Hey guys! What we have for you out here is a sound bar from Blaupunkt which is the SBW 02.
It is priced under 10000 rupees. When we started the review of this sound bar, it was priced at about 8499 rupees. But it is available for cheaper online based on where you look. So you can even get it for about 7500 rupees. We have seen that price online.
Speaking of its build and design it has a really nice clean set that will fit under your TV. It’s got a black matte finish making it a fingerprint magnet and the sound bar itself is plastic. So it may not feel all that premium. Let’s say as premium as what the Xiaomi’s ME sound bar feels like.
But it’s subtle enough to fit into your home entertainment system.
It also comes with a subwoofer something the ME sound bar lacks and the subwoofer really does add to the output. The subwoofer is not Wireless.
It connects via a wire to the back of the sound bar. But it does not need a separate power cable, so that’s nice.
Coming to the connectivity options we have HDMI(ARC ), optical and line and there is also of course a USB port and Bluetooth connectivity as well. There is a small LED indicator in the front which can only house two characters. For line it’ll say LI for Bluetooth it will say BT. It will also show you the volume level.
For the process of the review we connected it to our television using HDMI and line in. So let’s quickly get in to the performance.
Now the soundbar itself sounds actually pretty clean and good considering the price. There is decent amount of channel separation. For example if you have a motorcycle going from the left to the right or an aircraft that’s moving around, you will be able to feel that channel separation. But it isn’t as great as what we have seen on other premium sound bars, but it is a lot better than what we’ve seen on the me sound bar. And also when you’re playing games that has heavy-metal music which has thumbs of shotguns you are going to be able to hear that very clearly.
So overall for this price point if you use line in which is the 3.5 mm port at the back of the speaker you should be good enough to enjoy its audio output. However one thing to consider is the fact that it comes wih two cables in the box which is a 3.5 mm to 3.5 mm and an RCA(red and white cable) to 3.5 mm which is really really nice.
Now the ARC performance is actually very underwhelming of this speaker. When we connected it to our television, we actually had to raise the volume of the television all the way up to 100 and then we could hear some decent amount of sound from the sound bar. So the HDMI(ARC) performance of the soundbar is really bad. The feature is there, it’s great, but you won’t be using it if you want to make the most of the soundbar has to offer. For the most part this sound bar is good if you are going to use it to watch movies play some games and watch the occasional TV shows the vocals are clear. Music sounds actually pretty good especially when you are going to listen to tracks which are in the backgrounds of movies. And of course action sequences do get immersive.
Now remember we are saying that this is a good performer for the 7500 rupee price point but the HDMI performance of the sound bar isn’t great. So if you are on a budget and HDMI is something that’s important to you you may want to consider other options.
There are physical controls on the sound bar as well. But they are limited to power on, volume up, volume down and changing the input which should get the job done. You can of course control other aspects such as bass and other things of the sound bar as well if you need a custom sound output. But what you get with a standard output is more than enough and considering this is a budget sound bar it’s probably a first sound bar for a really budget TV, you shouldn’t be disappointed. But if you are considering something you do not want to have the extra subwoofer and you want something like few more connectivity options like coaxial and ,then you can look at something else.
