Sound bars are purchased, mostly because the sound from modern TVs is really very poor. A Sound Bar will often give you better sound but cannot really be called HiFi. I talk about alternatives and options available.
To get the full dynamics of a modern movie you'll need something more capable than a sound bar because the small drive units just won't cut it. My sound system has a pair of Adam T8V active nearfield monitors which at £400/pair sometimes have me lowering the volume level on the noisier parts of a movie then raising the level once again for the dialogue. The specification is; The ADAM Audio T8V pair can reach SPLS of 118 dBs, in addition to going as low as 33 Hz, which makes it particularly suitable for those making bass-heavy music and they sound very good when playing regular audio too.
Good thoughts Mike. It just shows that the average consumer has no idea, and a hungry salesman is his prey. I once had a tv with stereo output. Simply hooking it up to a portable stereo provided vastly better sound. And as you said, a class d amplifier is a very cost effective solution.
I absolutely agree. The price we pay for the flat screen tv is a crappy sound. I hooked the tv receiver up to my hifi system years ago and enjoy it daily. People don’t appreciate hifi systems anymore, they like their sound system to sit pretty on the wall and people like you and me end up fixing them when they fail in 3 years time. I was wondering though, what did the man in the shop end up buying?😊
I don't know, he was still in the shop after I left. He probably thought "what an idiot" and promptly purchased a sound bar. lol. I think I should just mind my own business.
TVs are optimised to make you NEED additional audio items. If I consider the "sound quality" on better notebooks and things like large iPads, there is no excuse for the terrible sound - even in thin cabinets.
I had a $5000 surround system in my living room, I remove all this and find a nice but broken wooden 3.1 Klipsch sound bar with sub. Total cost with the repair I done $90 canadian looneys! Tv, movie and even music sound amazing and take no space. I buy a small $400 Sonos beam sound bar for another TV and it sound realy good for what it is. All this to say there is good sound bar outhere who can play music but a $800 set of 5.1 speaker with a $300 AV receiver can give you a lot more unless like me you got them for cheaper then dirt!
If your TV has a pair of RCA line out sockets or a headphone socket, then connecting to a pair of half decent active speakers is a simple and effective way to improve the sound, and of course they can remain either side of the TV to keep things tidy.
I think for voice match reason, center channel and left, right channel should be bought at the same time. Otherwise, when ready for center channel, the same series may no longer be available
I can get a pretty reliable 45 Hertz out of my sound bar woofer, but the rest of the system is, as you say, far inferior to any reasonable stereo setup.
I'm sure you can appreciate the market has hundreds of different models available. Clearly, I have not heard all of them. I'm sure a few exist that are passable. I appreciate your comment.
