Vizio V Series V51-H6 Soundbar Review

The Vizio V51-H6 is a 5.1 setup from Vizio's 2020 lineup. It comes with a wireless subwoofer and two satellite speakers. Its main competitors are the Samsung HW-Q60T, the Yamaha ATS-2090, the Vizio SB36512-F6, and the Vizio V Series V21-H8.

The Vizio V51-H6 is a simple, sleek soundbar. It's mostly made of plastic, with a thin fabric covering the front and the sides of the bar.

The sub is mostly made of plastic. It sits on four plastic pegs with rubber grips. There's a port on the back of the sub, and the speaker is underneath.

The Vizio V51-H6 comes with two satellite speakers, which are mostly made of plastic with fabric covering the front and sides.

The bar isn't too wide, but it might not fit between the legs of a 55" TV. However, it isn't very tall, so it shouldn't block your TV screen unless your TV sits flush on the table.

The subwoofer is similar to the subwoofer for the Vizio V Series V21-H8, and it's shorter in height than the average desktop PC.

The satellites aren't very big. They don't need to be wired to a power source, but they do need to be connected to the sub to function.

The back of the bar has two openings for the input ports. There are also universal holes underneath the bar that let you wall-mount it.

The port is located on the back of the subwoofer. The power cable connects at the bottom, and there are also two jacks for the two satellites.

The satellites have a plain back. There's a connection for the cable that connects to the sub. You can also mount these satellites to the wall using the wall-mount screws and bracket included, but you'll have to purchase a bracket screw separately.

The Vizio V51-H6 has a decent build quality. The components are mostly made of plastic, which feels solid and durable. However, the thin fabric on the front and sides of the bar and the satellite speakers seems like it could get dirty or rip easily.

• Manuals
• Wall-mount template
• Wall-mount brackets with screws
• 4x cable ties
• Optical cable
• HDMI cable
• 2x surround speaker audio cables
• 2x power cables for sub and bar
• 3.5mm to 3.5mm audio cable
• Stereo RCA to 3.5mm cable
• Remote with 2x AAA batteries

The Vizio V51-H6 has a great stereo frequency response. It has a balanced, neutral sound profile that's suitable for listening to lots of different audio content. The subwoofer adds extra boom and punch in the bass range, which can please fans of bass-heavy genres like hip-hop and EDM. There are also four EQ presets available to help you adjust the sound: 'Movie', 'Music', 'Direct', and 'Game'.

The Vizio V51-H6 has a decent stereo soundstage. The soundstage is about as wide as the bar itself, but it doesn't have any tricks to make it sound wider than that. Its focus is good, so objects like voices and instruments seem to come from an accurate, pinpoint location rather than a general area.

The Vizio V51-H6 has excellent stereo dynamics performance. This bar can get loud without a lot of compression artifacts present, making it suitable for large rooms and crowded environments like parties.

The Vizio V51-H6 has a decent THD performance. At normal listening volumes, the THD falls mostly within good limits, resulting in clean and pure sound reproduction. At max volume, there's a small jump in distortion, especially in the bass range. However, this distortion may not be audible with real-life content.

The Vizio V51-H6 has an impressive center performance. This 5.1 setup has a dedicated center speaker, which helps to reproduce vocal-heavy content clearly and more accurately. It can get decently loud, too.

The Vizio V Series 5.1 soundbar has a middling surrounds performance. It comes with two surround speakers that help to reproduce clear and real surround content. Unfortunately, the frequency response is quite bass-heavy, so audio content may sound boomy or muddy.

The Vizio V Series 5.1 doesn't have height channels. If you want a 5.1 soundbar that supports Atmos, check out the Vizio M Series M51a-H6.

The Vizio V51-H6 has a good selection of sound enhancement features. It offers four EQ presets to help you adjust the bar's sound to your liking: 'Movie', 'Music', 'Direct', and 'Game'. There's a dialogue enhancement feature to help make voices sound clearer and more crisp, and a TruVolume feature that provides a consistent volume level across different programs. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a room correction feature, so it may sound different depending on the room you use it in.

The Vizio V51-H6 has several inputs, including a 3.5mm AUX port, which allows you to connect older devices to the bar using a wired connection. However, there isn't a Full HDMI In port, so you can't use the bar as a hub between your devices.

Update 07/20/2021: Following user feedback, we retested this soundbar using our new testing methodology. We confirmed that this soundbar doesn't support Dolby Digital+ via ARC.

Over its HDMI ARC port, this bar supports some of the most common formats for streaming platforms and Blu-ray discs, including Dolby Digital Plus and DTS. However, it doesn't support higher-end formats like Dolby Atmos.

This soundbar doesn't have a Full HDMI In port.

This soundbar supports both Dolby Digital and DTS content via its Optical Audio In. These formats can usually be found on Blu-ray discs and streaming platforms.

This soundbar only supports Bluetooth wireless playback, which lets you stream content from your phone to the bar wirelessly.

The Vizio V51-H6 doesn't have an HDMI In port, so it doesn't support 4k passthrough.

The sub connects wirelessly to the bar. Its only wired connection is its power cable.

The satellites connect to the subwoofer using a wired connection. They need to be close enough to the sub to be connected by a wire, which may limit where you can place the satellites in your room.

The Vizio V51-H6 doesn't have a display, but there's a set of vertical lights on the left side of the bar that flash depending on your settings. There's also audio feedback when you select one of the four preset modes.

There are a few buttons on the top of the bar that let you controls its basic functions. You can power the bar on and off, change the input, activate Bluetooth pairing mode, and adjust the volume.

The remote is fairly simple, and it lets you control all of the bar's settings. There's even a display screen, unlike the remote for the Vizio V Series V21-H8.

This soundbar doesn't have a companion app.

The Vizio V51-H6 comes with an eco-power mode that powers down the bar after a period of inactivity. You can also use your TV remote to control the bar's basic functions as it has HDMI CEC support.