Hey there all you Afterword cats – I am revving up to purchase a Soundbar to augment my Tellybox sound. I currently have the telly sound coming through an amplifier and speakers, but due to events which I won’t bore you with I find myself having to consider changing that set up. So, who owns or has used or experienced a Soundbar? And would you recommend the use of one which isn’t going to cost the earth? * Thank you in advance for your time and effort.
*for reference purposes, if I were to replace the speakers and stick with the current set-up I would not want to spend more than £200, so that is my budget
This is the frontrunner
https://www.richersounds.com/tv-home-cinema/soundbars/yamaha-sound-base.html
I looked at them earlier this year. I nearly bought a Bose but decided that the new telly had good enough speakers. IIRC the Bose not only fitted my budget but could be controlled by the tv remote (please check, it was a while ago). I was trying to minimise the number of remotes needed so this was a factor. Amazon were noticeably cheaper than even the Bose outlet store.
I’ve got a Bose which I’m very happy with, though it doesn’t have the remote feature you mention. But these days I only use the tv remote to turn the tv off – the Apple TV remote has taken on the job of turning it on.
But the What Hifi review of the only Bose to come in under £200 wasn’t particularly enthusiastic – said it wasn’t much of an improvement on the TV speakers.
I don’t have a soundbar because (a) I have PMC floorstanding speakers next to the telly and (b) I’ve never found a soundbar which sounds as good as a similarly-priced pair of speakers.
Do you really need the “7.1 sound from a single box” as offered by the Yamaha unit? I will admit, I haven’t heard that unit but I worked next door to the company which developed the technology for Yamaha and heard lots of prototypes. I used to work with the cheif engineer and he was bonkers! The technology relies on an array of small speakers driven by complex electronics to make a Phase Array soundfield. As you might imagine, the small drive units sound a bit tinny and the Phase Array sounds weird if you move your head.
I’d be tempted to go for a simple stereo unit from a recognised hi-fi brand like Arcam, Cambridge Audio or Q Acoustics (Richer sell them). I know the Sonos ones are spoken of highly, but they’re out of your budget at £700 ish.
Don’t forget, soundbars are speakers and their ‘voicing’ varies a lot between units. What you consider ‘bright and clear’ might be ‘tinny’ to others (or vice-versa). Have a listen to several units before you hand over any cash.
This. Another reason I passed on a sound bar was that we have an old Teac mini system which does the job for badly mixed movie sound which the tv speakers can’t cope with. I know a few other Afterworders have them too.
I would listen to them in the shop first – probably try Richer Sounds if your local one has a demo room. I would also join their VIP mailing list for added discounts.
My experience is mixed. They seem to add complexity and you end up with additional remotes and settings. I would be tempted to use the same manufacturer as my TV to make it as seamless as possible. But I would go amp and speakers to be honest.
Or active speakers (with the amps built in, and sometimes accept digital input). Trouble is, not many decent ones in the 200 quid range.
Great advice chaps, thank you
A mate bought a Sony to go with a Sony Tv but still has a synchronisation issue with sound and picture.
I recently bought the Cambridge Audio TV2 at just under £200. Its basic and straightforward but certainly offers a richer fuller sound than the (Sony) TV does on its own, and is very easy to operate (.ie. comes on automatically when the TV comes on and is operable from the TV remote). There was one tricky thing in the original set up as I recall which involved me having to ring Sony helpline and change something on the TV settings, but that apart problem free.
I have a Sony one and speaker that is about a year old and only been used twice. Cut a long story short my missus didn’t like the sound from behind her head – I though it was pretty good.
Anyway you are willing to have mine for £50 plus postage – if you are interested pm me.
What’s the model number?
Will check it when I get home @Lemonhope
Steve – thanks for the offer but between your original post and your reply I have been to Richer Sounds and made my purchase. I decided against a soundbar after careful consideration of all points made here and elsewhere.
@Lemonhope – oddly enough, I’ve just walked past a noticeboard at work advertising a brand new Arcam Solo soundbar for £180 (a saving of £120). The ad’s been up for a few weeks, so they might be open to offers.
Thanks for the thought FSteve, I have decided against a soundbar for now. Cheers.
Also, make sure you link your new purchase to your Tv set via the Optical link.
This will ensure the best sound possible and will negate sound sync issues.
Sync issues can arise when a bar or amp is linked direct to Tv box.
SKY boxes carry a adjustable delay to fix this potential problem.
Not always – my telly is connected optically to my hifi and that still has lip sync issues.
You would think the HDMI connection, which carries both audio and video, would give you the best chance of minimsing A/V timing problems. The video decoding is slower than the audio decoding and not every hardware manufacturer is as dilligent as they should be.
Our newer Samsung gets out of sync sometimes when streaming Netflix or Amazon via the tv apps but this happens over the course of a film. Starts off ok then lags after an hour or so but not every time. Pausing and restarting seems to give the tv visuals a chance to catch up. It’s annoying but difficult to demonstrate if I was going to return it.
Indeed, my comments were intended to reduce the lip syncing errors to a minimum whilst connecting new gear up.
I have just delved into the sound menu of my Samsung and there is an option to adjust the delay.
It’s buried in the menu under Additional Settings…..SPDIF Output….Audio delay.
Thanks. I’ll have a look but the delay is inconsistent and affects the tv speakers as well as the optical out. I think it may be to do with the visual source material as content made by Amazon/Netflix does seem to be a problem which brings us back to Fenton Steve’s observation re video processing.
Thanks for all the comments. I have opted to renew my existing set up as it does everything that I want it to do – I wasn’t after surround sound or 5.1 or Atmos and judging by the reviews I have read elsewhere and the info posted here it would appear that the results with a cheaper end of the range product are hit and miss to say the least.