Hey All,

My wife and I have been spending a lot of time in front of the TV lately, for obvious reasons. Both of us have been disappointed with our auditory experiences while watching TV/Movies, as, even with compression off, sometimes it's very hard to hear what people are saying when there's other sounds going on.

I've been thinking about getting a soundbar, as space is somewhat limited, and there's not any good way to do a full surround sound system that multiple people can get the full effect of (namely me, I sit in a chair in the back corner of the room. it's my spot. no I'm not opening to moving)

Soundbars have come quite a ways in recent years, it seems. I'd definitely like one that comes with a subwoofer (I have a place for that), and wouldn't be totally against rear speakers, it's just that one would be above my head, and the other way off to the left, about 12' away.

Anyway, I figured I'd poke my head in here and see if anyone has any good suggestions or experiences with soundbar systems. I've been looking at some of the Klipsch options, but it's been decades since I've been serious about any kind of home theater/home audio, and have no idea where to go from there.

Thanks!

DaiTengu

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DaiTengu wrote to Gamgee <=-

Re: Re: Home Theater Audo suggestions
By: Gamgee to DaiTengu on Thu Apr 09 2020 07:23 am

I have a Bose sound bar (w/ subwoofer) on one of my TV's, and it's
pretty nice. Lots of bass and volume if you want it. *MUCH*
better than the sound that comes from the TV normally. It uses an optical/fiber cable from the TV to the soundbar. Worth the cost.

Back when I sold A/V equipment (25 years ago!) Bose was the
shit. The $2000 sound systems with the tiny cube speakers were mind-blowing. Now everything is that size, and I'd really kill
to have some big 'ol speakers with 15" woofers in them, I just
dont have the space or the money to invest in a full receiver/5+
speaker system.

Yeah, I've always liked Bose. I guess there is better stuff
available for the true "audiophile", but Bose seems just right for
me. I still have a pair of '901' speakers that I bought way back
in the very late 80's! (or maybe it was the early 90's, it's a
little fuzzy now...), and they are just awesome. Don't really
crank it up as much as I used to, but those speakers are hard to
beat in my book. They are "reflecting" speakers where most of the
sound goes out the back and is designed to be reflected back off
from the wall. Almost unbelieveable back in the day. :)



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Re: Re: Home Theater Audo suggestions
By: Gamgee to Nightfox on Thu Apr 09 2020 06:15 pm

I don't even know where the speakers are on TVs these days.
There are no front-facing speakers or other visible speakers on
TVs anymore, so I'm not sure where the sound comes from..

They're hidden in the "frame", or facing out the back of the TV.
If you look closely you can usually find the "grill" covering
them. Most seem to be fairly decent, unless it's a noisy room and
then I often have trouble hearing them well.

Facing the back? I'd think that would be the wrong direction for speakers on a TV..

Nightfox

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Re: Re: Home Theater Audo suggestions
By: Gamgee to Nightfox on Thu Apr 09 2020 18:15:00

I don't even know where the speakers are on TVs these days.
There are no front-facing speakers or other visible speakers on
TVs anymore, so I'm not sure where the sound comes from..

Gamgee> They're hidden in the "frame", or facing out the back of the TV.
Gamgee> If you look closely you can usually find the "grill" covering
Gamgee> them. Most seem to be fairly decent, unless it's a noisy room
Gamgee> and then I often have trouble hearing them well.

trivia tidbit: they're being pointed out the back to take advantage of reflection bouncing off the walls al la bose speakers... they're missing the tuned sound tubes that bose has/had, though ;)


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Nightfox wrote to Gamgee <=-

Re: Re: Home Theater Audo suggestions
By: Gamgee to Nightfox on Thu Apr 09 2020 06:15 pm

I don't even know where the speakers are on TVs these days.
There are no front-facing speakers or other visible speakers on
TVs anymore, so I'm not sure where the sound comes from..

They're hidden in the "frame", or facing out the back of the TV.
If you look closely you can usually find the "grill" covering
them. Most seem to be fairly decent, unless it's a noisy room and
then I often have trouble hearing them well.

Facing the back? I'd think that would be the wrong direction for
speakers on a TV..

Some TVs have that, and some face the front. The rear-facing ones
are designed to have the sound reflected back from a wall behind
the TV. They actually work pretty well.



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Re: Re: Home Theater Audo suggestions
By: DaiTengu to Gamgee on Thu Apr 09 2020 11:53 am

Back when I sold A/V equipment (25 years ago!) Bose was the shit. The $2000 sound systems with the tiny cube speakers were mind-blowing. Now everything that size, and I'd really kill to have some big 'ol speakers with 15" woofer in them, I just dont have the space or the money to invest in a full receiver/5+ speaker system.

Yeah, Bose... OK enough about those guys. Sorry if this discussion is old. I'd go over and look at Monoprice. They have some 5.1 speaker packages that are reasonable, have decent sound, and won't break the bank. I think they even have a setup where the satelite speakers are wireless. I don't know how much I trust a wireless connection when you're talking about sound accuracy, but I think it's important to focus on a decent Center channel speaker. Just about everything coming out of Netflix is 5.1 of some kind, and having all the dialog front and center really makes a difference.

So if you're done saying, "well duaa". Again I was just chiming in. The only Home Theater system I have is a Sony ES50 reciever connected to a set of Boston Acoustic speakers that I bought between Collage (1995 roughly), and like in 2005 I replaced the satelite/rears and bought a second hand sub. System has Dolby DTS (the old version), and I use optical from the TV to drive it. Plug the Roku or BluRay into the TV and I'm good. The only thing I wish it would do is control the volume on the reciever.

Once I get settled in my house I'm building an ATMOS theater in my garage.
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Re: Re: Home Theater Audo suggestions
By: poindexter FORTRAN to DaiTengu on Thu Apr 09 2020 03:43 pm

There's a great thift shop near me that's got collections of speakers with huge-ass woofers, cloth grilles and WOODEN ENCLOSURES. Had a reel-to-reel ta

Gray-Bears?
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Re: Re: Home Theater Audo suggestions
By: DaiTengu to Rampage on Fri Apr 10 2020 12:13 pm

I did a little reading yesterday. Apparently you can get "upward firing" speakers that are designed to bounce sound off the ceiling for a Dolby Atmos setup, as opposed to mounting speakers in the ceiling.

More you spend though the better it will sound (i've heard), but yeah adding ATMOS to existing satelites isn't terribly hard.
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Re: Re: Home Theater Audo suggestions
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Android8675 on Thu Apr 16 2020 11:34 am

Gray-Bears?

Yep. That's the one shopping experience I miss the most while sheltering
in place. My daughter can always find a ton of books for $5 for a pile she c

Next time you're there grab me a classic console with a couple games, if you see one. I don't care which one. I'll pay you triple if you can find a Vectrex.

Grey-Bears is amazing. I love that they take electronics no questions asked. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get recyclers to take electronics? They just don't want to deal with em.
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Re: Re: Home Theater Audo suggestions
By: Mastermind to Android8675 on Mon Apr 20 2020 05:41 pm

man, i always buy my home theaters from the back of a van @ home depot!!

Ha, I used to work at "The Good Guys!" (RIP), and those vans were hilarious and really agressive.
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Re: Re: Home Theater Audo suggestions
By: Android8675 to Mastermind on Wed Apr 22 2020 07:24 am

man, i always buy my home theaters from the back of a van @ home
depot!!

Ha, I used to work at "The Good Guys!" (RIP), and those vans were hilarious and really agressive. --
[email protected] r g

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Re: Re: Home Theater Audo suggestions
By: Android8675 to Mastermind on Wed Apr 22 2020 07:24 am

Re: Re: Home Theater Audo suggestions
By: Mastermind to Android8675 on Mon Apr 20 2020 05:41 pm

man, i always buy my home theaters from the back of a van @ home
depot!!

Ha, I used to work at "The Good Guys!" (RIP), and those vans were hilarious and really agressive. --
[email protected] r g

lol... and some of them have made a long running career out of it. you'd be surprised.

M@STERMiND
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Re: Re: Home Theater Audo suggestions
By: Android8675 to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Apr 27 2020 10:07 am

Wiis are good if they are the ones with the Game Cube ports on the side. They are typically the Wii's where the WII lettering on the front looks right if the Wii is vertically oriented.

Those Wiis you can easily put the homebrew channel and run all sorts of great emulators on it. I bricked my Wii when I made a rookie error. I should trade it for a working one.

I modded my Wii a couple years ago. It's cool what you can do with it. There are so many ways to run emulators these days though, so I haven't used the Wii for that very often, but it's cool that it's possible.

I even found a Wii port of Descent (the 1995 DOS game) in the Homebrew channel.

Nightfox

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Android8675 wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

Those Wiis you can easily put the homebrew channel and run all sorts of great emulators on it. I bricked my Wii when I made a rookie error. I should trade it for a working one.

I loaded the Homebrew channel on my current Wii - it's interesting. I'd like to get it back next time I go to our vacation home and tweak it some more.


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