Vizio V Series V214x-K6  Soundbar Review

The Vizio V Series V214x-K6 has a similar design to the Vizio V Series V21x-J8, but it's a bit smaller. It's mostly made of plastic, with fabric covering the front and the sides. The controls are on top of the bar, while the inputs are on the rear.

The sub looks similar to the model that comes with the Vizio V Series V21x-J8. It's made of melamine and sits on four plastic pegs with rubber grips to keep it in place. The port is located in the rear, and the speaker is underneath.

The bar isn't very wide, so it fits between most 55" TV stands. Also, it's not very tall, so you don't have to worry about it blocking out your TV screen.

The sub is about the same width as an average desktop PC. It isn't as tall, though.

There are some openings on the back of the bar for the inputs and the power cable. You also find holes if you want to mount the bar to the wall.

There's a port on the back of the sub, as well as an input for the power cable.

The Vizio V Series V214x-K6 has a decent build quality. The bar is made of solid-feeling plastic, and the subwoofer's melamine build is quite sturdy. That said, the fabric on the bar itself isn't very tight, so be careful when handling it to avoid rips or tears. Also, it's prone to collecting dust and pet hair over time.

• User Manual and Quick Start Guide
• Wall mount template
• Optical cable
• 2x power cables
• Remote with batteries (2x AAA)

The Vizio V Series V214x-K6 has a good stereo frequency response. It performs well for such a budget-friendly bar, with a fairly even sound profile that ensures dialogue in TV shows, as well as vocals and instruments in your favorite music, are clearly and accurately reproduced. Though its sub can reproduce a decent amount of bass, you notice the lack of low-bass, especially with bass-heavy genres like EDM and hip-hop.

You can customize the bar's sound a bit thanks to its bass and treble adjustments. If you want a more balanced sound with stereo content, you can set its bass to '-1' and its treble to '1', which results in a clearer reproduction of voices, instruments, and other sound effects.

The bar's soundstage is fair with stereo content. In our testing room, it seems that the soundstage stretches a bit wider than the bar itself, but since the bar isn't very wide to begin with, it isn't much compared to models like the Vizio V Series V21x-J8. Its focus is pretty good, too, so you get a good sense of where various instruments are located in the soundstage around you. However, they seem to come from more general areas as opposed to accurate, pinpoint locations.

The Vizio V Series V214x-K6 gets pretty loud, so you don't have any trouble filling larger, more open spaces with sound. There's a bit of compression when you push it to max volume, but it's not very noticeable, especially if you prefer to listen at more moderate volume levels.

At normal listening volumes, the bar's distortion falls within good limits. As a result, audio reproduces with clarity and purity. Like most bars, you see a slight jump in THD when you push the bar to max volume. However, distortion is hard to hear with real-life content, so it isn't much of an issue unless you like to listen with the volume cranked up.

The Vizio V Series V214x-K6 is a 2.1 soundbar, so it doesn't come with a discrete center channel. Instead, it uses its left and right stereo channels to simulate a sound in the center. Voices are still very clear and easy to follow, even though the channel's sound profile isn't the most even. However, you don't get the same clarity as with bars with discrete center channels.

As with most 2.1 bars, the Vizio's surround sound performance isn't very impressive. It has to downmix 5.1 surround content like Dolby Digital to stereo to play it, which reduces the overall feeling of immersion. For example, in a chase scene, it doesn't really seem like cars race past you. Instead, sound is focused to the space in front of you.

The Vizio V Series V214x-K6 offers the same selection of sound enhancement features as the Vizio V Series V21x-J8. It's pretty good for a budget-friendly bar, as you can switch up its sound with bass and treble adjustments or its various preset modes: Movie, Music, Dialogue, and Game. On the remote, you can use the TVOL button or hold the subwoofer level button to activate auto-volume mode or the VRT:X button to turn on virtual surround. There's audio feedback to help you follow along as you switch these settings.

You can connect the bar to your TV over Optical. It's suitable for listening to different audio content, but since there are no HDMI ports, you can't use HDMI CEC to control the bar with your TV's remote.

Over Optical, the bar can playback Dolby Digital content. It's a common surround sound format found on many different streaming platforms. Although, since it's a 2.1 bar, it has to downmix it into stereo. When you watch content that isn't supported, like DTS, the bar lets you know via audio feedback.

While the bar has fairly high latency over Optical, the delay between the audio you hear and the video you see isn't very noticeable. Even with dialogue-centric content, you don't notice much issue with lip-synching unless you focus on it. Of course, different apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, so your experience can vary.

You can wirelessly stream audio to the bar from your mobile devices over Bluetooth.

The sub connects to the bar wirelessly, so you need to plug it into a power outlet to get it to work.

The bar doesn't have a display. Instead, you can monitor its settings using a set of indicator lights on the left side of the bar. They turn different colors and patterns based on your settings, like the chosen preset mode or input. There's also audio feedback when you change its settings.

There are some buttons on top of the bar. You can use them to turn it on/off, change the input, activate Bluetooth pairing, and adjust the volume.

The remote lets you control all the bar's settings from the comfort of your couch.

There's no built-in voice assistant support. However, you can use the AUX port with third-party voice assistant devices if you want to control the bar with your voice via Amazon or Google.

The Vizio V Series V214x-K6's eco power mode is turned off by default. However, if you choose to turn it on, the bar automatically powers down after a period of inactivity.