The sound out of my TV works, but is nothing great, so I’ve started toying with buying a sound bar. I’m torn between not wanting to spend a decentish chunk of change on something that’s going to be a marginal gain at best, and then thinking that if I’m excited about films and games in 4K I should be paying attention to the sound as well. I had a quick look online and instantly fell down an audiophile black hole that I backed nervously out of. Are they worth it? Any advice / recommendations? (fwiw I have a 40″ TV in a smallish lounge)
ATM – Soundbars
by 12 Comments
thanks in advance!
It’s not a marginal gain. It’s a whole dimension better. Honestly. We have a Bose and it is nearly invisible, in purely aesthetic terms, and sounds wonderful. I’ve heard good things about the Samsung ones but any of them will improve your viewing pleasure vastly.
Depending on how much you want to spend and how big your room is, might be worth looking at A 5.1 home theatre system – not nearly as pricey as the sound
We’ve got a Sonos Beam. Which is brilliant with our 43″ Sony. Works a treat with music as well. The lovely new edition of Olias Of Sunhillow sounded fantastic earlier this evening.
Another up for Sonos Beam. I’ve paired mine with a couple of the IKEA Sonos speakers on the shelves behind the couch, which is a really cheap way of getting quasi-surround sound.
Couldn’t agree more – Beam works brilliantly with tv but surprisingly fine as well with streamed music.
Another vote for Beam which is very low profile so sits in front of the tv and is fairy unobtrusive. If you’ve got an HDMI ARC on your tv it’s really easy to set up and control although it also has an optical input.
Definitely worth having.
We’ve got a Q audio one – this is the current version
https://www.qacoustics.co.uk/q-acoustics-m4-soundbar-with-built-in-subwoofer.html
I bought a £200 Sony soundbar to go with my mum’s new 40″ (ish) Sony telly. I was a bit disappointed with it, to be honest. There’s more bass but it isn’t much louder. The £40 Bluetooth speaker my lad bought sounds better and louder.
She’s pretty deaf so has the volume right up and – because of the increased bass – the neighbours can now hear it through the wall.
Moral of the story: buy a good one.
The issue for us was clarity of speech as my wife wears hearing aids. The Beam is a lot better than the on board speakers but she still needs subtitles sometimes. It would probably be improved by a couple of Sonos Ones but a) cost and b) clutter.
I recently bought a Roku Streambar for the telly in the bedroom. Decent upgrade on sound but also a one box 4K stream with great interface, pretty much every streaming service covered, brilliant picture quality and nifty remote which does voice search across all the main services (and puts the free sources at the top of the list).
It also has simple settings to boost speech and reduce background which is great for late night watching. Oh, and you can have the sound through the Roku app on you phone and use headphones to listen to the telly. Not bad for £100.
As coincidence would have it I bought a soundbar for the first time this week, it came on Tuesday. Having lived with it it for a few days it does make a great deal of difference to tv and films so I’d say go for it. All members of the family agree that they can hear a difference even those that weren’t keen on getting one.
I had a budget of £200 so didn’t stretch to Dolby Atmos and 5.1 which seem to be the current thing but was swayed by having had a Denon amp for the last 20 years and having read a few reviews this one is supposed to do the ‘basics’ well ie make the tv sound better.
I’m sure other brands / bars will do a good job also and suspect it all depends on your price point but for the money spent I’m currently happy with this one.
Denon DHT-S216 Soundbar for Surround Sound System, Bluetooth Sound Bar with Built-in Subwoofers, Dolby Digital, DTS Decoding, Dialogue Enhancer, HDMI ARC, Wall