Gadgetory

hey I'm Matthew Muscovy ak from CNET and we're gonna take a look at the energy power bar now you may know energy from its line of traditional speakers but the power bar is the company's first sound bar and it's selling for $400 now a lot of new sound bars have a slim thin profile but the power bar is still pretty chunky it has a thick cylindrical shape and it's actually curved on the bottom so you'll need to use the included rubber feet to keep it from rolling back and forth around back you'll see there are just two inputs an optical input and an analog input so you want to connect everything to your TV first then connect the TV's output to the power bar there are also keyhole slots on the back so it's easy to wall mount the included subwoofer is wireless and it's relatively compact which is a simple gray finish via the sound bar or the subwoofer are really that exciting to look at but they're not objectionable so they should blend in well in a living room the power bar can be controlled by the buttons on the front panel or by a remote but energy doesn't include a remote with the system instead you're expected to program the power bar to accept commands from your TV's remote now that simplifies the amount of remotes you need but it's not quite a perfect solution the problem is when you go to say increase the volume the TV's still going to be receiving those commands and if you've turned your TV speakers off like you're supposed to you may get a message reminding you that the speaker is disabled now the power bar isn't the only sound bar with this flaw and it's not a problem with every TV but it's still a frustrating design choice and you should check out your own TV before you buy this product with Energy's reputation for great sounding speakers we had high hopes for the power bar but it really wasn't that impressive the real strength of this system was playing back to channel music but when you switch to blu-rays and DVDs it started to sound a little flat the sound just wasn't quite as detailed or as powerful as we would have liked and when we compared it directly to Yamahas y es 101 and hires SBE v40 slim both which cost a lot less we end up preferring both of those systems for movies so overall energy is a great company for speakers but the power bar misses the mark especially when there are so many other good competing sound bars that offer a better value I'm Matthew moscovia and this is the energy power bar