Sound bar is a good compromise for expensive surround sound woofer systems and getting weak sounds from the TV's built-in speakers, but that doesn't mean they are perfect. In fact, the sound bar has many problems and limitations often under masked, and can only be raised after you have a setting at home.
This is what you should know before jumping to buy a sound bar.
1. The sound bar may effect the TV remote sensor
Glitzy product photos usually show the sound bar in install on wall directly under tv . but most people put the sound bar on the TV stand. This have the problem as the larger sound bar effect the TV's remote sensor, forcing you to stand up to adjust remote to control the TV. This is very crazy, so if you are considering buying a sound bar - especially a relatively high model like the Boston Acoustic TVee Model 25 - it's worth checking where your TV remote sensor is and Whether your your expected sound bar will effect it..
Alternatively, you can choose a sound bar that avoids this problem. The Yamaha YAS-101 has a beautiful infrared repeater on the back so it accepts remote commands from sound front then turn them to the back TV. Zvox's Z-Base systems are designed to be placed under your TV so they wont interfere with you.
always forget the remote control
Almost every home theater gadget comes with its own remote control (this is why your coffee table full of them), but the sound bar is an exception. Quite a number of models do not include a remote control, but rather rely on you programming the sound bar to accept commands from the TV remote. This is a good idea on theoretically (less remotes on the coffee table), but in practice it is not good to use.
The problem is that during the setup process, you will be asked to disable the TV's speakers so that you don't get sound from your TV and sound bar, which usually doesn't sounds good. Then, when you use the TV remote to adjust the bar volume, the TV will also receive these volume commands, and a screen message may be displayed informing you that the volume command is not working properly as you have disabled the speakers.
Not every TV shows the commands on screen, but about half of the CNET Labs fund this problem during the last check. No one wants to see an error command on every time you adjust the volume, so if your TV shows this message when the player is disabled, you will need to make sure your sound bar included remote.
'Virtual Surround' is just a wider stereo
Almost every sound bar has a "virtual surround" mode that provide surround sound without the hassle of a rear speaker. These virtual surround modes are not useless, but they are not close to surround sound. In the best case, they will expand the sound which make the strip sound larger than its size.
The only exception I heard was Yamaha's YSP digital sound projectors series type , which convincingly produce surround sound through a single speaker enclosure. However, the cost of a Yamaha digital sound projector typically exceeds $1,000; your typical budget sound bar doesn't do anything close to virtual surround sound.
Maybe it does't have the front display
Manufacturers have done a better job in this area recently, but there are still a large number of sound bars without front panel display. You don't need a lot of visual feedback from the sound bar, but still nice to know how loud the volume is or what input you choose. If your sound bar only only have a basic front LED indicator you won't know whether the volume is over or there still have some headroom.
Fortunately, displays are becoming more common on newer sound bars. I am particularly impressed with the "speaker grille back" display in the new Z-Base system of Haier SBEV40-SLIM and Zvox.
The connection may not be as important as you think.
Whenever I check a bar with a limited connection, Such as the Harman Kardon SB 16 that sounds great, there will always have one or two commenter that quickly rejects it because it doesn’t have an HDMI connection.
Yes, most home theater gadgets use HDMI today, but it doesn't mean your soundbar must have an HDMI port . Instead, you can connect all your home theater equipment directly to your TV and then use the TV's audio output to connect to the sound bar. This way, when you switch inputs on your TV, you will also switch the audio sent to the sound bar. It is usually a slightly cleaner setup because you only need one cable to connect to the sound bar.