Soundbar Buying Guide

Buying one the best soundbar brands boosts your TV’s sound so you get the best audio when you’re watching movies and your favourite TV shows. While the latest TVs have amazing picture quality, the sound may not be as great as their slimline designs only leave a limited amount of space for built-in speakers. A Soundbar is a compact speaker system and a stylish, simple solution for enhancing your home entertainment experience with more volume, enhanced bass and greater clarity. With fewer speakers and wires than a home theatre system, a soundbar is easy to set up.

1. Size

You need to think about size to ensure the soundbar you choose is suitable for your home:

Is a soundbar suited to the size of your room? Sound bars suit small-to-medium-size rooms.

Does the soundbar suit the size of your TV? It can be narrower than your TV, but wider will look odd.

Is there space for a soundbar? Will it fit in front of the TV, on the shelf underneath or the wall?

You can wall mount your sound bar under your TV to save space, and wireless speakers eliminate cable clutter for minimalist style.

2. Surround Sound

Soundbars with multiple channels assign different sounds to different channels to create a faux-surround-sound effect.

It is possible to create real surround sound by linking a high-end soundbar with other wireless speakers, mimicking the effect of having one of 5.1-channel home theater systems.

3. Connectivity

You need to ensure that the soundbar you choose has all the connections you need for your TV and other entertainment sources such as your set-top box, DVD player, Blu-ray player, media player, gaming consoles and USB storage devices, but don’t pay more for more connections than you need.

If your soundbar and TV both have HDMI ports you can connect your devices to both, and once you’ve connected your soundbar to the TV all sound will be played through the soundbar instead of the TV speakers.

Older TVs will most likely need analog inputs, and if you’ve got a 4K Ultra High Definition TV you can match it with a 4K video compatible soundbar for the ultimate in home entertainment.

Some soundbars come with cables included and some don’t, so check whether you need to buy cables separately.

4. Music Speakers

Soundbars are also great for listening to music. With a USB input you can plug in your favourite music files – just make sure you check which file formats it supports – MP3, WMA, and Dolby Digital audio?

If you choose a soundbar with Bluetooth connectivity you can connect your compatible phone, tablet or computer wirelessly and play music through the soundbar. You can also listen to CDs through your Blu-ray player for enhanced audio.

Soundbars with built-in Wi-Fi also allow to you listen to your online music libraries and streaming services.

Your soundbar can also help you set up a multi-room music system, with lots of soundbar brands allowing communication with other music players, speakers and receivers using your Wi-Fi network so you can stream music wirelessly throughout your whole home.

5. Control

Most soundbars come with their own remote, but if you hate having too many controls and have the right TV and soundbar connections, you can program most TV and cable remotes to control your soundbar.

Many also have remote apps so you can use your phone or tablet to control the soundbar. If your soundbar has lots of features it’s probably best to use the soundbar remote or remote app.

6. Music Speakers

A subwoofer boosts the bass, which is important if you like action movies, TV shows, and video games with lots of lower frequency sounds.

Most soundbars either have an in-built subwoofer or a separate subwoofer speaker that’s usually wireless and just needs to be plugged into a power socket.

If there’s not enough space for a separate subwoofer, a broad platform-style sound bar is recommended, as the larger speakers give you better overall bass than a slimmer soundbar.

7. Special Features

Different soundbars have different features so think about which ones are important to you:

Special settings to enhance speech and make everyone’s voices clearer.

Special settings to specifically enhance your movie, gaming or music experiences.

Volume leveling technology that makes all sound consistent for quieter ads and sound effects.