Should You Buy Zebronics Zeb-Juke Bar 3850? An In-depth Review
Zebronics recently launched its low-budget Pro Dolby Atmos soundbar, Zeb-Juke Bar 3850. Before writing this review, we tested it rigorously for full 7 days.
Unboxing Zeb-Juke Bar 3850
This is Zebronics' 2.0.2 channel Dolby Atmos Pro Zeb-Juke bar, 3850, which was released recently. On the box, apart from its brand name Zebronics, all features have been mentioned In addition to the soundbar, inside the box, is a power cable, a remote, two triple-A batteries, an AV cable, a user manual, and these wall-mount fasteners. This is a single-piece soundbar, without any subwoofer.
Built Quality & Design Zeb-Juke Bar 3850
The built quality of this Soundbar is pretty good. It is a bit heavy and imparts a premium feel. On the front of the Soundbar as well as on its top surface there is a black metallic mesh. On the front upper left side, the brand name Zebronics is mentioned, whereas, on the right side there is a sticker highlighting Dolby Atmos. On the upper surface, the physical control of this soundbar is given, which include power, volume up & down and source buttons. On both ends of this soundbar, there is a groove designing with a black glossy finish. On the rear, too, there is a black glossy finish and all ports are there in the centre. On the underneath of this soundbar, too, there is a black glossy finish with rubberized base stands. On the remote, there are 4 preset modes, News, Music, Movie, and 3D. It has control for both bass and treble. An internal display is given on the front, on which volume level, preset equalizer mode, input mode, sound type, get displayed. When you play Dolby Atmos videos on your TV, Dolby Atmos gets displayed on this soundbar.
Connectivity Zeb-Juke Bar 3850
If we talk about Connectivity; this soundbar has 3 HDMI ports, 1 USB port, 1 Aux port, and 1 optical port. Apart from that, it comes with Bluetooth version 5.0.
Specifications
According to the company, this soundbar comes with four 6.35 cm front-facing drivers and two upward-facing 5.08 cm drivers. The total audio output of this soundbar is 170 Watts. It comes with a 4k HDR pass-through. When you will connect it to a 4k HDR Android box or Fire TV stick, it will support 4k HDR content.
Real performance
I tested this soundbar after connecting it to the HDMI ports of three TVs, through a high-quality HDMI 4k cable. One is Toshiba that comes with Dolby Atmos support, the second is Samsung Crystal Pro that has an HDMI eARC on it and the third one is Vu Premium Android which comes with DTS-X.
Performance
I got its best performance through the HDMI eARC of the Samsung TV, followed by Vu. On Toshiba TV, the performance was the least appealing, despite its having Dolby Atmos. The soundbar starts with a delay of few seconds. Even while changing the programs, there is an audio delay is for at least 4-5 seconds. If we sum up the audio performance of this soundbar in the vocabulary of a commoner, this soundbar is loud and performs well during action scenes. But, if you have a good knowledge of soundbars and home theatres, you will find synchronization missing in the audio of this Soundbar. No harmony is seen in its Highs, Mids and Lows. These three frequencies do not seem to blend beautifully.
Talking about its performance while listening to music; In absence of a proper bass, the music hardly appeals. The loudness of this soundbar is good, but the overall performance is not balanced. The mids in this Soundbar are not good at all. Clarity goes missing in dialogues. Many a time, vocals seem to get lost in the background scores. There is hardly any bass on this soundbar You don't get to hear any crispness or heaviness on this soundbar. As the bass is very less sometimes vocals appear shrilling. This soundbar cannot boost the dialogues much, and, if there is any dialogue between action sequences, the audio is not clearly audible. It gets drowned in the high treble of the action scenes.
If you are hearing dialogues and suddenly an action sequence comes into play, the audio gets boosted to a large extent, which happens so unexpectedly that it creates a sort of panic. The highs on this soundbar are very overpowering.
The performance of this soundbar during action scenes is its only USP. When there is an action scene, the sound of action sequences gets enhanced to a large extent, and simultaneously, sounds of some objects in the scenes can be heard sharply and distinctly. Fight scenes and the sound of firing bullets come up very loudly and sharply, but, this is also a fact, that in the absence of bass, the sound doesn't appeal much. On the contrary, on high volume, it feels more like noise.
You will not get to hear any Dolby Atmos effect on this soundbar. I even tried keeping this soundbar in a portion where the ceiling was very low, still, no Atmos effect could be obtained. I am not a bass lover, and I dislike fake bass, but the absence of even the minimum bass requirement on this soundbar creates a vacuum even in its Mids and Highs, making each frequency feel incomplete. A good soundbar is one on which Highs, Mids and Lows are well-balanced. If any of the frequencies is dull, then, its effect is felt on the performance of other frequencies, too. The right combination of treble, bass and vocals completes a home theatre system.
The low-cost soundbar of Zebronics, which I used in the review video of Samsung Crystal Pro TV had a better balance of Highs, Mids & Lows, than this one. Dolby Atmos does not mean producing shrilling sounds, it depicts the highest level of audio fidelity where the audio is well-balanced and clear so that it imparts a real life experience, with the sound of each individual object coming up clearly and distinctly. The Dolby Atmos soundbar from Anker, which I reviewed earlier, on that too there was hardly any Dolby Atmos effect and its sound output was also less, but, still, its audio quality was very good. It had a much better balance between the highs, mids and lows.
All high-quality music systems like JBL, Sony, Yamaha and Bose, don't come with much loudness or fake bass, on the contrary, you get completely balanced quality audio on them, which appears soothing to the ears. And, this only is the parameter of judging a good home theatre system.
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