of the stage, as expected, it is not the largest, which is closely related to the construction of BW-SDB1. Sitting in front of the TV, or at the same time in front of the speaker, the generated stereo effect will be satisfactory. Sometimes you can even notice timid attempts to create a more complex space with the emerging depth and fluid transitions between plans. The downside is that we can not sit at an excessive angle, because the scene then begins to narrow down and degrade to the mono-level.
The detail is not the highest, although it is far ahead of the regular TV. I am glad that BlitzWolf did not overcome the higher midrange and treble sounds in order to artificially boost analytics. In return, we get all the important information with discontinued micro-details, which makes it easier to focus on what is currently happening on the screen, and the background is not distracting.
And now for many people the most important piece of the puzzle, that is competition. As you might expect from the introduction, I will look at it from the more classic solutions.
First, TV speakers, where Samsung UE40K6300 was used as the starting point. While we do not have high-end equipment, it’s hard to compare the quality, because the soundbar does what it was created for, that is, it improves the sound that we can hear from TV speakers. A wider bandwidth, a better impression of space, greater dynamics – it is BlitzWolf’s advantage.
Reaching for active speakers, I took for comparison the extremely popular Creative GigaWorks T20 II, which, when you add the costs of the DAC, fall out very similarly to the BW-SDB1. In their case, the biggest limitation is a small size, so that after moving away from the speakers the sound quickly loses on precision, and the scene is blurred. Up close, after the right setting, the scene gets better outlined, but nobody will sit with the face next to the TV to appreciate it.
In addition, using separate loudspeakers, we can limit the functionality by the lack of a remote control, and above all, additional connection options of the source, with the Bluetooth protocol at the forefront.
Summary
BlitzWolf BW-SDB1 is a very interesting loudspeaker system: well-made, offering many options, and above all simply improving the sound that we can get from the TV itself. Due to the simplification of the sound, this is not, of course, equipment intended for audiophile relations, but if we focus primarily on films or series, we will be more than satisfied.
- Advantages:
• Entertainment sound, making a clear progress towards the TV,
• Solid construction,
• Pleasant aesthetics,
• Many connection options,
• High work culture,
• Very high value for money,
• Automatic energy saving (for some). - Disadvantages:
• No possibility to turn off the equalizer,
• Audible drops at the bass and soprano edges,
• Inaccurate readings of switching on the loudspeaker with diodes,
• Automatic energy saving (for some).
Review Unit Provided:
BlitzWolf BW-SDB1 Soundbar can be bought in the store Banggood.com – after entering the code: BWSDB15 you will receive a 20% discount!