Moving in the next month to a house we are renting. Unfortunately it's not pre-wired for surround sound like our current place was and I'm not sure I want to go through the hassle of wiring it.

So I'm looking t soundbars to match with my 60" LG. Is there any benefit to powering one through a receiver?

What should I be looking for?


Also, I'd like something for the 55" samsung in the bedroom, but something without a sub...any rec's for that?

 

Here is the main TV we have:

http://www.lg.com/us/tvs/lg-60PA6500-plasma-tv

 

If I were in the market I would get a MartinLogan Motion Vision. It does not come with a sub woofer but one can be added. Find a local dealer and take a listen. You can probably get it cheaper from a dealer than what Amazon has listed. If your local dealer won't budge on price then give AVS Science a call.

http://www.martinlogan.com/motionSer...s/soundbar.php

I'm not really a fan of soundbars, the cheap ones sound exactly that. The only advantage to using a receiver with a soundbar IMO is if you need to connect a lot of devices.

 

Cheap ones meaning $150 or less?

Our Panny VT came with a Panny sound bar. And I won't lie, I thought it was very good. Light years better than the TV itself. It was like one of the $250 models with a wireless sub.

And I think most will. The downside really comes into play when the room it's in gets bigger. They just don't pump out enough dB.

 

i just bought my brother a $200 dollar sharp sound bar with wireless subwoofer.
for a small room, it works.

however, if it were doing home theater responsibilities, I would most likely choose a higher end model.

 

Not a big fan of soundbars, but my buddy is very happy with his samsung sound bar, comes with wireless sub, and bluetooth

 

sub'd

I am looking for a sound bar for our bedroom....

The TV is not bad but watching movies on it is not fun since the sound quality is not as good (i think 2x10W down firing speakers)....

 

pretty simple.

how much do you want to spend?
the more the expensive, the more "features" and "watts" and "speakers" you'll get.

the 200 dollar one that i bought is fine for an occasional movie in a small bedroom.

 

This was just updated 4 days ago...

http://reviews.cnet.com/best-sound-bars/

and



Is what we have on the TV in the basement. I am more than pleased with it and as you can see the newer models probably put it to shame.

 

nice, the Sharp bar that I bought is on the list.

 

Justin, yeah I dont wanna spend 500 bucks....something around 150-200...

i might check something around 250+ and wait for a deal LOL....


Thanks for the link Chad...

 

No problem boss.

 

Thats a shame on the budget. The only one on the market I will sell currently is the Sonos Playbar + Sonos Sub. Sounds way better than the other crap on the market, actually has some minor adjustments, adds the Sonos infrastructure, and can easily expand into a full surround sound system if desired down the road with a pair of Play:1's or Play:3's (and word is they will be adding the ability to use a Connect:amp with traditional speakers as rears at some point soon).

 

^^^ I was thinking about the Sonos bar for the patio since its wireless....

but for a home theater since we have everything prewired, makes no sense spending a lot of money on wireless speakers...while building we spend coin on prewiring...

for the bedroom as well, since there is the attic on top am thinking of wiring in the home theater but wanted to have my options....I dont really want to wake up the wifey while am watching a movie....i rather just have a sound bar with a little more oomph, clarity and surround sound illusion...


wireless speakers are a great idea but my old TV is wireless courtesy Google ChromeCast and the new Samsung is a smart TV with built in wifi....so I can play whatever I want where ever I want wirelessly...

 

Well the thread is about soundbars, hence the recommendation on a Soundbar. For a traditional surround sound system, I would suggest something different. I will say the Playbar/Play:3 combo with Sub sounds a lot better than a cheap surround sound setup. If you have not heard the Playbar, I suggest trying to take a listen, it is pretty amazing to be honest. The sub is incredibly powerful. Sonos hired the lead engineer away from Velodyne about 3.5 years before they released the Sonos sub. They spent that time developing it and it really paid off. It's the only soundbar I have sold or installed that simply amazed people.

 

They aren't all crap. You being an audiophile you'd probably say my home theater setup is crap.

But to 98% of the people out there a $200 sound bar is going to sound amazing compared to the TV itself.

 

I am absolutely not an audiophile. However I have heard most of whats out there. The issue with 99% of these soundbars/sub combos is they have no equalization or separation between high and low frequencies. The result is you can hear the voice coming from the sub which completely muddies the sound. Do they sound better than TV speakers? Sure, by a lot, but it does not mean they sound good. This is part of WHY the Sonos Playbar sounds better is because it is much better balanced.

I've been doing this long enough to know how most people interpret sound. Loud and heavy on the bass sounds good to most people. That's what most of these soundbars offer. Sound quality is thrown out the window for sound quantity.

I don't know what your home theater setup is so I can't say if its crap

 

That Sonos bar is $700. I can't fathom paying that for a sound bar. If you require that good of sound, you aren't or shouldn't be, looking at sound bars. So it's a different market.

Not that my experience compares to yours but I would have no problem recommending a $200-$300 sound bar. Especially for say the bedroom like Anil needs.

That older, came in a package, bar I had worked great. And I never felt it was "unbalanced". Trebles were clear and it actually had bass unlike the TV itself. In our apartment it was more than enough to please me. Once we got the house though, and a much larger TV room, it was not good enough.

I'm currently rocking Energy classics, an Energy M8 sub, and a Denon 1712. Which wasn't much more than that Sonos bar! Lol

 

exactly what am trying to say....

fuq i need to enroll in English 104 and Debate 101

 

To each his own. The Sonos Playbar sounds better than a lot of systems I have heard that were "professionally installed" before we broke them down and upgraded. It's not the best solution, but its a very good one. People can buy a Honda, or Toyota, or Nissan, but spend more money for more luxury and options by buying a Acura, Lexus, or Infiniti. No difference. You pay more you get more. In the case of the Playbar, you get better sound quality, without question, along with their award winning media streaming built in. To add that feature to any system will cost you $350 to add a Sonos Connect. The Energy speakers are ok. The Energy sub is decent. The Denon is a turd, at least with my experience with it. Not a fan of the quality and options and overall reliability. YMMV.

I was never a fan of soundbars, but I have been able to provide far better sound than I ever was able to in the past in certain situations that were simply impossible with conventional systems and no other soundbar could match the performance and features of the Sonos playbar. But we differ greatly on what we believe to be a decent system, if you believe a full surround sound in the $700 range is a decent system. I've heard many and our beginning systems start at around $3000 and that is a bare bones system. So as I said to each his own.

 

^^^ brother we are not denying what you are saying but I think you are missing the point....

I think most of us think of a sound bar to slightly improve the quality of sound from our TV's and easy solution for that....like I have a Bose sound dock in my garage....its a simple solution to getting music in my garage....no point wiring a 7.1 sound system in there....

in the end (just like buying a car) depends on the budget and what you need....if you have a budget of $1000, then I would suggest go with top of the line....if you want an SUV and have a budget of 100K, why stop at an MDX or X5....Cayenne or X5M it is !!!

 

thought I had responded to this thread but I guess not. I'm looking to stay in the $300 range. THis is just a temporary solution until we buy a place and I wire it up.

 

So I'd probably go with the Pioneer unit that CNET recommends. It's right at $300. Looks powerful, BT streaming...



Or save money and go a step below. Like one of the Vizio models. Which are still rated pretty high.

 

^That's a nice looking setup

 

I definitely agree with you. I am not denying that pretty much any soundbar is going to sound better than pretty much any tv on the market now. Some older flat panels actually sounded great, better than some soundbars I have heard, but those TV's are long gone now in place of the ultra thin TV's. I really am not arguing that the sound bars will improve the sound of a basic TV setup, more to the fact that you cannot really say that XXX amount of dollars is a rediculous amount of money to spend on one. I sell $1300 Bluray players to audiophiles and to them, its a bargain, so it's all relative. My argument for the Sonos was simply for what it does and how it sounds in comparison to it's competition, it really is a relative bargain.

 

Reviving this thread since I'm considering re-doing my setup.

Background: I used to have a townhouse with a room dedicated to TV/music. Gear is A/V Receiver, Polk Monitor 50s for L/R, Polk PSW10 sub, and old H/K center and surround speakers that've been rockin' just fine since 2001.

Now I'm in a condo in the city that's 1/2 the size of my old place and all the stuff in the living room, with a Rocketfish handling the rear sound since there's no easy way to wire this place up. The floor-standing speakers and the sub are taking up valuable space.

I've been checking out soundbars but can't help but think I'll really miss those surrounds if they're gone. The only thing close to what I think I want is the Vizio S4251w-B4, but it's Vizio and I can't help but think I'll be disappointed (esp. with the 6" sub).

Anyone know of alternatives with wireless surrounds? I think I'm basically looking for a compact setup up front and wireless surrounds.

 

My Samsung setup is pretty compact, 5.1 wireless surrounds, literally takes up no space other than on my TV stand (speakers on side of TV, mounted the center above, and the sub fits on the bottom, and the rears are on shelves I already had) HT-F6500, I got it for about $400 last year, no issues with it, sounds great. It's not the bassiest system is good all around and a simple set up.

 

when you say rocketfish...are you talking the $99 wireless rear speaker set up?

How do you like it, work well?

Thinking about doing this.

 

Yeah but having L/R bookshelf speakers up front won't work for me

Yeah. When it works it's nice. When it doesn't it either cuts out every few minutes or gives off an awful scratchy noise. I've had mine for over 2.5 years so it's not the latest model. I bought mine used. It's not worth the $99 new.

This is one of the reasons I was hoping for something newer/better.

 

Got this off ebay for $300 shipped, no taxes. I like Sony soundbars since they have 3 HDMI connections for my PS3, laptop, and if I get a Chromecast/Roku/Cable sub another. They support DTS-HD/TrueHD codecs. The bluetooth with my phone sounds great with the wireless sub. It's loud for my condo as I've had security called on me

 

Another bump.

Also looking for a soundbar, but it is a small room so no need for a big, expensive setup. The tv just doesn't cut it and as said above, any difference will be noticeably better than just the tv.

The tv is in an armoire and there really isn't much space at all left in it, just enough to put a soundbar in front of the tv. And no separate sub or speakers because it would have to be outside the armoire and the gf would get anal about it cus it doesn't look nice and neat and would clutter the room lol.

Just need to make sure it feeds the tv, roku 3 and dvd player. I'm not sure how many hdmi outlets are left available on each thing so wireless would be an option.

 

Well most subwoofers that come with soundbars are wireless. You could stash it right next to or behind your seating area. It'd look clean and give quite a boost in sound.

As for the feeds, you'll likely connect the soundbar via an ARC HDMI or optical to the TV. Everything else connects to the TV then routes audio out to the soundbar...

 

Ah. That would be smart to put a sub under the table next to the sofa. So really I just need to hook up the soundbar to the TV only.

Seems easy enough.

 

^Very easy.

 

I think I'm going to go with this Yamaha sound bar and sub: Yamaha YAS-203 review - CNET

I went to 2 Fry's stores but they were out at both locations, and it's a shame because they were on sale for $299. Oh well, I found some on ebay for more than $50 cheaper than amazon and other places selling it.

 

DTS decoding