Roth Audio SUB ZERO III Wireless Soundbar - Black

An extremely stylish soundbar with great sound that is very easy, even for a complete technophobe like me, to set up. Great value for money. Added 9th Feb -2025 Beware ! When trying to register this soundbar for warranty, I was unable to contact Roth Audio, I subsequently found that the company have ceased trading, hence no warranty or support.

Having tried another make and model (hitachi) with poor results, i had better hopes with this one. Although it "only" has 90 watts (RMS) power, it's plenty for your average sized living room. Sound quality is very good considering it's a soundbar with it's limited speaker space - Roth have done well with what's available. Bass is very good, the unit almost bounces and sometimes struggles to contain itself, a thicker foot pad would help cushion it a bit more, but there's no denying it has punch.. (Wall mounting would fix this). Obviously a Sub would improve bass, but if - like me, you wanted just a 2.0 unit, then i can confirm it really does well delivering a broad spectrum of sound. Music mode is to me the best setting with the nicest balance (- having tried the other modes which were a bit too brash). Very smooth sound when playing music, well controlled, just the right amount of clarity without being to "bright" (sometimes things can sound a bit too "trebley"?) . - Great movie dialogue too - nice a clear without overpowering any particular sound range.. Top tip - Keep the volume over 15 to prevent automatic switch offs when watching / listening. Tried HDMI and optical, both sounded superb.. I took another tip from other buyers and bought an angled TOSlink adaptor when I ordered this, it helps with surface mounting, but not needed if wall mounting. The SZ3 does come with a 90 degree angled HDMI adaptor included in the kit which is a thoughtful touch. I have a dedicated 7.2 movie room so know a little about home audio - the SZ3 was bought just to add a bit of "weight" without clutter to a stand-alone TV in another room. For this purpose - it fills the brief superbly. Works brilliantly with Echo, though to pair it you have to be quick - about 3 seconds is all you get.. Others have said the remote is a bit clunky, but i found it fine - yes there's about a 1 1/2 seconds delay here and there, but as i'm not switching around every 5 seconds then it's fine. The LCD screen, turns off after 5 seconds so it's not obtrusive when viewing. Recommended..

Bought this for elderly mum but speech is not great even on the appropriate setting

I bought this product, my first soundbar, on the back of 5 star reviews and because it's British made and very reasonably priced. It was promptly delivered and was as described, and to be fair is not a bad looking piece of equipment. The instructions were simple and set up should have been easy so so far so good but by way of review I will list the good and bad. Firstly the bad. The instructions say, along with most technical advise, that the best way to connect the soundbar is through HDMIrca, OK gripe one is that after an hour or so of fiddling around I had to come to the conclusion that this bar will not work using the HDMI port with my (year old) LG TV, according to an engineer I spoke to it could be down to a program conflict. Gripe two is that, if this is the case why is this not listed as a possible problem? I bought an optical lead (£30.00) and once I had changed the settings on the TV I had a working soundbar. Minor gripe three is a tiny lag in lip sync, but I mean tiny and I am probably being over critical. The last gripe is, I would have liked more control over tone not just the three default setting (speech, music and movie). The positive points are, once I got this running and synced to the TV it did improve the sound slightly. The bar looks good, with good bass and without the need for a sub. It is worth remembering (and having read many reviews lamenting that their new soundbar didn't turn an ageing TV into a state of the art hi-fi system) that you only get out what you put in and if you've got less that perfect input to your TV you're not going improve the quality coming out, you just make it louder but when I put a blue-ray DVD on, changed the settings to movie, the bar came into it's own with great sound, tone and volume, and if you stand a little back it's really very very good. All in all this is a good soundbar and worth the money I just would have liked to have been given the cabling to hitch it up in the first place, and been told that HDMI does not work with every TV and saved myself a few hours of messing about.

Nice looking unit. A fraction too high for my TV so it had to be put on a shelf underneath the tv. Connectivity is great. HDMI arc connection works very well and was the first I tried. Really simple. Whatever was connected to the HDMI socket can then be connected to the back of the Sub Zero and it works as normal. There's also a spare HDMI socket on the back of the unit so you gain an extra input as well. Connection via optical also works nicely. I don't particularly care for the connection of the plug on the back of my TV so I tried it but decided to use HDMI instead. Again, it works flawlessly. Line in with a cable. This is useful if you have an old TV with no digital out or to connect something else. I put a music player in through this. Bluetooth connection worked nicely with my IPod Touch and is really convenient. There are three modes. Voice, which I found really good for ...... voice ;) The bass is taken out of the sound so that there is no boom whatsoever and music seems to recede. Great for late night listening when you need to keep everything down perhaps. Music mode bring bass in and an extended treble response. There is some mid bass bloom and voices can be a bit 'heavy' but this mode also works very well for films. I'll explain why after I describe the third sound mode. Movie mode becomes heavier sounding because the treble of the Music mode is rolled off. This means that speech can be a little muffled and boxy. In order to clean up speech, I found that Music mode worked better. Bass levels are quite good given that there is no sub speaker to connect. For my TV in particular, stereo separation improved dramtically. For me, Voice mode is best for low level and speech and Music mode for films. The connections to the unit are on the bottom. While this is great for keeping wires out of site they 'fire' downwards. This is because it is really designed to be hung on a wall. It's a nuisance because you can't use normal plugs. You have to use right angled plugs if you want to stand it in front or below the TV because it doesn't sit high enough to allow clearance. They supply a right angled HDMI connector with the unit but no lead. They do supply a stereo phono lead though!! So if you want to connect a TV box to the speaker, you need to order another right angled connector or an HDMI lead with a right angled plug if you intend to stand it up. Because of the Movie (muffled) kind of sound and the angle of the connections, I gave the Roth 4 stars. However, for the money, it is a really good unit with great connectivity and some slight tweaking in my opinion would have warranted five stars. Two tweaks for Roth .... Raise speech clarity on Movie mode. Look at the plug connections for standing the unit. Then for me, it would be a top notch product. Not far off now though as it is

Power kept cutting out after 30-40 mins of use, sent for a replacement and the replacement did the same. Ended up buying a cheaper make which has been brilliant

Bought this so I could avoid additional wires for wall mounted TV. HDMI ARC allows TV picture and sound to work perfectly. You need to make sure your TV has a HDMI ARC option. Most new TVs have one but if you don't this will not work. I had a few issues when connecting at first but this was down to me not reading the instructions properly. now works perfectly Great product, easy to use and well made.

I've had one (or the previous model) and am disappointed with the longevity of it. The remote capabilities packed up after a couple of years and now the base unit has packed up. I chose Roth of others because they were a UK company, but I wish id spent more and gone with the Bose (which I'm doing now as a replacement)