Hisense HS2100 Soundbar Review

The Hisense HS2100 soundbar has a simple, nondescript all-black design that's similar to its sibling: the Hisense HS214. It has a plastic design on the top surface that gives the appearance of fake leather. While this soundbar looks heavy, it's deceptively light upon picking it up.

The slim sub is mostly plastic, with a square panel of fabric mounted on the side. This fabric does feel a little loose but is still adhered firmly to the side. That said, it does little to protect the sub from any bumps. The port is made of plastic.

The bar isn't particularly long and will fit under the legs of most 55-inch TV stands. It's also not very tall and won't obstruct your view of the TV.

The subwoofer is small, compact, and has a more narrow design than most subs.

You can easily mount the soundbar to your wall using the included mounting kit.

The build quality is decent. It's made mostly of plastic, with the front encased in a mesh fabric. While it looks aesthetically pleasing from a distance, some aspects of its build fail to hold up to this upon closer inspection. The plastic on the top is meant to imitate faux leather but looks cheap up close. Similarly, some of the molding, like where the mesh fabric meets the top plastic, looks a little off. The mesh fabric that covers the front of the bar also feels a little loose, and the fabric itself isn't of particularly high quality.

• Manual and Quick Start Guide
• 2x Screws and drywall anchors
• Remote with 2x AAA batteries
• Power cord (length: 4.9 ft / 1.5 m)
• Optical cable (length: 4.9 ft / 1.5 m)
• HDMI cable (length: 4.9 ft / 1.5 m)

The Hisense HS2100 has good stereo frequency response. It can bring an impressive sound with plenty of boom in the bass, although these frequencies lack attack and sub-bass rumble. However, this is to be expected, as even with the dedicated sub, the manufacturer advertises a limited low-frequency extension. Vocals and speech are reproduced accurately, although the recessed treble response means they lack a little high-end sparkle and brilliance. There are also a few EQ presets to choose from, and you can see how they affect the frequency response here.

Those who prefer a warm sound profile that's rich in bass will want to stay with the default EQ setting. However, those looking for a more detailed sound will want to set the bass to '-4' and the treble to '+1'. This will bring out more detail in vocals and speech at the expense of some bass response.

The Hisense HS2100 has a decent stereo soundstage, with a width perceived to extend to the bar's edge. It doesn't have any tricks up its sleeve to make the sound seem wider than this. Focus is okay and helps you easily localize sound effects within the middle of the stereo field. However, more precise localization becomes more difficult at the edges.

This soundbar has plenty of volume on tap to fill the average living room. There's some compression present at both regular and maximum volume, though, so you might hear some pumping artifacts in your audio. However, given the bar's maximum volume is only a few decibels over 90dB, this is to be expected.

The Hisense HS2100 is a 2.1 soundbar, so it lacks a discrete center channel and instead uses the left and right channels to create a phantom center. Unfortunately, this means that while speech and vocal are clear and present, it's challenging to pinpoint exactly where they're coming from within the soundstage.

As this is a 2.1 soundbar, surround sound formats like Dolby Digital are downmixed to stereo. As a result, the sound is less immersive and enveloping than a discrete setup. Audio seems like it's coming from directly in front of you rather than from an array of speakers positioned around you. However, this is to be expected, given the soundbar's actual configuration.

The Hisense HS2100 soundbar has limited sound enhancement features, which is to be expected given its price. It allows you to alter the default sound profile by cycling through different EQ presets, which include 'Sports,' 'Music,' 'Movie,' 'Game,' 'News,' and 'Night.' You can see how the EQ presets affect the frequency response here. It's worth noting that there's around a five-second pause when switching between presets. While there's no dedicated dialogue enhancement setting, the 'News' setting helped bring out voices and improve clarity. We also found that the output on 'Night' mode was quite a bit lower than the other modes. As with the Hisense HS214, there's a virtual surround feature that's designed to add some expansiveness to the soundstage. This feature sounds better overall than on the HS214, but we still found that it subjectively sounded quite artificial.

You can connect this soundbar to your TV via HDMI or optical connections. There's also a coaxial input which is great if you have an older TV. Sadly, it lacks a full HDMI In port, so you won't be able to use it as a hub to switch between different devices.

The Hisense HS2100 soundbar has decent audio format support via ARC. There's no Dolby Atmos support, but it does support Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus, which is great considering the ubiquity of these formats when streaming or playing Blu-rays. There's also support for DTS, which is a welcome addition.

This soundbar can play back both Dolby Digital and DTS content. As it's a 2.1 bar, it'll downmix all content to stereo though.

Audio latency is great when using the ARC connection. Latency is slightly higher with Dolby formats but you still won't experience much in the way of syncing issues between video and audio. That said, different apps and TVs compensate for latency differently, so your experience may vary.

When connected via optical, audio latency is decently low. However, you're more likely to experience syncing issues between audio and video with Dolby Digital content. Some TVs and apps will compensate for latency differently, though.

Without a Full HDMI In port, this soundbar isn't suitable for video passthrough to your TV.

This bar has Bluetooth compatibility, so you can stream content wirelessly from your mobile devices. It's advertised to support Bluetooth version 5.3, which is rare to find at this price point.

This bar doesn't have a display, but it does feature a single LED for visual feedback to indicate different power statuses or input sources.

• Red:Standby
• Green:Aux
• Blue:Bluetooth
• Orange:Optical
• White:HDMI ARC
• Yellow:USB

There are also more LEDs that can provide some visual feedback when you input specific values. For example, when you adjust the bass and treble values on the EQ. You can see a video of this here.

For those who own a Hisense TV, you can also adjust the soundbar settings via the TV audio output settings. We tested this on the Hisense U7H, but it's unclear if this compatibility is limited to Hisense's higher-end TVs.

The bar has very simple controls on the top center that allow you to turn it on/off, change the input, or adjust the volume.

The remote has a simple set of controls you can use to control the bar's different functions. There's no companion app, so it's the easiest way to adjust the settings.