Review: TCL Q6310 Soundbar

Over the past few years, TCL has made a smooth transition from scrappy outsider to major player in the TV marketplace. Like its Chinese compatriot, Hisense, TCL made its mark in the US by offering intuitive, high-performance smart TVs at knockout pricing. The brand would love to make a similar splash on the audio side of the A/V coin with its affordable soundbars, but it has so far failed to break through.

The Q6310 doesn’t provide a sea change there. This 3.1-channel bar and subwoofer combo is easy on the eyes and well-stocked for a budget system, but its sound performance is decidedly basic. If you’ve got a TCL or Roku TV, it could be worth kicking the tires here, especially since it’s often on sale for well below its $250 retail price. Otherwise, the Q6310 lacks the fire in the belly that helped make TCL’s best TVs among the hottest options around.

Photograph: Ryan Waniata

Pulling the Q6310 from its L-shaped packaging, I was simultaneously impressed by its stylish metallic exterior and fabric grille, and underwhelmed by its weight, which was just over 5 pounds. Weight isn’t always an indicator of performance, but high-quality audio components generally have some extra heft to let you know they’re legit.

You can set up the system in minutes—simply plug in the two components and connect the included HDMI cable from the bar’s HDMI ARC input to your TV’s matching port. (In some cases you may also need to turn on “CEC” in your TV settings to control power and volume with your TV remote.) The Q6310 then immediately commences Bluetooth pairing, signaling its status with a blue LED that glides back and forth like the red beam on the hood of David Hasselhoff’s talking Trans Am from Knight Rider.

That’s perhaps the LED at its most useful. It's the Q6310’s only form of visual reference, and it does its best to be all things, but trying to adjust settings like sound modes with the included remote is a mystery. There's little to no feedback.

Photograph: Ryan Waniata

Swapping between the bar’s multiple inputs is slightly more intuitive, with a different LED color assigned to each input: HDMI ARC glows magenta, optical is yellow, the analog input is green, and the USB input is cyan. This color coding has become more common in A/V gear of late, usually seen in active/powered bookshelf speakers like the KEF LSX II, where space is at a premium. In the Q6310’s case, the bar’s center-channel speaker likely takes up the real estate a traditional digital display might inhabit.

Another likely reason TCL punts on the visual display is that, as a Roku TV Ready soundbar, the Q6310 is designed to allow you to control and adjust some settings directly from a Roku-powered smart TV. That functionality stems from a long partnership between the two brands, with Roku taking the reins as the smart interface in many TCL TVs (though TCL now seems to favor Google TV for its more premium models).

Photograph: Ryan Waniata

If you don’t have a Roku-powered TV, TCL's app makes controlling the bar’s sound modes, volume, and other settings much easier via an iPhone or Android device. Other app settings include a Night mode to keep the dynamics in check when the family’s asleep, a Dialogue Enhance feature, and virtual surround sound control.

There’s also a calibration feature, AI Sonic, which uses your phone’s microphone to adjust the sound to your room, à la Sonos. That’s an impressive inclusion at this price, but the setup experience is quite loud, and I couldn’t hear much of a difference once it finished.

Photograph: Ryan Waniata

My first thought when I started evaluating the Q6310 was that it doesn’t sound much better than a lot of high-end TVs I’ve auditioned this year. The sound is clear and forward, especially for dialog, but there’s a brittle, metallic quality to the midrange and treble registers that can feel as thin as the soundbar looks. To be fair, a lot of pricier TVs these days are outfitted with multiple speakers like soundbars are, so comparing the two isn’t as big of a diss as it once was.

Moreover, the Q6310’s included wireless subwoofer blends well with its companion to add some notable gravitas to the sound signature that goes well beyond a TV on its own. Some effects, like the crash of the bad guy’s Audi at the beginning of Skyfall, still sound flat and lacking in body, but the system’s claimed 350-watt power plant is capable of making big moments like the explosion that takes out MI6 headquarters hit home with dynamic flair.

Using the Movie mode with the included virtual surround feature helps the Q6310 deliver some relatively convincing virtual surround sound for its price point. The soundstage never creeps far from the front of the room, but I occasionally noticed sound objects and effects swirling toward my face or out past the sides of the bar’s 36-inch frame.

Music performance is a similar story to TV and movies. You can’t get away from the sharper cut to the higher frequencies, especially with brighter mixes, but the sub once again fills out the sound with some extra punch to the lower register. It’s never going to be an audiophile experience, but the smooth blend between the two components makes for some pleasant moments.

Photograph: Ryan Waniata

At the Q6310’s full price, you can do better for your money with options like Yamaha’s aging but still value-packed YAS-209, which also adds smart features and Wi-Fi streaming. If you don’t mind giving up some bass and the convenience of an HDMI ARC connection, the pint-size Sonos Ray is a ringer that also includes Wi-Fi connection and access to the Sonos ecosystem. Raising your budget a bit higher can even get you into Dolby Atmos models like Polk’s impressive Signa S4.

That said, the Q6310 is often on sale for under $200. If that’s where your budget sits, this bar is a viable middle-rung option with some handy features.