Everyone wants immersive, cinematic sound in their living room, but not everyone has the room (or the outlets) for placing rear surround speakers. Folks in smaller apartments or with smaller living rooms or older homes will love the power of the new JBL Bar 500MK2 as much as they love how compact the main bar is.
This is probably the best-sounding smaller soundbar setup I’ve ever heard—the type of thing that actually benefits from a disc player and my newly eBay’d copy of Casino Royale. If you have a medium-sized budget but really want to jazz up the crappy sound of your massive flatscreen TV, this is a fantastic and reasonably affordable way to do that, and really get bang for your buck.
Nondescript Design
The best part about the Bar 500MK2 is that it is a small, oblong rectangle that easily fits beneath any modern TV. JBL doesn’t make its own screens, so it puts a lot of attention into making sure everything fits between various feet and pedestal designs, and the short, 2-inch high bar squeezes below the bezel (and IR input) of most TVs.
You get the bar itself and a large wireless subwoofer to place anywhere in your room. I find the best way to do this is to plug it in where you have a convenient outlet, then move it around until you like the sound best, but in my acoustically treated review space, that happens to be right next to my TV.