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What's your favorite kind of bar?
Ice cream, power, singles?
Well, if you're suffering from tinny, unsatisfying audio
from your expensive new TV,
a soundbar might be the friend you never knew you needed.
But why are they suddenly in vogue now?
Well, there actually is a reason
that TV speakers these days sound so flat and weak.
Back when we were all using large, heavy CRTs,
the additional space inside the chassis
allowed manufacturers to build in bigger,
more powerful speakers.
And the simple fact is that richer sounds,
especially in the bass range, need physical space,
as well as large enough drivers to be reproduced correctly.
But times have changed, and the trend these days
is for TVs to keep getting thinner and sleeker,
which is great for having more space
to walk around in your living room,
and saving on your power bill,
but it's also left no room for a decent pair of speakers
in most cases.
That was a pun.
So soundbars and soundbases,
your TV actually sits atop the ladder,
have become very popular
because unlike traditional home theater kits,
which are often bulky with complicated setup procedures
involving a bunch of messy wires,
most consumer soundbars are meant to be
more or less self-contained units
that don't take up a ton of space,
but still contain larger speakers that can reproduce,
and that's why they're so popular.
Soundbars can produce sound more faithfully
than the tiny ones built into your TV.
And the growing market for soundbars
has driven a lot of innovation in the space.
Nowadays, they aren't just strictly replacements
for stereo TV speakers,
and many soundbars have built-in subwoofers,
an additional driver to enable center channel,
or even multiple additional drivers
to enable virtual surround sound,
which you can learn about more right up here.
In fact, the fanciest soundbars
include upward firing drivers,
and can even simulate speakers on your ceiling
for next-gen object-based sound implementations
like Dolby Atmos.
This is often indicated as a third number
in the soundbar's channel description.
So that's pretty cool, I guess,
but what else should you consider
once you've decided whether you want
a simple stereo soundbar
or something that will make your living room
sound like a cinema?
That partially depends on the size of your room.
Larger soundbars might be able to fill a larger space,
but make sure you check on this before you buy,
as some larger soundbars don't actually dedicate
more space to drivers
and are just longer, mostly empty chassis
without much substance under the hood,
like Michael Bay movies.
On that note, if action flicks are your thing,
check to make sure your soundbar supports
the audio formats you'd like to use.
If you wanna use it for high-quality lossless audio
from something like a Blu-ray player,
it needs to be certified for those formats
and have HDMI inputs instead of optical only,
as optical connections don't have the bandwidth
for your fancier standards like DTS master audio,
and the aforementioned Dolby Atmos.
With all of that said,
if you really want to faithfully reproduce sound,
it is true that many AV enthusiasts
prefer a traditional setup
with a receiver, an amplifier, and speakers.
Even the highest-end soundbars often struggle
to reproduce the most accurate positional sound
the way speakers can,
and while some models of soundbars allow you
to connect to separate subwoofer
or even wireless satellite speakers,
most are tightly integrated with non-upgradable components.
So think about whether simplicity or performance
are worth more to you in the long run
so you can make a sound investment.
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