Dayton Audio SA1000 Subwoofer Amplifier

When I contacted Buttkicker about repairing the amp, I was told they don’t repair any amps anymore. And when I asked about buying a replacement, the BKA1000-P, they said they were out of stock and wouldn’t be receiving any for a while. They suggested the Dayton Audio SA1000 Subwoofer Amplifier. I looked it up, and honestly it had a lot better features than the Buttkicker model, so I decided to order it and give it a shot.

How is it? Honestly, it’s a lot better than the Buttkicker version for the most part because of all the adjustments it has. While my BKA1000 only had frequency and volume adjustments, this has those 2 plus 4 other adjustments where you can modify things to your liking.

A few people in reviews have mentioned how they don’t like the bright blue LED for power, I agree that it is bright but since my cabinet is to the side of my theater it doesn’t really bother me too much.

I’m currently using the Dayton SA1000 to drive 3 Buttkicker LFE‘s, same as my old setup. One thing I did wish it had was a remote, not so much for every day use, but when you’re initially setting it up there’s a lot of trial and error to get the volume just right (as there is with the BKA1000 too).

Buttkicker BKA1000 repair?

I looked into this quite a bit after the manufacturer refused to repair it. The general gist of it was:

• what usually fails is one of the capacitors
• causes the amp to smoke usually
• some people have had success repairing them on their own, but it’s not something that an average person should attempt due to the nature of the amp
• there used to a place or two that serviced them a long time ago but they’ve discontinued their services

In the end, it’s probably not worth saving the older BKA1000 models as the newer units appear to have better redundancy as does the Dayton SA1000 from what I’ve read.

What’s in the Cowin E7 box?

Of course the headphones are in there, and a charging cable as well. What was a little unexpected is that there was a pretty decent manual and a nice leather carrying case with it. Although I don’t personally use carrying cases, it was a nice touch for a budget pair of headphones. Also included was a cable to manually hooked up your headphones if needed. I did a short video below showing the headphones and what comes with them.

How well do the headphones work?

There are three options for the power switch, off, bluetooth, and active noise cancelling. I originally started off with bluetooth which worked really well. Actually compared to my skullcandy pair, they connected up much better and quicker. I was having this intermittent problem with my skullcandy pair where they would connect to my iphone but then not actually trigger the iphone to play. That isn’t a problem with the Cowin E7, the bluetooth performance is much better than I had previously.

The noise cancellation part also seems to work pretty well. Even without turning on the active part, the majority of noise is cancelled out. The sound quality is somewhat affected by the activation of the active noise cancellation, it’s a little more fuzzy.

Battery life and operation

The battery life is surprisingly strong, even better than my skullcandy pair. The volume control is a little weird though, at least with my iPhone. On my previous pair, I could start/stop/up volume/down volume with the side buttons. The up and down volume buttons would control the iPhone volume level.

On the Cowin E7 though, the up and down volume actually controls the volume of the headset and not the phone. This means that if you want to adjust the volume of the iPhone, you’ll have to do it manually. This hasn’t been a problem for me so far, but I just wanted to make a note of it for people in case.

It does have the ability to skip forward and backward, which is unusual for any headphones to have. I wish there was an option to switch the ‘skip’ and ‘volume’ controls around, the volume controls are done by ‘holding’ the button, while a press skips 30 seconds.

There’s also a built in microphone should you want to take phone calls on it. That’s a pretty nice feature as well that my previous pair didn’t have.

Final Thoughts

The Cowin E7 are a pretty good pair of budget headphones. I was looking for something that was comfortable and reliable, the flaky bluetooth part of the skullcandy stuff was starting to annoy me. And at 1/2 the price of the previous pair I had, it’s a win. About the only thing I would change is the volume button stuff.

• Press the settings button (gear icon on remote)
• Press the settings button until ‘Rear level’ shows on the soundbar
• Press up on the circle to increase the volume, press the scroll down to decrease the volume
• Most people will want to increase to +6 as the volume is normally soft

You can also watch my video here:

This should make it clearer on what to do. Hope this helps people out as this was confusing to me as well initially.

Step One, Finding a Replacement For the Core Cable Channels

My family typically watches ESPN, Cartoon Network, HGTV, and then some movies on like TNT, AMC, etc.  Looking at the packages available, it really came down to these choices:

• Sling TV ($25 currently)
• Playstation Vue ($45 currently)
• Hulu TV ($40)

Hulu TV

I’ve owned Hulu before (not the live version though), and while I like their selection of new and older shows, it’s interface isn’t the greatest depending on the device plus I had weird issue a while back.  Somebody hacked my account and changed my email address, so I couldn’t even access my own account anymore, lol.  I’ve never had anything like that ever happen to me on anything, so I wasn’t too impressed there.

There should be some security protocols in place that like I have to approve the change somehow, because Hulu support is all account based.  That means if you lose account access, you can’t access support unless you call.

But beyond that, at $40 plus a bunch more for add-ons, I didn’t feel like it brought enough value to the table.  I’m trying to cut my bills, not just substitute one for another.

Playstation Vue

Playstation Vue has the best overall selection of channels for sure, at least for my interests.  The one problem?  It doesn’t work with the Xbox obviously, and it’s the streaming device of choice on two of my TV’s.  It also doesn’t have WebOS support, which my other TV’s have.  So more strikes against it.  If it had better overall support for 3rd party devices, it would have been a contender for me.  I do think that if you have devices that support it and you don’t mind the higher price, it’s probably the best option overall.  It didn’t work for my situation, and honestly probably won’t work for a lot of people due to their device support limitations.

Sling TV

Sling TV kind of won by default for me then, because it’s cost was so much less ($25) plus it has support for WebOS, Xbox, Roku, etc, much like Hulu.  Plus it had the core channels we wanted except for the Big 10 Network, one of its shortcoming unfortunately.  Come Nebraska football season, I’m going to have to find another option, although I’m not sure what that is.  But for $25 a month I can live with that.  It does have one shortcoming in the cheaper package that may not work for everyone, basically you can only have one TV streaming at a time.

For my family that isn’t a big deal because we don’t watch that much network TV anymore, but if you have 5 TV’s trying watch Sling at the same time, you’re going to need the upgraded package at $45.  That also comes with some additional channels, but the value isn’t there like it is for the $25 package in my opinion.

Local Channels

The other problem when you go all streaming is, what do I do for local channels?  Well luckily I just did this comparison HDHomeRun Vs Tablo Review and was able to see that for my case, Tablo would allow me to stream all of the local HD channels to all of my TV’s in my house.  Why is this great?  Because I won’t need:

• to buy an extra antenna for every TV
• don’t have setup and aim the antenna for every TV
• can get good reception even in the basement
• adds DVR features if wanted

Basically, it’s a killer deal if you want to watch local channels at all.  My family noticed how much better the Tablo channels look than the Dish Network ones did, it’s a major upgrade.  I think all the compression from the satellite feed really diminishes the quality but really isn’t noticeable until you use an antenna.

Streaming Quality Vs Dish

This is totally going to depend on your internet speed, but at our streaming speed (4.5 mbps) the Sling TV quality totally crushes the Dish Network quality we had on our 722k receiver.  It was really noticeable right off the bat.  However, Dish Network doesn’t get the occasional pause that Sling gets, and I think overall it’s a little more responsive in the GUI interface.  I’m sure Sling will get there though eventually.

Saving on your Cable Bill, The Result

For my situation, we were paying $92.xx a month for Dish Network.  That was with a 722k receiver, one of the lower channel packages, local channels, DVR, etc.  During sports season it usually climbed into the 100+ range due to Cornhusker games being on channels not in our package.

With the new setup, we spent $140 on the Tablo initially, and then $25 a month for Sling TV.  So basically in 2 months, we will have save $20 already, and every year from now on we’ll save ($92 * 12) – ( $25 * 12 ) = $804.  Depending on your situation, it may even save you more.

The other added benefit is that there’s no cable box to rent, extra fees to pay, etc.  And you can access it from anywhere, so when you go on a trip, you can stream it to any device you may have.

Conclusion

Hopefully this article makes you aware of the cost savings that are now available out there.  Most people don’t know that streaming options that cost 50% to 75% less than their current bill exist out there, they think that the only options are to cut the cord completely or pay the high bill.  I’m here to tell you there’s a different way that isn’t quite as painful as cutting the cord completely or as painful as paying that high bill every month.

HDHomeRun Initial Impressions

First impressions of the HDHomeRun were great.  It was essentially just a box with power cord, place to hook up a network cable, and an antenna port.  I hooked up the antenna, the power cord, and network cord.  Then I went to the windows store to download the application.  Initially it had to upgrade the software on the unit before I could use it, but after that was done, I was in business.  I produced a really good image on my laptop, and was easy to change channels.  The model I bought was this via my Amazon affiliate link:

SiliconDust HDHomeRun CONNECT DUO 2 (HDHR5-2US) with Terk Indoor Flat 4K HDTV Multi-Directional Antenna

At this point, I’m really excited.  This was so easy so far.  That’s when the issues started to happen.  I moved to my first TV, an LG with WebOS installed.  When I searched for the HDHomeRun app, I realized that it doesn’t exist for WebOS.  Nor does it exist for the Roku’s I have for my TCL TV or external Roku box.  The only things it worked on that I had were Xbox One’s, PS4’s, and computers, not the solution I was looking for.  It doesn’t really do me much good to cut the cord to save money if I have to go buy an additional compatible media player for every TV.

This frustration lead me to do a lot more research, as I was going with HDHomeRun initially due to all the positive reviews.  I think if you had compatible TV’s with their app, it would be great.  There is an option to use PLEX with the unit but it’s $4.99 a month as of this writing and evidently isn’t great according to the reviews (actually PLEX itself is great, it’s the live TV portion that’s not supposed to that great, at least as of now).

After doing a bunch of research, I determined that Tablo and TIVO were the other two major options.  Tivo was a lot more expensive than Tablo.  Also Tablo had all the TV support I needed that the HDHomeRun didn’t have (WebOS, Roku, etc).  Picked up the Tablo dual tuner and started my next journey of setting it up.

Tablo Dual Tuner Initial Impressions

The Tablo setup was almost identical to the HDHomeRun from a hardware standpoint.  It basically was hook up the antenna, plug in the power, and hook up the Ethernet cable.  From there though, I went directly to one of my LG WebOS TV’s to download the Tablo app.  It was a little difficult to find it at first since you have install it (and it isn’t in the default list).  Once I figured that out though, it was easy to launch.  FYI, Tablo is available through my Amazon affiliate link below:

Tablo Dual Lite Tuner OTA

They make a bunch of different models, honestly I wish I would have bought the one with DVR built in here.  Once it launches, it takes anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute to connect and get everything ready.  I’m not sure why there’s such a big variance in time, maybe it’s because of network usage in my house?  In any case, it’s a little annoying but nothing too bad, just something you have to get used to.  And honestly, it may just be my network, I have the Google Home 3 point Mesh Network.  Most of the time the network work really well.  Perhaps the bandwidth of the broadcasts it taxing it more than usual.

Once you’ve selected a broadcast, you can use the remote to go to different channels.  Note that the program you were on doesn’t continue when the channel menu comes up, so there’s no scrolling through the guide while watching unfortunately.  Once you change channels though it works pretty well, changing pretty quickly with only an occasional hiccup in the first 15 to 30 seconds (buffering issue).

Tablo vs HDHomeRun, The Verdict

Well for my personal situation, Tablo is easily the winner in the Table vs HDHomeRun battle.  In fact HDHomeRun never even got out of the gate due to their poor support for various operating systems.  I think that if HDHomeRun ever got their software support upgraded or perhaps if all of your TV’s have an OS that supports HDHomeRun, it might be a great option.  It was certainly the one I’d heard about the most, which is why I went with it initially.

Tablo honestly I’d never heard of until I started researching after my HDHomeRun woes.  TIVO I’d heard of a ton, but not Tablo.  Tablo though is everything we needed it to be.  Could it use a little work in timing and performance?  For sure.  But it accomplishes what you need it to do very well, just as long as you don’t like to switch channels during commercial breaks all the time.

As a side note, I really liked the Terk antenna that came with the HDHomeRun bundle I bought.  It seemed like it did a lot better job than the other antennas I had laying around that I’ve used in the past (rabbit ears, Christmas tree directional, etc).  Ironically, I should note that it appeared like the Tablo got better reception than the HDHomeRun using that same Terk antenna, but I can’t 100% verify that.  I just know that 2 of the channels on the HDHomeRun that were having reception issues didn’t appear to have issues on the Tablo for whatever reason.

My TV buying philosophy

I’m probably a bigger audio/visual nut than probably 95% of the population.  When it comes to TV’s, do I buy the latest and greatest 2,000 dollar TV?  Nope, not a chance.  Every TV I’ve bought in the past 10 years has been $900 or under.  TV’s anymore are just a commodity in my opinion, and you just don’t get much additional for your dollar when you spend double or triple the money for the same size TV.

Would I spend more for a bigger TV?  Absolutely.  Size makes a big difference and I would pay for size.  The thing that is deceiving on TV size is that going from 55″ to 65″ doesn’t seem like a big increase, (since 55″ / 65″ is only about a 16% difference) but in square inches 1296 / 1824 is a 29% difference, so it’s a much bigger screen than you think.

Would I spend more for an OLED vs your standard 4k screen of today?  Absolutely not.  It’s two to three times as expensive for better black levels and picture, but are you going to notice it that much on a daily basis?  Most of the inputs into a TV from streaming, cable, etc aren’t of fantastic quality, so a lot of the gain you might get is lost because no matter what the screen is, it can’t make up for poor quality input.

The Financial Math of TV’s

So if you wanted a 65″ 4k HDR OLED TV today, it’s going to cost you $2500 plus tax.  A 65″ 4k HDR TV can be had for $699 plus tax like the LG 65UJ6200 I bought a while back.  Almost a $2000 difference for a TV that has the same size, same features, just worse contrast on the cheaper one.  You could buy a lot of stuff with that $2000 like an Xbox One X, a PS4, Netflix for a decade, etc.

Basically, it’s a ton of money for something that is going to decrease to zero in a few years because it’s a depreciating asset.  All TV’s get outdated rather quickly and get replaced by newer models with better features and picture, so why spend the big bucks now for it?  In a few years that same $2500 TV will be available brand new for $699 probably, if history is any indicator.

What TV should I buy?

My recommendation is to buy the biggest brand name you can for whatever is reasonable for your budget.  So you wouldn’t buy a TV from a brand you’ve never heard of, but buying the cheaper LG, Samsung, etc would be perfectly acceptable.  I think almost all the cheap TV’s I’ve bought lately have been LG except for one TCL that we bought because of the good reviews and Roku features (my son wanted to have NBA league pass on his TV and the TCL is one of the few with that stuff built in).

65″ TV’s are available currently for $699 or less and 55″ for $399 or less, so you don’t even have to have a very big budget to get a really nice TV.  Much different than 15 years ago where you had to spend $2000 to get a 55″ HDTV that weighed 200 pounds and was gigantic.

The most important features as of this writing (July 2018) are:

• 4k resolution
• HDR
• Smart TV features
• Number of HDMI inputs
• ARC capable (for sound bars)

Hopefully that helps what to look for.

Buttkicker LFE Installation

Installation is probably the hardest part of the whole thing.  Depending on how many you have, each one has a different wiring diagram to get the Ohm reading right for the amp.  They selling wiring kits and I think they’re probably worth the money for the most part.  I had part of a wiring kit in the used setup I bought, and it was definitely much easier than doing it via stripping wires.  The Buttkicker LFE is available through my Amazon affiliate link below:

ButtKicker BK-LFE Low Frequency Effects System

I had three to put on my chairs, and you can either mount them directly to the chairs or use the little floor mount that you put the chair on.  I bought the floor mounts because that’s a lot easier than mounting them to the chair and works really well.  It costs a little more but definitely worth it.  You can see them via my Amazon affiliate link below:

ButtKicker BK-CMAK Couch/Chair Mounting Accessory Kit

For an amp, some people try and get by with an older receiver but I think it makes a lot more sense to just buy the standard Buttkicker BKA-1000 amp they make.  If you use a receiver with the low Ohm values the Buttkicker LFE’s have, you stand a good chance of sending it into protection mode or not getting the full effect you desire.  Going with the one you know will work right is worth the money in this situation.

In order to drive the amp, you’ll need a signal from your receiver’s bass output for a subwoofer.  Depending on your setup, that may or may not be an easy thing to get to your Buttkicker BKA-1000 amp.  In mine, it was pretty easy, but if it isn’t they make a wireless kit to help solve that issue.  The wireless kit is pretty affordable and can solve that wiring problem for you.

Buttkicker LFE in Movies

Depending on the movie, you may or may not get a ton of effect from the Buttkicker, it totally depends on the bass track your film has.  It really shines during intense action films but can even add a lot to your standard comedy.  I have mine on all the time regardless of the movie, I wouldn’t want to watch a movie without it.  When you combine it with the rest of your parts of a home theater, it makes watching at home better than the theater.

Buttkicker LFE during Video Games

This is where I spend the majority of my time in my theater, playing video games.  Games like Call of Duty will really work the system to its fullest, it’s actually pretty amazing.  The immersion factor is off the charts.  I spend most of my time playing Overwatch currently, I’ve gotten really hooked on it again.  I used to use them a lot when playing Rocksmith, was fun to jam out when they were on.

With the official Buttkicker BKA-1000 amp you don’t have to turn it off and on every time, which is nice.  It senses when there is a bass signal and automatically turns on.  That makes it super nice to just turn it to a volume and leave it there indefinitely in sleep mode, and when I start playing it will start up again and go.  I usually never have to mess with the volume.

Bass without waking up the kids

One of the biggest things for me is that I can’t really use my sub when the kids are sleeping, it just shakes the whole house.  The Buttkicker system though can totally give me all that bass I want without waking them up, which is a huge win for me.  The only time I could see it interfering with their sleep is if they’re in the basement and your theater is above them.  Then maybe the shaking from the Buttkickers might vibrate their ceiling some?  I don’t know for sure because mine are in the basement.

It would also be really useful if you’re living in an apartment complex or somewhere else quiet where using a sub would get you into big trouble.  The Buttkickers can totally fix that issues for you.  I think some people even combine the Buttkicker LFE with headphones so they get all the tactile bass with zero noise.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for bass that you can feel, there’s no better option that the Buttkicker LFE system.  I’ve had mine for years without a single issue.  Where can you buy it?  I think most people buy it off Amazon or Ebay, although occasionally you will get lucky and someone on craigslist will have it for sale (that’s how I got mine).  However, I haven’t seen Buttkicker’s on my craigslist for 5 years, so I think I just got extremely lucky. 

Painted Wall Home Theater Screen

If you have a smooth wall, this is the cheapest option you can do.  It basically requires a quart or two of white paint (usually Behr Ultra White) and then adding a velvet border around the screen.  In order to this though, you need three things:

1. a very smooth wall
2. a lot of time
3. a saw and stapler so you can do the velvet border

Even after all this, it’s still probably going to cost you $100 in materials and 5 to 10 hours worth of time, so it’s not totally free.  If you want to go super cheap you can ignore the border but it won’t look very good.  10 years ago, I would have recommended this for sure.  At this point though, I think there are better options for slightly more money and a lot less time and effort.

Low cost Home Theater Fabric Screen

10 years ago, cheap fabric home theater screens were either portable ones on a stand or DIY ones where you bought several hundred dollars in material and made your own screen.  Luckily, there’s now a lot better option, and it’s what I have in my home theater as well.

That option is made by Silver Ticket Products and is sold on Amazon.  I bought this 4 years ago for my home theater.  The Amazon affiliate link is below:

Silver Ticket Products 120″ screen at Amazon

I had a painted wall before this, and this is WAY better than a painted wall.  For the money, it just crushes the painted wall option.  I don’t think I’d ever do a painted wall again with this available to buy.

Before this came out, almost all the screens were $500 to $1000, which made it very hard to justify when a wall costs $100 and gets 80% of the way there.  This though gets 100% of the way there and costs only marginally more than the painted wall.

High priced Home Theater Fabric Screens

Once you get over $500, you get into what I like to call high priced home theater screens.  Maybe to some people this isn’t high priced, for someone like me who’s always looking for a bargain, this isn’t my category.  Usually the players in this category are like Stewart, Da-Lite, Elite Screens, and some others.

One of the most popular ones is one from Elite Screens below via my Amazon affiliate link:

Elite Screens Cinegray 5d

It has a tons of high reviews, so they must be doing something right.  Myself personally, I’d rather save the money for something else, but if you think about it you usually keep the same screen forever while the projector changes out every so often, so maybe it makes sense to spend more on a screen up front?

Conclusion

I don’t think you can really go wrong with any of the options.  A lot of people start off with the painted wall, then go to the cheaper screen, and then to the more expensive one.  I personally don’t see myself going off the cheaper screen because of how much I like it, but maybe someday something will come out that will make me change my mind.

Hopefully this guide has been helpful, and good luck in your search for the best home theater screen for your home.

The set is a combination of wired and wireless.  The system is wireless from the soundbar to the rear station, but wired from the rear station to the left and right rear speakers.  This may or may not work out very well depending on your setup.  If you have a living room and want to hang the speakers on the wall, it may be a little hard to hide the wires.  On the other hand, if you have a bunch of shelving and other items on the back wall, hiding the wires should be easy.

The wireless communication between the soundbar and the rear station is pretty strong, I keep mine in a storage closet and it works great still.  I didn’t test how far it would work, mine is about 15 feet away and works fine.  Hooking them up though, they didn’t connect very well at all.  Initially, I had to have them right next to each other in order to get the soundbar and the rear station to connect.  I’m not sure why there was an initial communication problem when trying to pair the items but there was.

How do the experience do they add?  A ton, they’re great.  When you initially plug them in, you might find them slightly underwhelming.  One of the problems you may have, depending on your room, is that they might be too soft.  Luckily, you can adjust them pretty easily to be louder through an option on the soundbar.

If they’re still not loud enough for you, there’s a louder and slightly more expensive option that Samsung offers:

Samsung Electronics Surround Sound bar Home Speaker Set of 2 Black (SWA-9000S/ZA)

I thought about going that direction but when the 8500S was on sale that made my decision pretty easy.  Now that I’ve heard the 8500S, I’m glad I went that route, they’re plenty loud enough for my particular area.  If you have an area where you want louder rear speakers though, you might want to consider going with the 9000S pair.

Conclusion

The Samsung SWA-8500S/ZA is an excellent rear speaker solution for those looking to expand your soundbar sound to a higher level.  I know that after I installed it the appreciation level for the sound system went up a notch from the people using my workout area.  The video games I play on it are definitely a lot better sounding with the rear speaker addition.

This Samsung Soundbar via Amazon affiliate below.

Samsung HW-M450/ZA 2.1 Channel Soundbar with Wireless Subwoofer, Black

Out of the Box

Once you get the sound bar out of the box, it’s pretty easy to setup.  You can either use an HDMI cable (ARC) or an optical cable to send the sound from your TV to your sound bar.  Either one works really well, I tried them both out.  I would say that HDMI is the preferred method if your TV supports ARC (audio return channel) because generally things work better via that method (the TV and sound bar will communicate better).  The optical output is a one way deal which can make it more difficult to keep working.  I didn’t have any issues with either method for the most part but I did have a couple times where the optical connection didn’t respond right away.

Once you have it connected, you can either leave it on a shelf or mount it to the wall.  I’m currently on a shelf but have been thinking about mounting it to a wall.  It comes with the two brackets necessary to hang it on the wall, which is nice.  However, the brackets don’t stick out from the wall much, so if your TV wall mount isn’t super slim your TV will stick out in front of the sound bar quite a bit.

Controlling the Soundbar

The first thing I did was turn off my TV’s internal speakers.  That way all sound would come from the sound bar instead of from the TV.  On the LG TV I hooked the Samsung Soundbar to, the volume from the TV remote would control the volume to the Soundbar.  That makes it extra nice because then you only need one remote to control everything.

The Samsung remote is pretty basic.  It allows you to control the sound modes, the subwoofer volume, and volume should you choose.  The only feedback you get is through an LED display that comes on when you adjust the volume and settings.

It works out pretty well once you figure it out, but it isn’t the easiest thing.

Sound Quality

Of course everyone wants to know, how does it sound?  It sounds pretty good for the most part.  Everything I’ve tried with it sounds pretty good.  I have had a couple issues with some Xbox One games and character speech, for some reason a couple games have the dialog very soft in relation to other sounds which makes it a little hard to hear sometimes.  That isn’t the soundbar’s fault though, just a game mixing issue.  AC: Origins was one of the games in particular I had problems hearing the dialog.  NBA 2k18 on the other hand was phenomenal with the sound bar, clearly the best sounding game on it.

One of the drawback to just having a soundbar is that you don’t have any rear speakers for surround sound.  Samsung though has come up with a solution for that, the Samsung SWA-8500S/ZA rear speaker set.  This set connects wirelessly to the sound bar and produces the rear speaker sounds from a 5.1 system.  I added this option on and it’s fantastic.  I know some of the reviews have mentioned that they think it’s too soft, that’s easily fixed by upping the volume in one of the menus (albeit, it’s very hard to find).  You can check out my full review of those speakers here:

Samsung SWA-8500S/ZA rear speaker review 

You can also see them through Amazon affiliate here:

Samsung Rear Speakers for Soundbar (SWA-8500S/ZA)

Conclusion

I’ve been very happy with the Samsung HW-M450/ZA soundbar so far.  I put it in my workout room, and I’ve had people comment that it feels like a movie theater in there now with the TV and surround sound.  I’ve really enjoyed the sound + TV when playing games while working out on my elliptical machine, makes the time go by pretty fast.  The ability to add the rear speakers takes the soundbar to a different level in performance for not a whole lot more money.