Vizio Elevate Soundbar Review

The Vizio Elevate has a very unique design. It's mostly plastic, and there's an aluminum grille on the front to help protect the drivers inside. However, the bar rotates its left and right sides upwards when you play Atmos or DTS:X content for a more immersive sound. You can also set these portions to face upwards instead of outwards at all times. If you like this feature but don't want to pay as much for it, you can also check out the Elevate's more affordable alternative, the Vizio M Series Elevate M512E-K6.

The subwoofer sits on four small pegs, and the driver is located underneath. It's mostly made of melamine with a plastic plate on top. There are ports for connecting satellites on the rear of the sub.

The Vizio Elevate comes with two satellite speakers. There's an aluminum grille that wraps around the top and the front, while the rest of the speaker is plastic. They're designed for vertical placement.

The Vizio Elevate is a large, wide soundbar that won't fit between the legs of most 55 inch TV stands. Fortunately, it isn't very tall, so it doesn't block your TV screen unless your TV sits flush on the table.

The Vizio Elevate's subwoofer is quite tall, and it's a bit bigger than a standard desktop PC.

The satellites aren't very big, but you need to wire them to the subwoofer, limiting where you can place them in your room.

The Vizio Elevate has a great build quality. The bar is mostly plastic, and there's an aluminum grille on the front of the bar that helps protect the drivers. The subwoofer is mostly melamine with a plastic top. Like the bar, the satellites have an aluminum grille to protect the drivers with plastic sides and rear. The materials feel durable and solid, and it's better built than the Vizio M Series M51ax-J6 overall.

• Remote control with 2x AAA batteries
• Stereo RCA to 3.5mm audio cable (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• 3.5mm to 3.5mm audio cable (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• HDMI cable (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• Optical cable (4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• 2x Satellite Speaker audio cables (26 ft / 8m)
• 2x Power cables (8.5 ft / 2.6m and 4.9 ft / 1.5m)
• 4x Wall mount screws
• Wall-mount template
• 2x Wall-mount brackets (Satellite speakers)
• 2x Wall-mount brackets (Soundbar)
• 4x Cable ties
• Manuals

The Vizio Elevate soundbar has a very good stereo frequency response. Out-of-the-box, it has a bass-heavy sound profile that adds extra thump and punch to your audio, so you feel the bass in action-packed movie scenes and bass-heavy music. Vocals and lead instruments reproduce clearly and accurately, but higher-pitched instruments like cymbals and organs are veiled due to the recessed treble. If you update the bar to firmware version 1.11.07.1, the frequency response remains the same. That said, if you prefer a different sound, you can customize it with its bass and treble adjustments.

The Vizio Elevate comes with bass and treble adjustments, as well as four EQ presets that help you tweak its sound profile to your liking. With the bass set to -8 and the treble set to +6, it has a great stereo frequency response. The sound profile is pretty neutral, meaning vocals and lead instruments are clear and detailed in the mix. There's a touch of extra punch in the bass range, too. Overall, it's suitable for listening to many different types of audio content.

The Vizio Elevate has a great stereo soundstage. The soundstage is perceived as a bit wider than the bar itself, though it doesn't have any features to make it even wider than that. The sound is focused, so objects in the soundstage like voices and footsteps seem to come from an accurate, pinpoint location.

The Vizio Elevate has very good stereo dynamics. It gets very loud, so you can crank up the volume to fill up a large room or play music at a crowded party. There's a bit of compression at max volume, though. For a soundbar with a more clean and pure audio reproduction at max volume, check out the Vizio M Series M51a-H6.

The Vizio Elevate's stereo THD performance is satisfactory. At normal listening volumes, there isn't a lot of distortion present. When you push the bar to max volume, though, there's a jump in distortion across the range. As a result, audio doesn't sound as clean or pure when you crank up the volume.

The Vizio Elevate has a great center channel performance. It has a discrete center channel, so dialogue in movies and TV shows accurately localizes within the soundstage. Its neutral, balanced sound profile means that voices are reproduced clearly and with detail, too.

The Vizio Elevate has a decent surrounds performance. It has dedicated satellite speakers, resulting in a clear and real representation of surround objects in the soundstage. For example, cars in a chase scene seem to race past you from an accurate, pinpoint location. As for its sound, there's a little extra emphasis in the bass range, so you feel the punch and rumble in action-packed scenes.

The Vizio Elevate has a middling height performance. It uses up-firing speakers on the bar and satellites to bounce sound off the ceiling, creating the illusion of sound coming from above you. This bar also rotates its left and right sides upwards automatically when playing Atmos content to help widen its soundstage. However, the height of sound objects doesn't sound as accurate as discrete down-firing speakers found with home theater setups. You can see a video of how the bar rotates here.

The Vizio Elevate 5.1.4 comes with a decent selection of sound enhancement features. There are four EQ presets to help you customize its sound: Movie, Music, Direct, and Game. There's also a dialogue enhancement feature that can help make voices sound more clear and crisp. You can adjust the sides of the bar to UP, WIDE, or AUTO, and the AUTO setting automatically moves them up when you play Atmos or DTS:X content. Compared to other premium models on the market, like the Samsung HW-Q800B, there's no room correction feature. As a result, it sounds a bit different depending on the room you listen in, but you can use the bass and treble adjustments to make up for this a bit.

The Vizio Elevate comes with many inputs, including HDMI ports that let you use it as a hub between different devices. There are two AUX ports: one for analog audio and a second that you can only use with voice assistant speakers.

The Vizio Elevate supports all audio formats we test for via its ARC port, including Dolby Digital and DTS formats commonly found on Blu-ray discs and streaming platforms.

This soundbar has fantastic audio format support through its Full HDMI port. You can listen to Dolby Digital and DTS content, which you'll commonly find on Blu-ray discs and streaming platforms.

Like most soundbars, the Vizio Elevate supports Dolby Digital and DTS via its Optical port. You'll commonly find these formats on Blu-ray discs and streaming platforms.

The Vizio Elevate has a satisfactory latency performance. It has fairly low latency via its ARC and Optical ports, making it well-suited for watching videos and movies. However, it has high latency via its Full HDMI In port, so there's a slight delay between the audio you hear and the video you see over this connection. That said, some apps and some TVs compensate for latency differently, meaning user experience may vary.

The Vizio Elevate soundbar can passthrough high bandwidth signals, so text looks crisp and clear when you use it as a hub between your PC and your TV. It also supports Dolby Vision Passthrough, which is handy.

The Vizio Elevate has incredible wireless playback capabilities. You can stream content from your phone or tablet to the bar wirelessly using Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or Chromecast built-in.

The Vizio Elevate doesn't have a display, though the side of the bar has some vertical lights that display and flash depending on the setting you adjust. There's also audio feedback when you change the EQ presets.

The Vizio Elevate has some physical controls that let you adjust the bar's basic functions. You can turn the bar on and off, select the input, activate Bluetooth pairing mode, and adjust the volume.

There's a small remote that lets you control the bar's functions. It has a display screen, which has better visibility than other Vizio models like the Vizio SB36512-F6. The Vizio SmartCast app also acts as a remote, so you can control the bar via your smartphone.

The Vizio Elevate doesn't have built-in voice assistant capabilities. However, the manufacturer says that you can plug in a third-party voice assistant device using the AUX VA In port to control the bar using Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.