Roth Audio Sub Zero II TV Soundbar with Bluetooth

There is a lot to like about the Roth Sub Zero II.It is substantially made and produces great sound. A couple of years ago I would never have thought about a soundbar for sound enhancement on my tv, thinking them more of a gimmick. Now I wouldn't be without them. I say them, as the first one I purchased was the Samsung HW-F350, (no Bluetooth) and the second was the HW-F355, (with Bluetooth). Both of these were for my Samsung tv's and they are excellent. When I decided to get one for my 37" Panasonic in the bedroom, I went for the Roth, mainly because the Trusted review site gave it 8/10, plus there were many very favourable Amazon reviews. I also did not need a subwoofer. I have now mounted it on a very narrow shelf, about 15 inches above the tv. The sound it emits gives another dimension to my listening experience, with crisp notes and deep bass. I purchased an optical cable, as I wanted the bar to be an additional set of speakers to the ones in the TV, giving a type of surround sound. I also purchased a 2 metre aux cable, so I could also connect it to the tv and so control the volume with the tv remote. This has proved to be the best connection, as the volume is at it's best when connected this way, plus, for some unknown reason, it does not cut out the tv speakers as I thought it would. I was always under the assumption, that optical was the best connection, better then 3.5 aux, but when I e-mailed Roth to confirm, they said, "The optical input would be the cleanest signal to connect as its a digital signal............Both connections will give you very good sound and to be honest the difference is minimal". The only minus points I can comment on, apart from lack of volume, is that the soundbar does not go into standby after about 20 - 30 minutes, (Roth were puzzled about this), and as many have already said, it is nearly impossible to see the little indication lights on the soundbar, so that I cannot tell whether I have turned it off or not. This is even with all the lights in the bedroom extinguished! When using Bluetooth from my android tablets, some of the tunes from Youtube struggle and stutter a bit. Any tunes, however, that are already on my music play list do play well and continuously, without stoppages. All in all, I am happy with my Amazon purchase, although when my friend asked me to recommend a soundbar for him to buy, I found myself championing the Samsung F355.

Soundbars come in many varieties. Some try to emulate the 5.1 surround sound experience, bouncing sound off walls to attempt to create the effect (although I imagine this only works if your living room is set up like a show room). Some come with separate sub woofer, wired or wireless. Some condense sub woofer with bar and simply attempt to provide the richness of sound that your flat screen TV fails to deliver. As a sub £200 sound bar (sub £150 in this case), you're not going to get all the bells and whistles that are available. I think it's better at this price point to focus on a system that delivers on the key requirements. Mine were: * Quality of sound (clarity / richness & depth with separation in the soundscape). * Bluetooth wireless capability so that I could use it to deliver audio from other devices (iPad / Nexus etc). * Compact (i.e. all in one with no additional speakers). * Simplicity - i.e. as few wires as possible with straight forward sound delivery. My view here is that I have hundreds of gadgets and what I really didn't want was yet another 'system' with 8 millions tweaking options. At best, I wanted a few preset modes of operation and then to leave the thing to do the simple job of delivering sound to earhole. Things I didn't need: * HDMI. I'm looking for a 2.1 system with punchy sound - HDMI is not going to add anything that Optical can't. At this level, it's not important. * USB / SD Card support. The whole point of getting a Bluetooth sound bar is that I can stream music rather than deliver it by physical media. * Fake surround sound. If you want proper surround sound out of a bar, it's going to cost you. Cheaper options tend to throw stereo wide at you. I decided that this wasn't something to get obsessed about. Roth Audio are a UK company with a good track record. The original Sub Zero got great reviews and was acknowledged as great value for the price. At £150 or just under,the Sub Zero II follows on from that but adds Bluetooth, including APT-X (or aptX) functionality. Where source and destination support aptX, it offers high quality stereo over an A2DP pairing. The unit also has an integrated sub-woofer and appeared fairly straight forward in operation. It ticked all the boxes and although there were cheaper options offering similar functionality, I was concerned that if I went cheaper, I'd feature match but not get the sound quality I wanted. Let's not forget the primary objective here. Setup was as simple as plugging in an optical cable and switching to the correct source channel. Better still, my LG TV has Bluetooth capability so I paired the two together and managed to run the entire thing wirelessly. I was a bit concerned whether I would have any lip sync issues running it that way but it appeared not to be a problem. Other devices such as my iPad also paired up without issue and I was dishing up music from my UPNP player in moments. Interestingly enough, when sending music via the iPad, I could control the volume from there rather than having to change it on the Sub Zero II. The only technical issue I found with this (and I didn't test this extensively) was that when I next connected the TV up by Bluetooth, the volume appeared to be quiet and I was unable to make it any louder. It was as if the iPad adjustment had some lasting effect on the setup. This was soon fixed by turning the Sub Zero II volume right down and then re-connecting the TV via Bluetooth. At which point, the volume returned to normal. This is a small quibble in an unusual scenario. Long term, I'll probably run optical down from the TV and leave Bluetooth for other devices. The improvement in sound was immediately noticeable. Flat screens are known to be poor deliverers of sound but you only really understand how poor when you have something like a Sub Zero II to compare it to. What was once a lifeless din coming from the heart of an egg box is now a vast soundscape with individual sound events dotting the map. The sound bar delivered above my expectations. The integrated sub woofer really was enough to give that additional depth but without going over the top. I'm glad that I don't have yet another box taking up floor space - yet still have all the bass effect that I wanted. One thing worth noting with this and other systems is that you'll end up with yet another remote control. This is something that starts to become a real pain. If you use the 3.5 mm audio jack (run from a headphones point in your TV) then you can manage the volume using your TV remote and just put the sound bar zapper in a drawer. If you use the optical or other connectors then you have two options. 1 - Use the additional remote or 2 - do what I did and get an all in one remote. The one I've purchased allows me to learn commands, so I may have the majority of buttons mapped for the TV or for my SKY box, but I have dedicated the volume IR controls to the Sub Zero II. Problem solved. There were a couple of other systems that I took a look at but dismissed on my journey. Philips appeared to have a number of well featured bars at under £200 but surprisingly, I couldn't find enough reviews on the specific models and the ones I found for others at that price range were critical of sound quality. I didn't have time to go to a show room and check for myself. The other was a Toshiba mini sound bar which seemed good but had a separate wired sub woofer which I thought would be untidy in my house. In summary - Pros: Vastly improved sound quality when compared to the bodiless sound of a flat screen TV. Simple setup up and management. Effective and easy to connect Bluetooth functionality. Cons: Yet another remote control. No on screen volume indicator - front panel display is not big enough or bright enough to compensate.

Came with incorrect power supply originally which then took a couple of weeks of chasing. Sound is good, but out of sync when connected via optical cable to new Sky box due to the difference in output - would've been good to know this before as I was unaware. Works best connected to headphone socket of TV, but sound nowhere near as powerful as optical output. OK for the price though.

I bought this unit a while ago initially used the audio cables but then switched to optical fibre. I find the sound is very good and make watching movies or listening to music a joy.. However, don't put the volume full up as the sound will start to distort, apart from that I think this sound bar is great value for money. Having read all of the negative reviews for this product. The optical cable works fine with the unit sitting in front of my TV on the unit shelf The remote control although basic functions well, yes the input lights are a little dim but usable Speakers not working, mine are still working so can't comment Poor customer service, well on some purchases from Amazon I have returned a couple of items. Each time I was sent an email with a label to print off and attach to the package. You phone the courier service and arrange collection and a courier would arrive and collect the package without a hitch.