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Soundbar advice
chris_elevate
Posts: 585 Forum Member
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My family have seen & heard my Sonos Playbar and really like it. They don't want Sonos features so which Soundbar for approx £300 would you recommend? Is there a highly rated whathifi one? It's an LG TV that they've got and the inbuilt speakers are awful (as you can imagine).
Thanks for any help/advice you can give.
Thanks for any help/advice you can give.
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http://www.richersounds.com/product/soundbars-sound-base/yamaha/ysp1400/yama-ysp1400
or saving a few quid
http://www.richersounds.com/product/soundbars-sound-base/yamaha/yas103/yama-yas103-blk
Both soundbars connect to the TV's optical digital output. They can also learn the TV remote's volume and on/off commands so no faffing about with multiple remotes to change channel and adjust the noise level.
The sub is wireless so you just plonk it anywhere in the room where there's a power socket and it connects automatically when you turn the TV/soundbar on. I was quite surprised that I can still use my sky remote to turn the TV on and it turns on the soundbar aswell, also the volume on the sky remote controls the soundbar volume too, so really I only need the soundbar remote for using sound modes or changing sub settings etc(which isn't very often once you've set it how you like it).
Lastly you can connect any device with Bluetooth to it like phones/tablets etc. it's brilliant all round really. The model above is a older version so grab a bargain like I did before its discontinued.
There's a newer version out that's slightly more powerful but it cost a fair bit more, only noticeable difference is the design is slimmer and it's silver metal instead of black plastic.
I would recommend an LG soundbar over other brands simply because it would match the TV colour(depending on the age) and also you can do something called soundsync which means you can connect the soundbar to the TV without any wires, handy if your wall mounting it, or just don't like lots of wires, you'd literally just have one power cable!
My current setup is an (old) Onkyo amp with Tannoy 5.1 speakers.
We hardly watch any movies that require "surround sound" so it would be nice to get rid of the clutter (extra speakers). So i have been looking at a Soundbar.
Currently have an LG TV and want to maintain decent sounds and also some sort of "surround sound" for the odd occasion we watch a movie. Budget is around £200-250 for this.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
Is that the better option. The amp is well over 5 years old.
Another reason is the amount of cabling behind the TV and the BIG SILVER amp that stands out like a sore thumb lol.
If you were to keep your amp and use a lower number of speakers, there is no reason to replace it. 5yrs is nothing for av equipment theses days, you normally upgrade when your current equipment can't offer what's available.
As for how it looks, that's would be down to you, personally I'd prefer the amp and a couple of new bookshelf speakers to a soundbar, purely because of sound quality and flexibility, you also have the option to go back to 5.1 in the future if requirements change.
Maybe your right, maybe i keep the setup as it is and get a new amp whenever it fails.
My current amp cannot do any Dolby stuff over HDMI. So need to use two optical cables aswell.
If the amp doesn't do Dolby over HDMI then either it is a hell of a lot older than 5 years or you haven't got it set up properly.
If it was really old then I would half expect it not to have any HDMI sockets anyway but if it's new enough to have HDMI then it should be new enough to do Dolby Digital over HDMI as well.
Or are you referring to ARC? ie it doesn't do audio return from the telly via HDMI?
Hmmm good question. I need to find out the model number.
I am pretty sure i have to use the optical cable to get DD. It has:
2 HDMI in (from Freesat and PC)
1 HDMI out (from the Amp to the TV)
2 Optical cables (from Freesat and PC)
If you post the model number we could check precisely what formats are available to you.
If it is 5yrs old and has HDMI then it's very likely it will do Dolby Digital over HDMI, possibly HD audio too. It was only early HDMI receivers that were limited to video switching or just plain old stereo over HDMI, that must be about 10yrs ago now.
Does it do DD over HDMI?
For 5.1 you have it connected correctly.
If you decide to keep the amp and reduce the number of speakers to a stereo setup, you could remove the optical cables and just use HDMI, tidies the cables up a little bit.
Ok cheers, might invest in a new amp in the future instead.
Actually reading the manual (available from http://www.uk.onkyo.com/en/products/tx-sr505e-43389.html) it looks like the HDMI sockets have no connection to the amp at all. Any audio signals present on the HDMI in go to the HDMI out only.
If you download the manual and look at page 27 there is a big box at the top of the page saying.
So looks like lamby needs to keep all the connectors in place.
Apologies to lamby.....
Post #2
Yamaha do some very fine kit. They would certainly be first choice were I looking for a soundbar and I would be looking very seriously at their range of AV receivers when time comes to update my current receiver.
I've been looking online and have narrowed my choices down to :-
Yamaha YAS-203
http://www.richersounds.com/product/soundbars-sound-base/yamaha/yas203/yama-yas203-blk
Samsung HW-H750
http://www.richersounds.com/product/soundbars-sound-base/samsung/hwh750/sams-hwh750-blk
Not sure the Samsung has a coaxial input.
Both look very good and I'd probably be happy with either one.
Will be going to the stores at the weekend to have a look at them and see how they peform.
mine is situated in a ( small ) bedroom alcove , with my head practically in the 22' screen above it when i lay in bed lol ,,,,,hence the sound doesnt NEED to travel far or fill wembly stadium lol , and this is something important i suggest you consider ( ie the size of your room , and likely distance from your ears etc ) before shelling out hundreds of pounds because it can pump out a zillionwatts yadda yadda yadda .
mine , an argos bush jobby sounds fantastic in its current position and cost me peanuts .
but i would certainly be upgrading to something better in the lounge ,,,,,,, if ever a time came when her who must be obeyed went on a silly woman pointless rampage about replacing my 5.1 setup with tea candles ,,,,,,,,,,, ( obviously id'e put my foot down , but im gonna want sex again so i guess i would lose that argument )
http://www.amazon.co.uk/241/dp/B00261SOMC
By the way I suggest you also take your ears as well as your eyes
I like the idea of playing music from my tablet or phone through the soundbar.
We watch a few things on TV, nothing that needs any special kind of sound (sometimes you don't even want to hear the commentator on football matches) so the sound bar will be a nice but not essential addition to the front room.
The fact that I could move it around and play my music through it is a much more desirable quality.
My post number 3!
My LG soundbar has bluetooth so whenever we are in the lounge or kitchen(open plan) and don't want the TV on, we can just connect our phones or tablet(whatever has music on) via Bluetooth to the soundbar and it plays on the soundbar wirelessly, and we can even play music off YouTube etc. what we do is make a playlist in YouTube and it plays through the selected songs, it's brilliant.
While most of the sound components are the same, the connectivity is much improved, both backwards and forwards with phono analogue connectors, optical, coaxial digital and bluetooth.
The Yamaha app also works well from phone/tablet and gives extra surround and music mode options that aren't on the remote.
I move around for work so it's portability is a big plus compared to my unwieldy old Sony 5.1 surround system.
I would recommend it thoroughly. A couple of friends also bought them and have been impressed.