Sometimes you can get stuck with something you know well, and simply miss out on new, better developments. For home theater enthusiasts, one of these traditional choices was picking speakers as home audio mainstays. For decades, a set of nice tower or bookshelf speakers was the staple of high-quality home cinema.
Over the last few years, though, things have changed. Soundbars, once a thoroughly budget option meant to let you hear dialogues a bit better, have emerged as a go-to option for TV audio. With their virtual surround audio channels and tuning tailor-made for TV content, they offer astounding sound quality in a package that is much smaller and more convenient than traditional speakers.
So, is it time to finally make the jump and choose a soundbar as your new home theater audio setup? There are a lot of reasons that can convince you to get on the train, and here are the biggest advantages of choosing a soundbar.
There’s space for everything
Unless it runs out. Then, there’s space for a soundbar
Speakers systems can be, undoubtedly, much more powerful than soundbars. However, with all that power comes their rather significant bulk. If getting a 5.1 or 7.1 surround system is what you’re after, you might need to make your living room larger just to accommodate all the required speakers and amps, and with today’s housing market, who has all that space?
Enter the soundbars. They are the epitome of convenience in the home audio world. Thanks to their all-in-one solution, you don’t have to find space for numerous devices around the room. Instead, you just place it under the TV on the TV cabinet and the setup is done. Using a miniscule amount of space, a soundbar can easily fill a room with music.
You’re not giving up on surround sound
Let’s get virtual
When it comes to home theater audio, one of the most important concepts is surround sound. With all the well-known formats, such as 5.1, 7.1 and more, it essentially comes down to this: how to make the sound feel like it’s all around you when you’re just sitting on your couch. Speaker-based systems have had an answer for years: you just place a speaker there. Now, though, soundbars have quickly caught up.
I’m, of course, talking about all the software-based virtual surround advances. Thanks to a bit of computational trickery, modern soundbars can offer the virtual equivalent of real, physical audio channels. They do this by accurately bouncing sound off of your walls and ceiling, making it feel like the sounds are coming from all around you. Add to that the option to add a subwoofer to most of these setups and you can easily get an extremely immersive experience.
The way it’s meant to be listened to
Be sure of your tuning out of the box
Setting up a real surround sound system is quite a hassle. You first need to place all the speakers in their correct place, and then you still have to deal with their EQ and other parts of the setup. In contrast, a soundbar makes the whole experience easy and painless, and is usually ready to be used right out of the box.
Setting up a soundbar, as I mentioned, is extremely easy. You usually just place it on your TV cabinet, plug it into a TV and you’re done. No more pesky settings to tune-in or perfect speaker orientations to search. If you want to be thorough, most systems feature a dynamic room adjustment, which checks out the acoustics of your room and matches the audio settings to make them fit your space perfectly. It takes a few minutes and requires no technical knowledge, so setting that up is as easy as it gets.
You should also remember that soundbars are, generally, purpose-built for watching TV. This means their hardware is also meant to excel at the frequencies that are native to movies and TV: dialogues, explosions, and generally action. So, soundbars have dedicated speakers that are doing their best right at these frequencies, making your TV sound as crisp and detailed as possible.
All the built-in goodies
Can your speakers AirDrop?
Finally, you can’t forget about all the tech around your TV. Speakers are, essentially, “dumb” electronics. In order to do anything, they need to be connected to an amplifier, and that’s where you might have some built-in tech, such as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection, AirDrop or Chromecast, etc.
Soundbars, on the other hand, have all of these built into them. This means you don’t have to spring for another standalone piece of tech in order to, for example, stream music wirelessly from your phone. It’s readily available at your soundbar level, making it unnecessary to even turn on the TV to get some tunes going.
Are soundbars better than speakers?
Once again, it all comes down to you
Fortunately, picking between soundbars and traditional speakers is not an exercise in objectivity. Therefore, both of these have their strengths, and picking one over the other should be based purely on what’s important to you. Soundbars excel when it comes to the convenience they provide. They are an all-in-one solution that is basically plug-and-play. You don’t need any technical knowledge to set them up, and their sound is already equalized for the best TV watching experience possible. If these things are important to you, getting a soundbar is an excellent choice.
