Sounbar

[charlyb]

I've owned a 32" Toshiba flatscreen tv for three years and the sound is terrible. I am not interested in surround-sound or subwoofers. Hell, for tv I'm not that bothered if the sound is stereo or mono. What I AM interested in is INTELLIGIBILITY. Can anyone recommend a reasonably-priced soundbar that will stop me asking my wife, "What did he say?"? I believe that the the Yamaha YAS101 also equalises the volume between programmes and ads which would be very handy but what is it like for intelligibility? All help appreciated.

 

[Andy Clough]

Check out our Best Soundbars roundup here:

http://www.whathifi.com/news/best-soundbars-to-buy-in-2013

 

[theflyingwasp]

What do u mean by intelligibility ?.

 

[charlyb]

Apart from the ove-priced Sonos and B&W, they all come with subs which I do not require.

-

 

[charlyb]

By intelligibility I mean the ability to make out dialogue. Old cathode ray tubed tvs had decent sized speakers and one could make out what was said over the often unnecessary music/effects.Flatscreens tend to have crap tiny speakers and sound engineers don't seem to care about speech thesedays, hence my request. Do you know of a reasonably-priced soundbar that enables one to hear what is being said?

 

[theflyingwasp]

Sorry I understand now, I've only ever owned 1 soundbar which is my Yamaha ysp2200 but reasonably priced it is not,I'm pretty confident even the cheapest soundbars will sound better than the tv speakers ,with the performance of the ysp 2200 I would say go for it with yas101 to be honest I was thinking of getting that for my parents ,I gave them my panasonic gt50 when I upgraded earlier this year ,after having a soundbar for a year I forgot how bad tv speakers were avatar just sounded horrible when I used it as a demo ,sound is just as important as picture .hope this helps.

 

[Son_of_SJ]

What do u mean by intelligibility ?.

Maybe charlyb means working out where the missing letter "d" in the title of this thread should be!

But seriously, I have no experience of soundbars in the domestic environment, I have heard them only at John Lewis, Richer Sounds and Currys. From the snatches of music through soundbars that I have heard, anc comparing the memory of those sounds with listening to even normal television programmes with the stereo sound fed through a receiver to reasonably big speakers, I still much prefer stereo sound via fairly big (in all my rooms, at least 90cm tall for the front pair) speakers to the sound of a soundbar. But I do realise that not everyone has the space for large stereo speakers.

 

[bigboss]

Basically, you're asking for a soundbar with good dialogue clarity & without a sub.....meaning you want it to perform well across all frequency ranges! There will be a compromise somewhere in such a design. Also look at Q-TV2, not a soundbar in the strict sense but a brilliant design.

 

[Andy Clough]

Good shout bigboss. Here's our Q Acoustics Q-TV2 review. Could be just what the OP needs.

 

[Russ_64]

I use a Soundbar for "normal" TV viewing eventhough I have a 5.1 Blue-ray system for movies. I would recommend something like this - provided you have an Optical Audio output on your TV:

http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_GB/Products/Home+Entertainment/Soundbars/SC-HTB65/Overview/11464771/index.html

This one retails for about £160 and comes in Silver or Black.

 

[charlyb]

Thanks to everyone who responded:very helpful.

Sorry about the missing "d":should have switched the light on.