TCL Alto 7+ Soundbar Review

The Alto 7+'s bar is made of solid plastic and metal. The front and the sides are covered with a large metal grill except in the middle of the front side where the TCL logo is shown. The top side is made of solid plastic and has the buttons that control most of the bar's functions. It doesn't look too premium.

The subwoofer looks like a wooden box. The only part that is made of solid plastic is the port which is located in the back.

There are no satellites in this setup.

This bar isn't too wide and should fit between the legs of the stand of many 55" TVs. It also isn't too tall, so it won't block the view of the bottom of the screen when you place it in front of your TV, unless you have a TV that sits flush on the table like the Sony A9G.

The subwoofer looks like a medium-sized desktop PC. It's slightly wider, but you should be able to place it anywhere without issue.

There are no satellites with this soundbar.

There's an opening on the back for the input ports and the power cable. The universal holes for wall mounting are on the back, but due to their design, the bar won't sit flush to the wall.

The sub's speaker is on top and the port is right under it. The power cable connects at the bottom so it won't stand out much.

This soundbar setup has no satellites.

The Alto 7+'s build quality is good. The bar is made of good quality, solid plastic and metal, while the subwoofer is made of wood, other than the port. It feels very robust with no gaps or loose ends.

• Manuals
• Optical cable
• Remote & batteries
• Power cables (x2)
• HDMI cable
• Wall-mounting screws
• Audio line-in cable
• Infrared relay cable

The Alto 7+ has an okay stereo frequency response and a fairly neutral sound profile. However, it lacks a bit of bass and the low-frequency extension is quite high, which negatively affects the stereo performance on bass-heavy content like music and movies. This results in the soundbar having a slightly bright overall audio reproduction, although it still does fairly well for listening to music thanks to the relatively neutral response.

Note: All tests were done with the 'Music' preset, as there's no 'Standard' mode on the Alto 7+.

While listening to the Alto 7 Plus, the soundstage is just okay. The bar isn’t the largest and doesn’t do any tricks to widen its soundstage performance. It almost feels as the soundstage is narrower than the bar itself. On the upside, the focus of the soundstage and the separation are good, which makes objects seem to be coming from a more accurate pinpoint location rather than from a general area. If you want a similar soundbar with a slightly wider soundstage, check out the Polk Audio Signa S2.

This soundbar can get very loud, which is great for a crowded environment or a very large room. However, when pushed to the maximum volume, there are some pumping and compression artifacts, especially in the bass range.

The Alto 7 Plus has great THD performance at a normal listening volume. This means you'll get a clean and pure sound reproduction. However, when pushing the bar to its maximum volume, there’s a small jump in THD across the range, but this is very difficult to hear with real-life content, so you might not notice it.

Due to its 2.1 configuration, the Alto 7 Plus doesn’t have a dedicated center speaker, which results in poor localization of surround content on the center channel. However, performance is still decent. It uses the left and right speakers to create a sound in the center, which will sound more diffused and less clear compared to a discrete center. All 5.1 content sent to this bar is downmixed to stereo. On the upside, its sound profile is still pretty good and dialogue in movies will be clear.

The Alto 7 Plus' performance with surround sound content is pretty poor. This 2.1 setup downmixes surround content and the localization of objects won’t be very accurate. This means that sound will feel like it's coming from the front instead of getting an immersive listening experience. This bar was quite difficult to test at first, as no sound was coming out when sending surround content. A full restart of the bar was necessary after each test to make it work and the volume level was noticeably lower with surround content.

This soundbar setup doesn’t have height channels. If you want a 2.1 soundbar that supports Atmos, check out the TCL Alto 8i.

This soundbar has very limited sound enhancement features. It only has a dialogue enhancement, which comes from the ‘News’ preset of the soundbar to help make voices clearer. You can also choose between Music and Movie mode, but that’s about it. It lacks sound customization and doesn’t have room correction, so it might sound differently depending on your room. If you want a more fully-featured 2.1 soundbar, consider the TCL Alto 8+.

This bar has only one HDMI port, which serves as an HDMI ARC for connecting with your TV. The Optical Audio In is the most common connection found on soundbars and one that can decode 5.1 surround sound. If you have an older device that doesn't have a more advanced connection port you can connect the Audio Out jack of your device to the Analog Audio In from the bar to enjoy your content.

This bar has an IR passthrough. This is helpful if the line of sight between the TV's remote and the TV is blocked by the bar. In this case, the IR signal is passed through the bar and retransmitted from the IR cable transmitter which can be placed in direct line of sight to the TV's IR receiver, restoring the connectivity.

Only the most common Dolby Digital 5.1 surround audio format is supported. You'll find this content on many streaming platforms or Blu-rays. This soundbar won't decode any of the more advanced audio formats via ARC or any other connections. You also can't play uncompressed sound formats like 5.1 PCM.

There's no Full HDMI In in this soundbar setup.

Just like the ARC connection, only Dolby Digital surround format is supported. On the upside, this is found in many streaming platforms or Blu-rays. The unsupported DTS format is the fallback for the higher quality DTS-HD MA format, which is found on many Blu-ray discs.

The soundbar can connect to modern devices using its Bluetooth connection. This makes it easy to enjoy music from your phone or tablet.

As this soundbar lacks a Full HDMI port, it can’t serve as a hub between your devices and your TV.

The subwoofer connects wirelessly to the soundbar and the only wire you’ll need is the power cord.

This soundbar has no satellites.

The interface is very basic. One LED changes color to denote the change in inputs. It blinks rapidly in white color to alert you about the changes in volume.

The buttons on the bar can control the power and the volume. There's also a function to help you select the input and a button that helps with the pairing with other Bluetooth devices.

The remote is rather plain. It can control most of the bar's functions and has three preset modes 'Movie', 'Music', and 'News'. The remote is small in size and can easily sit in your palm. Unfortunately, it can't act as a universal remote to control other devices.

The soundbar doesn’t support any assistance natively. You can use Google Assistant from your phone if you are connected with Bluetooth, and the sound will come from the bar.

No app pairs with the TCL Alto 7+ soundbar.

Like most soundbars, the Alto 7 Plus supports an energy-saving auto-off function. It also supports HDMI CEC which, however, works only with TCL Roku TVs like the TCL 6 Series R617. Unfortunately, with other brand's remotes, you can only control the soundbar's on/off state.