Soundbar manufacturers are becoming good at getting relatively big sound from small speakers. The LG Eclair SE6 ($450) is a skinny little Soundbar that produces impressive bass without a subwoofer. It's a 3.0-channel system that supports spatial audio like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, though it can't offer the sense of height those formats include. On the plus side, it has a strong feature set including Apple AirPlay and Google Cast Wi-Fi streaming along with Bluetooth, and it can automatically calibrate spatial audio to fit your room. For the price, however, the LG SE6 is merely good when compared with the excellent and more balanced Polk MagniFi Mini AX ($449) and Sonos Beam ($499). 

A Small and Stealthy Design

The name Eclair doesn't seem to inform the SE6's design much, though you can argue that its rounded ends make it vaguely eclair-shaped. It's a simple and compact soundbar that measures 2.5 by 31.5 by 5.2 inches (HWD), weighs 7.7 pounds, and only comes in black. The sides are wrapped entirely in grille cloth, while the top panel is a matte plastic surface.

Touch-sensitive buttons for Power, Input, Volume Up/Down, Play/Pause, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi sit in the middle of the panel, just above two pinhole microphones for room calibration. Three LEDs form a column behind the grille cloth on the right side of the speaker and indicate its current input and status. The back holds one HDMI input, one HDMI output for connecting to a TV over eARC, an optical audio input, a USB port, and a port for the power adapter.

The included remote looks like a slimmer, simpler version of LG's TV remotes, with a slightly curved shape and a large circular direction pad in the center. Power, Mute, Input, Sound Mode, Information, and Bluetooth buttons sit above the pad, while EQ and Settings buttons sit below. The direction pad doesn't actually navigate any menus, because the soundbar doesn't have an on-screen interface; instead, it can change individual settings provided by voice cues, and control music playback if you're playing songs locally from a connected USB drive.

Wi-Fi Streaming and...Water Resistance?

The LG SE6 has Bluetooth 5.0, dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity, and supports major streaming systems including Apple AirPlay 2, Google Cast, and Spotify Connect. The soundbar's primary wired connection is via HDMI eARC to support Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, and other high-end audio standards, though optical audio is also available, and the USB port can play AAC, MP3, and WAV files directly from an external drive. The soundbar can be controlled by Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant if you have a supported smart speaker (sold separately), but it doesn't have either voice assistant built in.

Oddly, the SE6 has an IP rating of IPX4. This means it's protected against light splashing, but otherwise isn't rugged at all. Typically, we don't see IP ratings on soundbars, because they're generally designed to be stationary indoor devices. I guess the SE6 is protected if your next party gets out of hand.

The LG SoundBar app (available for Android and iOS) is separate from the LG ThinQ smart home app and lets you configure the soundbar, update its firmware, adjust settings, and use the AI Room Calibration feature. Room calibration uses the SE6's built-in microphones to analyze the acoustics of the room and adjust the speaker's audio balance to produce the best effect. For other audio tweaks, the app provides seven different EQ presets along with an AI Sound Pro mode that automatically changes the balance based on what you're listening to. Last, you can adjust bass and treble levels, and toggle a night mode that reduces the frequencies that can be heard through walls. There's no custom EQ, however.

Big Bass, Weak Mids

The SE6 is a 3.0-channel speaker with five drivers and four passive radiators. LG doesn't specify the driver size, but there are four woofers and a single tweeter. The two outer woofers are angled slightly to the left and right, and the two center woofers and tweeter fire straight ahead. The soundbar supports Dolby Atmos and DTS:X spatial audio, though with no upward-firing drivers or rear satellites it relies almost entirely on horizontal acoustic reflection to provide any surround effect.

Considering its small size, the SE6 can push out a surprising amount of bass. In fact, it might push out too much bass. When playing our bass test track, The Knife's "Silent Shout," the soundbar reproduced the bass synth notes and kick drum hits with formidable force, barely flirting with distortion at maximum volume while generating palpable thump. However, at those levels, the soundbar itself (along with my TV stand, and everything else sitting on it) started to rattle, so you might want to regulate your volume.

Yes' "Roundabout" demonstrates the SE6's distinctly scooped sound signature. The opening acoustic guitar plucks have plenty of resonance and strong string texture in the higher frequencies, but there's a noticeable absence in the mids to mid-highs that makes them sound brittle. When the track properly kicks in, all of the elements in the mix can be discerned, but the thick punchiness of the bassline and the sharpness of the hi-hat stand out against the reined-in vocals and guitar strums. It doesn't sound muddy, but it's clear the lows and highs are being boosted over the mids.

The powerful bass and highs can produce a big and occasionally booming sound for films, but it can also sound unbalanced due to comparatively weak mids. The flying rubble and stomping monsters in the opening scene in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness come through with a good sense of weight, but not enough to replace the sort of low-end force a dedicated subwoofer can reach, or enough low-mid and mid-frequency response to really make the scene sound fully realized. Stereo panning from the Dolby Atmos audio is fairly strong, and the soundbar can generate a wide sound field thanks to left and right drivers, though the audio profile gives an inconsistent sense of directionality depending on the sound; predictably, there's no impression of height at all. 

King Kong's growls and footsteps in Godzilla vs. Kong also sound powerful, with a bigger presence than the monster in Doctor Strange since they seem to reach deeper into the low frequencies that the SE6 boosts.

Dialogue comes through clearly, almost aggressively so; in both films, voices sound somewhat enhanced over backing music and ambient noise, more so than we usually hear. This results in a brittle sound that would benefit from less sculpting.

A Feature-Filled But Uneven Package

The LG Eclair SE6 soundbar offers surprisingly powerful audio despite its compact build. We mostly like the sound signature when playing music, as its deeply scooped sound can leave some movie soundtracks feeling a bit unbalanced. It's still a clear step up from your TV's built-in speakers, and support for Apple AirPlay 2 and Google Cast streaming are points in its favor. In this price range, however, the Polk MagniFi Mini AX and the Sonos Beam both offer better balance for a superior listening experience overall.