Soundbars

[Walkingthedog]

I have one of these. A Pioneer SBX-B30 Soundbox. Just one box that the TV stands on. Probably been superceded by now. Fantastic piece of kit.

TV and HiFi attached via optical cable and has Bluetooth so my Amazon Echo also plays through it.

Other makes are available.

[bulleidboy]

Do you just literally, plug them in? Mrs BB's hearing is not what it used to be, and I thought this might give a better sound (deeper?) than just turning up the volume.

[yelrow]

We have the BOSE one, incredible difference. Much deeper sound, and yes, you just plug it in by one of 3 options. Comes with Remote.

[Brian]

We have had two. The first an LG and the amplifier blew after about four years and that had a separate sub woofer. The current one is an all in one sound bar. They certainly enhance sound, but we are both disappointed that neither of them has ever made speech crisp and clear, especially where background music is played at the same time. In fact, we find the music is enhanced against the speech by the sound bar, which makes it even harder to fully understand some speech. Frequently we have sub titles on too just so as we don't miss anything being said.
Would I buy a third one? Probably not as they just don't do what I want of them but they are great for general sounds.
Guess its more an old age loss of hearing thing than technology

[Walkingthedog]

Yes you stand the tv on it, plug it into the mains and TV. Mine has two optical inputs but perhaps others will have phonos as well. It has settings for dialogue or music etc. Very clear.

The dialogue setting makes speech very sharp and clear.

[teedoubleudee]

.............................but we are both disappointed that neither of them has ever made speech crisp and clear, especially where background music is played at the same time. ...................................

This is a huge problem for me with modern movies and tv dramas. The sound engineers just dont get the balance of speech v. music right. Added to that nearly all dialogue seems to be presented in a whisper by the actors. I think he issue is that when they are filming the scene the director can hear perfectly well what is being said as the stage operates with zero background noise, but the sound is then added in the post production phase effectively drowning out the actors whispered lines.

I often get ridiculed by my family for the amount of old 40s and 50s B&W movies I watch. They say things like "I don't know what you see in those old films" to which I reply "It's not what I see in them, its what I can ***** well hear in them!"

[bulleidboy]

I used to have a Sony Surround Sound system - came with six speakers - one being a "whoofer" about the size of a packing case. If you had a good (??) war movie, you could hear the bullets and shells coming past your ears - from behind - and with the volume right up, the whole road could enjoy the sound - I think it threw out 800watts - I gave it to a charity shop!

[yelrow]

Pop into a Bose dealer, if any open, or listen on line. We looked at many. Its called the Bose solo, from memory, as label out of site.

[Mr Bones]

We have a Samsung HW-N400 all in one sound bar that connects via either HDMI or BlueTooth. This connects to a Samsung TV so the one remote works for both. Really good sound, but it does occasionally stop, generally caused by power cuts. 8 out of 10 times it connects agin, but a couple of times I had to call Samsung support who remoted the TV and soundbar and fixed the issue.

[Walkingthedog]

If it stops generally caused by a power cut surely the TV stops as well.