Should You Buy A Soundbar?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2019-05-06
·
831 words · ~4 min read
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What's your favorite kind of bar?
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Ice cream, power, singles?
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Well, if you're suffering from tinny, unsatisfying audio
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from your expensive new TV,
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a soundbar might be the friend you never knew you needed.
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But why are they suddenly in vogue now?
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Well, there actually is a reason
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that TV speakers these days sound so flat and weak.
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Back when we were all using large, heavy CRTs,
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the additional space inside the chassis
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allowed manufacturers to build in bigger,
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more powerful speakers.
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And the simple fact is that richer sounds,
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especially in the bass range, need physical space,
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as well as large enough drivers to be reproduced correctly.
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But times have changed, and the trend these days
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is for TVs to keep getting thinner and sleeker,
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which is great for having more space
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to walk around in your living room,
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and saving on your power bill,
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but it's also left no room for a decent pair of speakers
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in most cases.
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That was a pun.
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So soundbars and soundbases,
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your TV actually sits atop the ladder,
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have become very popular
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because unlike traditional home theater kits,
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which are often bulky with complicated setup procedures
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involving a bunch of messy wires,
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most consumer soundbars are meant to be
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more or less self-contained units
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that don't take up a ton of space,
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but still contain larger speakers that can reproduce,
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and that's why they're so popular.
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Soundbars can produce sound more faithfully
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than the tiny ones built into your TV.
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And the growing market for soundbars
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has driven a lot of innovation in the space.
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Nowadays, they aren't just strictly replacements
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for stereo TV speakers,
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and many soundbars have built-in subwoofers,
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an additional driver to enable center channel,
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or even multiple additional drivers
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to enable virtual surround sound,
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which you can learn about more right up here.
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In fact, the fanciest soundbars
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include upward firing drivers,
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and can even simulate speakers on your ceiling
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for next-gen object-based sound implementations
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like Dolby Atmos.
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This is often indicated as a third number
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in the soundbar's channel description.
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So that's pretty cool, I guess,
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but what else should you consider
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once you've decided whether you want
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a simple stereo soundbar
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or something that will make your living room
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sound like a cinema?
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That partially depends on the size of your room.
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Larger soundbars might be able to fill a larger space,
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but make sure you check on this before you buy,
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as some larger soundbars don't actually dedicate
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more space to drivers
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and are just longer, mostly empty chassis
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without much substance under the hood,
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like Michael Bay movies.
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On that note, if action flicks are your thing,
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check to make sure your soundbar supports
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the audio formats you'd like to use.
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If you wanna use it for high-quality lossless audio
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from something like a Blu-ray player,
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it needs to be certified for those formats
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and have HDMI inputs instead of optical only,
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as optical connections don't have the bandwidth
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for your fancier standards like DTS master audio,
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and the aforementioned Dolby Atmos.
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With all of that said,
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if you really want to faithfully reproduce sound,
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it is true that many AV enthusiasts
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prefer a traditional setup
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with a receiver, an amplifier, and speakers.
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Even the highest-end soundbars often struggle
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to reproduce the most accurate positional sound
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the way speakers can,
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and while some models of soundbars allow you
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to connect to separate subwoofer
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or even wireless satellite speakers,
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most are tightly integrated with non-upgradable components.
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So think about whether simplicity or performance
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are worth more to you in the long run
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so you can make a sound investment.
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