Quote:
Originally Posted by
Corribus 
So davyo, what's the bottom line, here? Is this a game-breaker for this sound bar? I guess what I mean is: is it really going to make a difference? For instance, will certain discs simply not play at all, or what? [I assume that the older Vizio also did not decode this format.]
Well here's the deal Corribus and everyone else.
The lack of DTS with the new Vizio is going to have to be a deal breaker for me.
I had the JVC boxed up and re-packed and all ready to return until I put on my new "War Of the Worlds" DTS BluRay,,,, I didnt know there was any issue with the new Vizio before that, as none of the other BluRays I used for testing were DTS and I had both bars hooked directly to the BD player via optical when I was doing my testing.
I would have discovered this issue with my first Vizio VSB210WS bar except I always had it hooked up to my Vizio panel and never directly to my BD player.
I spent all last night and part of today going back and forth between the Vizio VHT210 and the JVC TH-BA1, playing different BluRays and tring different audio settings on my BluRay and different connections with both soundbars.
I have not changed my opinion of how much I like the Vizio but with all the back and forth testing I have grown to like the JVC even more than I did in the first place,,, as in Im going to do a flip flop and call the JVC the better of the two bars,,,, and not just because of the DTS issue,, but because I honestly changed my mind and think the JVC has the better overall sound now.
After doing many hours of side by side playback here's my revised opinions.
I used a bunch of BluRays but for the last few hours used the "Dark Night" as my main test disc.
The Vizio puts out more surround sound and effects while the JVC puts out a tad bit less surround while at the same time Im finding a more realistic surround effect.
The JVC having the center channel level setting is better for boosting dialog while keeping a very nice room filling sound,,, the Vizio while very good with dialog is not as good as the JVC.
The more time I spent with the Vizio the more I started to notice that the effects were at time's almost over powering the dialog but at the same time the Vizio has a bigger sound,,,, but it is bordering on being exagerated,,, if that makes sense.
The JVC sounds more natural and the blend between dialog and the surround effects are more balanced than with the Vizio.
If you have the Vizio hooked up to a display and your taking the optical from the display to the Vizio bar the lack of DTS decoding is a mute point as your display will not be sending the Vizio a DTS feed via optical,,,, but if you want to run the optical directly from a BD player to the Vizio all is fine unless you want to watch a DTS encoded BD,,,, thats a big deal breaker for me right there.
If I get a projector I will have no choice but to run an optical from a BD player to a soundbar and since the Vizio wont take DTS and the JVC will, it makes that choice kinda simple.
But here is another problem,, when running optical from my BD player and playing a non-DTS BluRay the sound was better with the Vizio than taking the optical from my displays optical output,, in other words, the Vizio sounded much better with the optical feed coming from my BD player than it did coming from my panels optical feed.
But since you cant run the Vizio with a direct optical feed from a BD player and get DTS you have to use your display, which de-grades the sound in my opinion.
Is this post long enough yet,,,,, I can go on longer
Anyhow,,, I thought it best to explain that I now consider the JVC TH-BA1 to be the better overall soundbar when up against the Vizio VHT210,,, and like I said,,, its just not the DTS issue,,,, but it was the DTS issue that caused me to un-box the JVC and re-test both soundbars again.
And I do apologize for any pain or suffering I caused anyone by changing my opinion.
Cheers
Davyo
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