Soundbar with six speakers
The Xiaomi Soundbar 3.1ch is quite a board with a length of 86 centimeters and a width of almost twelve centimeters. The case is made of plastic, while a metal grille adorns the front. Behind it is an LED matrix for displaying settings. Also hidden: six loudspeakers. Three tweeters and three broadband speakers that cover almost the entire frequency range. Overall, the soundbar unfortunately looks a bit cheap. It is susceptible to fingerprints and touches, which are immediately immortalized on the housing and cover grille. The soundbar includes a massive subwoofer with a bass membrane on the underside, which is supposed to provide the appropriate boom. Like the soundbar, this requires a power connection, but the audio signals come wirelessly from the soundbar.
Simple control of all functions
Small TV, large soundbar: At a good 86 centimeters long, the 3.1ch soundbar definitely stands out.
Of course, it can also be controlled wirelessly using the remote control supplied. This provides access to the most necessary functions, is clearly labeled and easy to use. There are buttons for bass volume, as well as a night mode (Night Mode) for decent sound even at low volume. Also on board: five sound modes (Standard, Cinema, Music, Game and News) and the so-called AI Sound.
Artificial but not intelligent
According to Xiaomi, the AI Sound is a sound setting with artificial intelligence that reacts independently to genres such as music and television and selects a suitable sound setting. Say: If you switch from a music streaming service to the news, then it goes into the news mode for clear voice playback. If you start a film, it goes over to the cinema mode. Nice idea, which unfortunately doesn’t work in practice. Especially with music, the artificial intelligence flips haphazardly between different sound settings depending on the song. Not only does that sometimes sound terrible, a change also takes a few moments, which causes dropouts. Such an automatic sound is not really useful anyway, good speakers sound equally good with every genre.
All the important inputs and outputs are distributed over two sides on the back. Left: coaxial and optical input as well as power connection. Right: HDMI input and output and USB socket.
Sound with few highs and lows
The Xiaomi Soundbar 3.1ch offers a powerful sound overall. Thanks to the subwoofer, the bass is deep and powerful. Unfortunately, the rest of the sound is hidden under a blanket. In other words, the playback seems slightly dull, which the listeners notice above all with the unclean highs. The different modes do little to help. Music mode sounds the most pleasant. It gets more spacious and clearer with the Cinema setting – here, however, the trebles shrill in the ears at times. The rather mediocre surround sound is generated virtually and not by additional loudspeakers directed upwards. That is to be expected in this price range. By the way: A sound delay cannot be set. An offset between picture and sound, which can occur especially with older televisions, cannot be corrected.
Smartphones can be quickly connected to the soundbar via NFC (near field communication). The LED display below shows the current mode.