Sound bars. Thoughts? Recommendations?
 

I've been tossing the idea around about getting a soundbar for the TV in the living room. Not sure if anyone has one but if you do....what are your thoughts on them?

My Bose Solo 5 is a nice one but it's big; not something you can really mount on a wall or something. As a single unit you can put underneath a TV on a console or something, I don't see getting much better than it. The only annoyance is that my DirecTV remote won't power it up so I have to keep the soundbar remote around to turn it on (though the remote will control the volume).

I have a Bose soundbar for the television in our upstairs living room and a Sony soundbar with subwoofer for the television in our basement. The Bose soundbar is better than the Sony by leaps and bounds even without a subwoofer. They both are necessary in my opinion because the television speakers on all new 4K tvs are shit.

Does it make a huge difference in the sound quality? I don't want to go spend the money if it's just going to make it louder but not a better quality.

The Bose produces much better quality sound than any television speaker.

This is the solution to that issue. I have one in my FR and it's awesome.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I have two older Vizio VS200's and they're awesome. The sound is enhanced significantly and since it has a subwoofer out, I have a 10" Yamaha sub connected.

The unit in my FR is under the TV stand but the unit in our playroom is wall-mounted, which provides more bass due to resonance with the studs and drywall.

I also have a Samsung with a bluetooth sub and it sucks ass. It was also more than twice as much as the Vizio models.

What size soundbar is good for a 55" TV?

IMO, at least a 38" soundbar. Two of mine are 42".

FYI, depending on the make and model of the soundbar and TV, there may be a delay between the TV sound and the Soundbar.

If that happens, you'll need to turn off the TV speakers and use the Soundbar only.

Awesome....thanks. I'll keep an eye out for any sales on soundbars.

The sound is quite a bit better and with the full box/side speakers, you do get the occasional true surround sound feel. That's going to depend more on the shape of the room/location of the speaker, but every now and again the broadcast will come through right and you'll get that full room feel off just the little box in the middle.

Yeah, it's substantially better sound quality than the television speakers.

Yeah, I've kicked around getting one of the Harmonys. Every thanksgiving they'll have last year's wiz-bang model on black friday and it looks pretty slick, I just never get around to actually doing it.

I was wrong; mine's not a Solo 5, it's this guy:

https://www.amazon.com/Bose-Solo-15-...lo+5+sound+bar

The solo 15. That's the one with the full 'cabinet' and it's under my 55 upstairs right now. Like I said, it depends on your setup. You have to leave it 'exposed' so if you're trying to hide everything in your console, that won't work. But if you're okay leaving it on top of the console and setting your TV on top of it, it's not unattractive and it's relatively inconspicuous.

Final note - if you're looking to mount on the wall, this is what I'm going to end up getting for the TV in the basement that's mounted over top of the fireplace:

https://www.amazon.com/Sonos-PLAYBAR...ords=bose+solo

Sonos makes some pretty impressive, versatile stuff. Most of it can later be adapted to include satellite speakers, etc... They won't be quite as good as a fully wired, installed in the ceiling style 7.1 kind of system, but damn that's a lot of work. My understanding is that some of the new Sonos systems can also be incorporated into the 'smart home' tech but that gets beyond my knowledge base.

If you don't want to go that route, a Solo 5 actually CAN be wall mounted.

It's so totally worth it, man. I have presets for the following:

1. Powering up the Direct TV receiver, Soundbar & TV
2. Powering up the Roku 4, Soundbar & TV
3. Powering up a Sony BluRay Player, Soundbar and TV

It automatically changes the inputs, so there's only one button to press. It makes it easy going between devices, too.

I will say, it's a bit of a bitch to set up, which requires a software download, plugging it into a USB port and the exact model number for each device.

But once it's setup, it's freakin' great. No more messing around with 4 or 5 remotes.