INEXPENSIVE SOUND BAR with SOME LIMITATIONS
Written: Jan 21 '09
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| lovehifi's Full Review: Envizen ESP101 Sound Bar |
I've purchased (and returned) several sound bars in recent months, in an attempt to find a surround sound bar which would perform two tasks, being both simple to set-up without all the wires of conventional surround systems and be relatively inexpensive.
I found the Envizen ESP-101 sound bar on the internet. I could not find anything close to it locally. It was priced at around $130, so I had to give it a try.
This will be a detailed review, as this sound bar has some limitations of sorts. The ads for this sound bar are a bit vague.
First of all, this Envizen sound bar also goes by the name Noah. From my research, Noah may be the parent company, but I am not sure about this. It also went by a third name which excapes me at the moment. (if I remember, I'll edit this review).
I was attracted to this sound bar for two reasons.
One, it was cheap.
Two, it was listed as a true 5.1 sound system. Many sound bars on the market are only 2.1 or 3.1 systems which use sophisticated DSP circuitry to simulate 5.1 surround sound. Since I had tried a few of those systems, I wanted to try a discrete 5.1 sound bar to see if it performed better with regard to the surround sound effect.
The surround sound effect was negligible, unfortunately. But, you should read this whole review as I could not connect it to my system exactly as it required. Overall sound was OK. Here is a list of all the good and bad points of this system.
The ESP-101 does indeed have a 5.1 discrete speaker system built into a single bar-type cabinet. But, it is not sophisticated as are many other sound bars.
For instance, the output of the ESP-101 is 90 watts RMS. Nothing more is mentioned about power output. The ESP-101 seems to have a regulated maximum output which prevents the unit from overdriving its amplifiers. This is good because it prevents much of the audible distortion but it also prevents the unit from getting too loud. The ESP-101 was definitely loud enough for me, in an apartment, but it is not "screaming" loud by any means.
The 90 watt rating above is for all the channels. I cannot find the output of each individual channel. The channels are as follows:
Center channel: drives 2x approx 2-inch speakers located in the center of the sound bar.
Left/Right channels: drives 2x 2-inch speakers for each channel, located just to the left and right side of the center speakers.
Surround channels: drives 1x 2-inch speakers located to the farther left and right of the sound bar.
Low Frequency channel: drives 2x 4-inch (midrange) speakers located at the far ends of the sound bar.
The 2-inch drivers are acoustic suspension types, I believe, and sound pretty good. They deliver good midrange and decent highs, though not as sharp as a separate tweeter driver. The overall sound is smooth. It was very pleasant, not shrill nor distorted.
The "midrange" drivers are actually high quality 4-inch woofers, in my opinion. They feature large dust caps, large cone suspension, large cone excursion and are loaded into the sound bar cabinet via small well-tuned bass-reflex ducted ports. Their bass output is very pleasing and surprisingly deep. But, not as deep as a subwoofer.
The frequency response of this system is listed as 65Hz-17kHz ( /-3db), which is actually quite smooth.
There is no DSP circuitry at all. This sound bar is simply a set of speakers and amps built into one cabinet. Therefore, there is no surround sound effect that I can hear, which is quite disappointing. Stereo effect, on the other hand, isn't bad. This sound bar is wide, measuring 46 inches across. With all channels playing, the detail of audio is pretty good.
There are no tonal adjustments at all. There is only a master volume and a subwoofer volume control on the included credit-card sized remote control. The sub volume is limited to probably a few db either way, as far as I can tell. That is pretty much the norm with surround sound systems.
As mentioned above, there is a remote control. The control works well and is very small, which is nice. But, it too is limited. The remote cannot turn the sound bar on or off, which is disappointing.
It can only control the volume and/or mute the volume and it can select the mode of the sound bar.
The sound bar has a power on/off switch in the back. Every time the sound bar is turned off, it forgets the other settings. This means every time you turn it on, the volume will be at zero and the subwoofer volume will be a zero boost or cut. That is also disappointing, but not a huge deal. On the plus side, when turned on, it will not be blaring loud if the last user forgot to turn down the volume.
The mode settings are as follows: Stereo One, Stereo Two and 5.1 Input. (2x stereo inputs and 1x 5.1 input). THIS IS THE MOST MISLEADING ASPECT OF THIS SOUND BAR!
When I bought it, I did so because of the 5.1 input avalability. Many sound bars feature a 5.1 input. When featured, the input typically refers to a coax or fiber optic input which will accept the digital 5.1 signal from your component and break it down into 5.1 separate channels of audio.
NOT SO HERE. This sound bar features discrete 5.1 analogue inputs, such as those found on some computer sound cards and older DVD players and 5.1 receivers. For those who don't understand, there is a separate RCA jack for each channel, Center, Right, Left, Surround Right, Surround Left and Subwoofer.
What this means is there is NO decoding technology. The 5.1 signal must be broken down and then sent to the ESP-101 in order to derive discrete 5.1 sound.
In all fairness to this system, I could not connect it properly. I had to improvise and use a Logitech 5.1 adapter, for which I paid only a couple of bucks. The adapter took a stereo (left/right) analogue output and broke it down into "simulated" 5.1 channel sound. Refering to this as simulated surround sound is a stretch by any means. Therefore, the ESP-101 could only sound as good as the source, and my source for 5.1 sound was not good at all.
If you happen to have an older DVD player with 5.1 discrete outputs or a computer with 5.1 discrete output sound card, then you may derive much better results than I was able to achieve.
At this price, it may be worth a try. As stated above, the overall sound is pretty good. I used a Y-cord to split the sub output to both the sound bar and a separate small powered subwoofer which improved the bass somewhat. But, the bass from this sound bar wasn't bad at all and may be sufficient to you as-is.
The unit is rather large, at 46 inches wide, but can be hung on a wall, underneath your tv or out of the way. The cabinet is just plastic, but feels fairly solid.
The cloth grille is nice and it is removable. But, it is a bit cheap and it sometimes vibrates when playing bass tones at louder levels. With the grille off, the vibrating noise is eliminated.
The look is pretty high tech. Again, with the grille off you will see a total of 10 speakers in line.
I've been pretty disappointed with the sound bars as a whole. Mostly because of the lack of surround effect. The overall quality of sound has been pretty decent, if that's your goal.
I wish I had a DVD player with discrete 5.1 channel outputs to really give the ESP-101 a real test run. I had a cheap off-brand DVD player (from HHGregg) which I had bought for under $30 and it did feature such a 5.1 output. Unfortunately, the player died on me after about 6 months. Hence the under $30 price tag, I imagine. haha.
This sound bar, at it's low price, may be of interest to some of you. The overall quality is OK. The actual transducers themselves were better than I expected, especially the so-called "midrange" speakers. I did not hear any distortion, so the amplifiers aren't bad from what I can tell. With the proper connection, you may derive better results than I. At this price, it may be worth a try.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 120
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Epinions.com ID:
lovehifi
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Member: Stan
Location: USA
Reviews written: 159
Trusted by: 5 members
About Me:
I have always had a fascination in the field of audio.
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