Soundbars

mr_poll

I have a nice TV but the sound is tinny and reverbs when any bass is used. I don't really want to faff around with loads speakers around my room to recreate a cinema. A bit of research points me to soundbars, anyone got experience of these? One thing I wouldn't mind is to get my music to play through it - I use Spotify, a lot - my guess is I need the soundbar to be bluetooth enabled?? - I have seen the Sonos Playbar but the price puts me off - after that see a lot of conflicting reviews on cheaper ones.

simonhead

They are good, brother in law has just got a Bose one which excellent but we have a pretty shite £150 sony one in the office which i wouldnt recommend. I think for the most part you get what you pay for.

Also worth perhaps looking at the Bose Soundlink, you should be able to pair it to your ipad etc as well as using the auxilary for the TV. Its a stunning system.

clickrumble

Got a Yamaha YSP2200, very neat, very few wires, excellent sound.

rhext

Got a Yamaha one. The sound is excellent, and it's easy to install and very neat. It's not full-on hi-fi quality, nor is the surround-sound effect up to a dedicated multi-speaker system, but for us it was an ideal solution. Sound is streets ahead of telly, and you get a bit of a surround effect (would be better if our room wasn't a strange shape). As long as you're not trying to replicate a cinema experience at home, I reckon they're a really good solution.

redhanded

I'd say Sonos is only worth considering if you already have a Sonos system or if you are planning to listen to a lot of internet music (or local music) through the soundbar. Sonos does support loads of different music services but there are restrictions on some of them, so for example, Spotify Radio isn't supported (this is a Spotify restriction rather than a Sonos issue)

With Sonos, you also need to have it connected into your broadband network, or buy an additional box (Sonos Bridge) that is connected into your broadband network.

The Sonos is eyewateringly expensive however, and you can get plenty of other products and a subwoofer for less than the Sonos on its own, but they won't have the internet music features.

Wireless (bluetooth) support can be used to play things from an iPhone/Android phone.

Another thing to consider is the number and type of interfaces required. More recent soundbars support multiple HDMI interfaces so you can connect a Sky/cable box, game console, blueray player etc into the soundbar, then the soundbar to the TV so you can select what you are watching by using the soundbar remote.

Another approach is to connect all the sources into the TV, then connect an audio output from the TV into the soundbar (usually an optical audio output on more modern TVs) However one thing to be aware of is that a lot of TVs don't passthrough surround sound audio to the optical output, so the Sky box output may be surround sound, but the TV converts this to stereo for connection to the soundbar. However soundbars are generally pseudo-surround sound anyway, so this shouldn't matter.

As TVs have got thinner, sound quality from the built in speakers has got worse, so even a budget soundbar should be an upgrade on the TV speakers.

mr_poll

Thanks all - this has helped - I can see Sonos is expensive so that is out - if I get a bluetooth enabled soundbar can I play spotify though it when my Mac/Tablet is playing Spotify?