Soundbars

[ss201]

If your TV is anywhere near your hi-fi, (my hi-fi is in a cabinet below the TV) a digital to analogue converter will allow you to take a feed from the back of your TV to your hi-fi amplifier. I bought one for my LG TV and it's made a fantastic difference to the sound quality. and it's in stereo too. The sound from the TV alone is perfectly acceptable for speech, but for films and music programmes I switch on the hi-fi and it's like being in the cinema. Very simple to install (it took me less than five minutes) and cost less than a fiver. I bought one like this

Digital 3.5mm Optical Coaxial Toslink to Analog Audio Convert Adapter RCA L/R UK | eBay

If it doesn't come supplied with a RCA phono to phono cable. you'll need one to link from the converter to the AUX phono sockets on your hi-fi amplifier. One of these

Twin 2 x RCA Phono to Phono Cable Male to Male Plug Stereo Audio Cable Gold Lead | eBay

Hope this helps. PM me if you need any more instructions, but it's really a very simple, cheap and easy way to vastly improve your TV sound.

 

[BTB 500]

I guess it depends on what you use your TV for - I don't need / want hi fidelity sound or surround sound (went down that route over 20 years ago, when it first came out, and have been through several systems since) and (while I can afford it) a Sonos sound bar would be complete overkill for day to day TV viewing for me.

Same here. I bought a soundbar for our TV some years ago and it sounds good, but in reality we very rarely use it ... the TV's speakers are ok for us 99% of the time.

 

[Gentabout]

Thank you all for the feedback so far. I think we might pop to the local Currys/PC World this evening to look an listen to some.

This will be the only speaker in the living room as there is no stereo in there apart from an old Bose Bluetooth one that we stream music to from our phones if we want to.

I had a look and listen to the Yamaha yas107 last night and was quite impressed.

 

[gaz_l]

OP, within your budget you could get an AV receiver and some modest (but still decent) speakers. This is the route I went down when I upgraded the telly a few months ago. The AV receiver I bought is now discontinued, but this is similar and has BT for a phone connection:

https://www.richersounds.com/tv-home-cinema/av-receivers/denon-avrx250-black.html

And speaker wise, you can't go wrong with these for the money:

Wharfedale DIAMOND 9.0 (Black)

Cheers,

Gaz

 

[Steveml63]

We have the LG 49UJ651V, and use the NB2540 LG sound bar. You can connect it to the TV using an optical cable or bluetooth which is what I use.

You still need to use both remotes, the sound bar doesn't automatically switch on with tv. It's a 2.1 system, provides a noticeable improvement over the TV speakers which to be honest are dire. I purchased the sound bar about 3 years ago, so I imagine it's been superseded by an improved variant, price wise it's about £80 now

Hi,
That’s strange regarding the remotes.
We changed some settings on our LG tv menu and connected the soundbar via optical cable.
The soundbar is default audio output and comes on automatically when you switch on the TV.
We have a local cable box, Amazon Fire stick and a networked 2TB hard drive all connected to the TV - so plenty of sources to watch F1, British TV, Kodi, sport and downloaded movies!

Cheers
Steve

 

[Benzmanc]

Whilst i have no experience of soundbars i do have a dedicated cinema room with a full Dolby Atmos setup. In the lounge we have 5.1 from a pioneer amp and quite discreet Onkyo speakers, we have the surround speakers on stands. I would highly recommend going separate amp and small satellite speakers as no soundbar can come close to the level of immersion, particularly when watching a decent bluray and it's also quite surprising at the quality of the soundtrack on some adverts.

Oh and stay away from the shocking customer service that is currys, try Richer Sounds instead

If you can push the budget a little then this is a great buy.

Yamaha YHT1840 (Black)

 

[Gentabout]

Thank you all for the advice and suggestions.

We spent some time listening to lots of bars and systems in Currys on Friday night but were not impressed by anything and the lack of knowledge from the staff was shocking. Saturday morning we popped into Richer Sounds in Maidstone and discussed with one of their guys our problems (a trainee apparently). He very quickly dismissed sound bars and instead went for a separate AV amp and a pair of speakers but they could not demo them as they had none set up. They didn't have any of the Wharfedale speakers in stock as suggested above so whatever we went for we were going to have to buy on trust and this was not something I wanted to do. He left us to think about it and went off to serve someone else and I went back to look at the soundbars that they did have set up. After about 10 minutes of pushing buttons, a senior guy (about half the age of the other guy) came over and asked if we needed help. I explained everything to him and he suggested a soundbar would be better in our situation and proceded to demo several options. The lower cost ones certainly lacked the clarity we wanted but a Denon 316t and Harmon Kardon sounded good. With it narrowed down to 2 units he was happy to then demo them with lots of different sources and was even able to play The Voice from the previous weekend. The moment that started and played through the Denon we both looked at each other and agreed that it sounded brilliant, the clarity of the voices was so much better and the Bass improved the experience rather than overpowered it, the Harmon unit was good but the Denon was so much better to our ears. Music streamed via Bluetooth was perfect and then a movie (Solo) with a big action scene was also played and you could hear the actors over the explosions etc. They had one in stock so we bought it there and then.

Setting it up at home was very simple with just one lead between the HDMI ARC plugs and a setting changed on the TV and it works perfectly. Everything we have watched since has been so much more enjoyable as we don't have to have it turned up as high as before to hear speech. I even enjoyed listening to The Voice on Saturday night as some of the acts could actually sing. We did compare with and without during the show also and the difference was amazing, one act via the soundbar that the judges were going nuts over sounded brilliant but without the bar was awful.

This is what we bought, Denon Dhts316 Black

I've also played some music through it at fairly high volume and it doesn't distort either so we are more than happy.

Cheers

Dean

 

[Aletank]

Great review ! glad you got sorted !
Where do you have the Sub positioned ?

 

[Gentabout]

Great review ! glad you got sorted !
Where do you have the Sub positioned ?

At the moment it is below the Tv and the the centre. I might move it to the other side of the room nearer where we sit to give it a try as I might be able to turn it down further so it doesn’t resonate through the house when SWMBO goes to bed.