I bought this based on the price which was lower than most others I had seen. Since it did not come with an optical video cable I had to go out and purchase that separately. This eliminated the cost advantage. The remote control has about 5 increments of volume that go from too quiet to too loud with very little that is actually a viable volume. The sound quality is better than the television, but I expect that. The television speaker is about an inch worth of junk speaker...which is why I purchased a sound bar. All in all since this is the first sound bar I have purchased I have nothing to compare it to but if they are not better than this one they are not worth the investment.