Soundbar or conventional pair or multi-channel speakers?
Which is the one to use?
Now, given the fact that you're interested in the answer to that question is a great
thing because it means that you're looking at improving your television sound quality.
An unfortunate byproduct of today's thin flat screen TVs is that they don't have the volume,
they don't have the space to have a good audio system built into them, not like when we had
old large cabinet tube-based television sets.
So, anything that you add to that system is going to improve the audio quality of the
television immensely, believe me.
And you'll know this that if you've ever listened to the internal speakers in one of these flat
screen sets, it's pretty bad.
It's not what I would call high fidelity.
So, soundbar, as we have in front of me here, or conventional speakers?
Basically, they will accomplish exactly the same thing.
So, it's really a matter of aesthetics, convenience, and how you want the system to perform.
Basically, whether you have a pair of stereo speakers or an entire surround sound system,
if you have the luxury that you're not worried about having to have speakers out into the
room and you have the space for it, that's always going to give you the best performance.
There's no way around it.
No amount of signal processing trickery is going to fake a good proper multi-channel
surround system with speakers that are placed ideally for performance.
That's an unfortunate thing.
But there's also complexity with those systems.
You need a separate receiver or a separate processor and power amplifier to connect everything
up and to power the speakers.
Now, there are some cases where you can get active speakers or wireless speakers that
have built-in amplifiers.
But typically, those will only be for a stereo system, not for a full multi-channel surround
system.
Now, there is a middle ground if you don't have the space to place the speakers out into
the room, but you want better performance than, you know, a soundbar is gonna provide,
then you can look at on-wall or in-wall speakers that, again, can be placed spaced apart, so
that you'll get a better sense of space in image.
Now, what if, on the other hand, you don't have the space?
It's a smaller system maybe, the aesthetics mean that I don't want a whole bunch of equipment
in my room but I can tolerate one piece of equipment other than the television set, and
maybe even hang it on the same mount as the TV that you can swivel with it.
So, that's a soundbar.
And basically, all a soundbar does, no matter how many channels, because they come in a
two-channel like this one, this Axiom open bar in front of me, you can find three-channel
ones that have the left and right and the center channel built-in.
Or there are some that will do some trickery to try and fake surround channels by bouncing
things off the wall or changing the alignment of drivers using digital processing.
I don't find that those work very well.
But again, we're talking about anything that you do to improve your television sound no
matter what it is, is gonna be better than the built-in speakers.
Okay.
So, soundbar basically will take whatever number of speakers it purports to replace.
So, in a stereo one, this one unit would replace a pair of either bookshelf or floor standing
speakers.
The nice thing is that most soundbars, not all, but most soundbars have all of the electronics
and the power amplifiers built inside.
So, really, it's an HDMI cable or an optical cable from the television set to the soundbar
and then plug it into the wall.
Now, soundbars are very compromised on their own, because there, again, isn't a lot of
cabinet volume.
Part of this is aesthetics.
It would look really silly to have, you know, a foot and a half or two-foot deep speaker
sitting on the wall under this nice thin svelte television set.
So, they tend to actually be, you know, fairly shallow to match the aesthetic of the TV and
not stick out too much.
But what that means is that we don't have the volume, the internal air volume inside
the cabinet to get real bass.
Now, again, there is some processing and trickery we can do to fake bass.
But typically, what will happen with those systems is that you'll get decent bass at
very low listening levels.
And then as soon as you turn it up, the bass disappears and it will sound thin.
So, what you're gonna find, most soundbars, you know, like the Axiom open bar, will have
a separate subwoofer.
And that subwoofer is a small box that can be conveniently placed by an equipment shelf
or in the corner or wherever it fits into your room, and whether it's wired or wireless
doesn't really matter.
It now helps to fill out those base octaves that the soundbar can't reproduce on its own.
So, basically, we can get excellent performance from a soundbar and even better performance
from a discreet separate multi-channel speaker and home theater system.
But again, anything you do to get rid of listening to those internal speakers in the TV is gonna
be better.
I will point out one thing that's very important to keep in mind.
If you think that you're going to buy a soundbar with a little subwoofer for $99, and have
it sound like the best thing that you've ever heard, it's not gonna happen.
Think about how much you spent on your television set.
And you should be dedicating at least that amount of money, if not more, on the audio
to go with it.
That's a good rule of thumb, you have an $800 TV, an $800 soundbar would work.
So, the other thing that I'd like to caution you is that soundbars are one of the most
badly overrated in terms of specifications of any audio component out there.
You'll see soundbars for $99 or $149 that claim to have 1000 watts or 1500 watts, complete
nonsense.
Unfortunately, there isn't good regulation around these things.
So, you know, manufacturers will often inflate those numbers.
One of the things that I would suggest doing is, you know, look to a dedicated loudspeaker
manufacturer like Axiom, I'm not saying it has to be us, but, you know, a company that
their main business is building loudspeakers and not building every type of electronic
gadget under the sun, there's a good chance that those people will know better how to
build a good soundbar than a company that, you know, spits out all kinds of, you know,
gadgets and other electrical components.
Okay.
So, I hope that's been helpful.
It's not really that big a mystery, speakers or soundbar, it really comes down to aesthetic
preference.
Thanks