Vizio SV510X-0806 Soundbar Review

The Vizio SV510X-0806 has an oblong shape, with rounded edges. The bar itself is made of black plastic, with mesh encasing the drivers at the front. There's a small orange tag to the right of the bar with the Vizio logo on it.

The subwoofer is oval in shape, with a solid plastic construction. It's held up on four rubber feet that suspend it a few centimeters above the ground to prevent it from moving around too much.

The satellite speakers are small and similarly oval in shape. They're constructed from a similar sturdy plastic, with their drivers covered by a tight mesh fabric.

This bar is relatively compact and should roughly fit between the legs of a 65-inch TV, though this will depend on your particular TV. Its low profile means it won't affect your view of the TV at all.

As far as subs go, this one is definitely on the smaller side: a little smaller than the average mini PC tower. It's quite a bit narrower and shorter than other subs from this manufacturer.

The satellites are also quite small and squat. While they can easily be tucked away on shelves or alcoves, they need a wired connection to function, so you'll need to accommodate some extra cables into your setup.

This soundbar features a nifty design that integrates a mounting plaque into the back of the bar. As a result, you don't need to attach any additional hardware beyond the mounting screws provided. This system also lets you seamlessly attach the bar to select Vizio TVs.

This soundbar has a decent build quality. The bar, sub, and satellites are all constructed from a lightweight plastic. It doesn't exude quality but doesn't feel especially flimsy, either. The bar features a mesh covering the drivers. While the fabric isn't loosely fitted, it isn't completely taut either, so there's some give to the material. The sub is slightly elevated from the ground, courtesy of four rubber feet. It features ports on the back to connect the power cable and surround speakers. The satellite speakers are among the smallest we've tested, and they're extremely lightweight. They're connected to the sub with long, thin cables that look like they're susceptible to breakage if handled incorrectly.

• Quick start guide & warranty
• Wall mounting guide
• Power cable x2 (8.5 ft / 2.6m and 4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• Surround speaker cable x2 (RCA) (26 ft / 8.0m)
• HDMI cable (6.2 ft / 1.9m)
• Satellite mounting bracket x2
• Satellite mounting screw x2
• Bar mounting screw x2

The Vizio SV510X-0806 has a decent stereo frequency response. Its default sound features an exaggerated mid- and high-bass response, thanks to the dedicated subwoofer. However, considering the smaller size of the sub, the bass doesn't extend as low as other Vizio soundbars, so the low-end is characterized by more punch than rumble. It's worth noting that the manufacturer recommends placing the subwoofer next to your couch, which results in a much more prominent bass response than if it's positioned by your TV. However, the strong high-bass can also lead to some muddiness that carries over into the otherwise well-balanced mid-range. So, blaring horns of atmospheric sub-bass can sometimes detract from instruments and voices in the mid-range. The treble range is slightly over-emphasized, lending some brilliance to sibilant sounds and higher-pitched vocals.

If you prefer a more balanced sound, you can use the onboard bass and treble adjustments to tweak the frequency response to counteract the often overpowering mid and high-bass. We recommend setting the bass to '-4' to help tame these boomier frequency bands and setting the treble to '+1' to bring out more harmonic content in the treble range. That said, there's still a lack of rumble in the low-bass that's a result of design limitations.

The stereo soundstage performance is decent. The stereo field extends just a bit further than the length of the bar. There's satisfactory focus, with no significant gaps that can make it challenging to locate voices within the soundstage.

The Vizio SV510X-0806 has a great stereo dynamics performance. It can get quite loud, considering it's a smaller setup, and there's hardly any compression as you turn up the volume, resulting in clean and pure audio reproduction, even if the volume is cranked.

This bar has a great center performance. It features a discrete center channel that helps improve the clarity of vocals, dialogue, and speech. This dedicated center channel can really ensure voices are well anchored within the soundstage, and the balanced frequency response means they sound clear and natural within the mix, too.

The surround performance is good, courtesy of the two discrete satellite speakers. Despite their diminutive size, they help bring width and an immersive quality to the sound that can create an accurate representation of sound effects in the mix. While the frequency response skews towards being slightly bass-heavy, the small surrounds aren't capable of outputting much in this range anyway, so their output remains quite balanced.

The Vizio SV510X-0806 supports Atmos playback, though its implementation suffers from a lack of dedicated upfiring speakers. As a result, the drivers contained in the bar and satellite speakers are capable of conveying some sense of height and depth, but the verticality of Atmos audio is inconsistent.

Subjectively, we found that the satellite speakers struggled to create the same impression of height as the bar, so height tracking would suffer when switching to the extremes of the stereo field. Sounds like ascending drones and helicopters do give some impression of verticality within the soundstage but lack presence and can easily be lost amid other sound effects.

The Vizio SV510X-0806 features a solid suite of sound enhancement features that give you a decent amount of control over certain parameters. You can choose between the 'Music,' 'Movie,' and 'Direct' EQ parameters or adjust the independent bass, treble, center, surround, height, and subwoofer levels instead. You can also adjust the 'Clear Dialogue' mode to improve the clarity of voices.

There's also a Virtual:X mode that can function as a virtual surround mode, as well as TruVolume, an auto-volume feature that can help normalize output between different content types. Finally, Night Mode turns down the subs and boosts dialogue volume, so you can enjoy movies late into the night without bothering anyone.

This soundbar connects to your TV via an HDMI ARC connection. Sadly, it lacks connections for older TVs, like an optical port and aux input, so you'll need to buy a separate conversion cable if your TV doesn't support HDMI.

The Vizio SV510X-0806 has amazing audio format support via ARC. It supports major audio formats like Dolby Digital and Dolby Atmos, which are commonly utilized by streaming services. There's also support for DTS and DTS:X formats to ensure your Blu-rays sound as intended. As is sometimes the case with budget soundbar setups, this speaker doesn't support more than two channels through PCM.

Audio latency via ARC is good. It's a bit higher with Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus Atmos formats but its still low enough that you shouldn't notice much in the way of lip sync errors. We weren't able to test latency via PCM 5.1 due to the bar's hardware limitations. Different TVs and apps compensate for this differently though, and you can always manually adjust the AV Sync function on your TV.

The Vizio SV510X-0806 has Bluetooth connectivity, so you can wirelessly stream audio from your TV or mobile device. However, it lacks support for Wi-Fi or other wireless streaming methods.

This soundbar has one small dot on the left side of the bar, which acts as the only visual interface. It lights up when the bar is powered on and flashes when you send an input via your smartphone. It will also light up blue if you're using Bluetooth or playing unsupported content. If you find the light bothersome, you can also turn it off via the app.

There are a few basic controls located on the left hand side of the bar. You can power the bar on/off, adjust the input, activate Bluetooth pairing or adjust the volume up and down. 

This soundbar doesn't come with a remote control, so you'll need to use the Vizio app on a compatible mobile device to control the soundbar, as you can see in our video walkthrough. If you have a compatible Vizio TV, you can also use its remote to adjust the soundbar's settings.

The Vizio SV510X-0806 doesn't have any built-in voice assistant capabilities. Even if you pair a phone that features Google Assistant or Alexa support, you still won't be able to control the bar with your voice.