'Sound bar' speakers

Has anybody got any knowledge of 'Sound bar' speakers? My living room is getting a bit cramped and we could do with gaining some floor space by getting rid of my speakers. Is a 'sound bar' worth investigating?

 

What type of speakers do you have? Sound bars are generally for video use.

 

I can tell you in a few weeks. I just bought a Polk Surroundbar 50 w/ sub for a house we just bought. It's going in the fancy upstairs (the big a** home theatre is downstairs). My girlfriend wanted clean profile and no wires - the surroundbar fit the bill perfectly. It was well rated for quality of sound and I chose the larger one because my room is a good size if not huge. I'm not expecting wraparound sound completely but the impression of it and possibly a wider soundstage.

 

i have a samsung one (given as a gift) in my bedroom, i friggin hate it, but it sounds better than the speakers built into the plasma panel...

 

FWIW, I am using a Zvox sound base with a 32" LCD in the master bedroom.

It sounds OK (although I leave the fake surround setting at 0 due to it being completely worthless). It sounds a lot better than the internal TV speakers, but I can not fathom ever using something similar in place of the he-man system in the den.

Brian

 

I've been curious about these as well, we're running the TV with the internal speakers at the moment and I'd like to get away from that without spending too much. Do most of them allow you to disable fake surround? That would be a must-have for me.

I've also been considering picking up a pair of those Audioengine powered speakers, anyone give those a try with their TV?

 

I currently have a pair of Mordaunt-Short on speaker stands. They are about 15 years old and sound good considering. I have a Denon receiver which I use for my TV, Technics SL-1210M5 turntable and Apple TV (MP3s & Lossless files). The room is quite small 12' by 22'. As much as I love to play my vinyl if I'm honest I have to say the speakers get most use for the TV. I am happy with the speakers but we really need to free up some floor space. I am not too keen on mounting the speakers on the wall.

Do these sound bars also require a subwoofer? I notice some come with one and others without.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

 

The ZVOX bars seem to be the most positively reviewed.

 

Most of them have relatively small drivers on them, so I doubt you'll get much low end without a sub.

 

Sony has one with a subwoofer for around $200. I like mine.

 

It seems the ZVOX has the subwoofer built in. Does anybody else have one?
What's the difference between the 430 and the 430HSD? Is it just the optical input?

 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-10395236-47.html

 

While not considered a soundbar by some the Yamaha YSP models are quite good and are heavily discounted. Use a small sub and you will get relatively good sound. I was impressed by the latest one (YSP 4000?).

 

I think that you need to consider your lifestyle as a major factor. Anybody that thinks that a 12' X 22' room is "quite small" has definately more space than a normal human being will ever need. Also, why do you use your stereo speakers for television watching? Can you not just use the internal television speakers? With a room as large as yours, you should be able to do a lot.

 

Try telling that to my wife. 12' x 22' living room is quite small if there's four in your family and it also contains a computer desk, two large book cases, a few thousand records and a load of kids toys

It sounds much better. Plus as I said above, I can play my digital music via my AppleTV. Playing lossless files through TV speakers does not sound good.

 

I think that's the one that my parents have. It sounds good for what it is. If you don't have the room for full speakers and want an upgrade in sound from your TV, it's a good buy IMO.

 

OK, I think I might understand. But don't sell the cow just because you are on a diet. Can't you somehow rearrange your life...I mean living room in order to accomadate everything? Maybe some smaller speakers or move your record collection. My living room seems large enough for all of my bookcases, media cabinets, surround sound system with mid-size towers and everything else including a large cocktail table. My room is 18' X 14', or something like that.

 

The new set-up is the result of rearranging our apartment. Unfortunately we've got one piece of the jigsaw puzzle left but still need to make everything fit. Losing the speakers and replacing them with a sound bar is an option I'm looking at. This would solve the problem, hence my original post above inquiring about the sound quality. I'm looking for something that will be good for playing my vinyl as well as the TV, etc. It seems the sound bars may not be up to scratch for the vinyl collection.

Any further advice, recommendations, etc would be very much appreciated.

 

Spent a great deal of time in the room with the KEF T series at CES...sounded fantastic and I'd heartily recommend them as a space-saving option...

http://www.kef.com/us/newrelease/tseries

 

I recommend the Polk surround bars, which use SDA technology. The result comes pretty close to an actual 5.1 set up. Some models come with a wireless sub and others you would have to buy a separate sub. The SurroundBar50 is superb.

http://www.polkaudio.com/homeaudio/surroundbar/

 

from everything i've researched, i foound that a soundbar is fine if you have a small room. the bigger the room the more you lose in separation and intensity from the soundbar, it just doesn't have the power to fill a big room and give the surround effect.

in a small room the do sound pretty darn good, my friend has one, it is about a 8 - 10 foot wide room and he probably sitting about 7 feet away in his lazy-boy and it is nice.

in a bigger room, and i know the negative feelings about bose here, but the bose 2 speaker system works much much better. gives the surround effect and sounds very full.

the bose system is a bit expensive though ($600).

one of my former students actually talked me out of the samsung soundbar (about half the price of the bose) because of it's limitations.

 

KEF sound bar excellent
Big Yammy with multi drivers and DSP the best.

 

Thanks for all these recommendations. I'm going to do some investigation.
Are you using these for TV audio or music audio? (if that makes sense)

 

such an understatement too....you got good advice. I've got mine as a gift so I have to "enjoy" it for a certain amount of time, before it breaks..

 

I've spent time with the original Polk, ZVOX and Aperion Audio sound bars. For my money the Aperion wins the day. It has a built-in amplifier like the ZVOX, but can actually decode Dolby encoded movies rather than instead on relying upon an imitation decoder. Best part about Aperion is that you have 30 days to try it and they pay shipping both ways.