Soundbar with built in sub?

JustAnotherSaver

Bit of a limitation with getting a soundbar with our current setup as it'll block off the remote sensor on the TV. Getting a new stand is out of the question really as is wall hanging. Could build the TV up on the stands with cut glass maybe as one workaround. Was just weighing up which soundbar to be looking at as i know nothing about them really.

I guess soundbars with separate subs will be better than built in. 5 channel better than 2, 7 better than 5 so on and so forth so until you've got the best of the best, there's always something better.

A separate sub for us would have to just sit right on the floor on carpet, unless we cut some ply or something to sit the sub on. I don't really know the impact of it all. Our flooring is suspended timber floor - not solid flooring.

Some will say "you're looking in to it too much". Yeah yeah heard that before. I don't really fancy shelling out £150-£200 to find i didn't look in to it enough and the sound echoes like crazy and sitting a sub on the floor with our flooring turned out to be a horrendous idea.

Currently just rely on the TV speakers which are pretty naff. Are soundbars with built in subs decent enough and a good upgrade? Are they not a patch on separate subs or only just behind and should a separate sub be A-ok sat on a carpeted timber floor without causing too much vibration?

And what of wireless subs? As if it has to be wired then that could be a bit of a problem with location but if wireless is fine then we could sit it at the other end of the room no bother - unless that creates its own problem?

debitcardmayhem

i I have one of these, I am old and my ears aren’t what they were but it works for us https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08BLRPVB5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 The radio is no good due to reception, live in a hole, but find the sound plus bluetooth and arc hdmi works good, my sub is behind the sofa

debitcardmayhem

forgot to add the optical on my telly don’t work but that appears to be my telly, it works on another one.

JustAnotherSaver

We often have to have subtitles on what we watch (for me) because we both get fed up of (me) having to rewind and find out what was said so i'm hoping it may help with audio clarity too. Would be a bonus if it could help with them films that you have to have remote at hand and constantly switch the volume up and down because it's too quiet/loud and you just can't find a sweet spot.

What sort of flooring do you have? I'm curious about how it will be on a suspended timber floor (with carpet on top). Always lived in a house with a solid floor before this one and it's caused problems in ways before. It's not that i think it will do, it's more from the angle of 'it'd be just our luck...'.

"Arc" "add the optical" .. this is where it stands out when i said i don't have a clue about this stuff. I know you must be talking about something to do with audio but i'm not sure what

debitcardmayhem

I have concrete floors , the sub is not very big so you could always experiment with something eg a wooden chopping  block,or other materials to isolate somewhat from the floorboards, but is the problem going to be with neighbours / adjoining rooms?  ARC is audio return channel over HDMI, Optical is another connection but it all depends on your tv. 

JustAnotherSaver

If it helps any then this is my TV: https://www.panasonic.com/uk/support/discontinued-products/televisions/tx-58dx750b.html

As for our neighbours, they are the most inconsiderate people i know. Karaoke at 3am for example. The list really could go on so i'm not really bothered about any noise going next door. Obviously i'm not a total A-hole - i'm not going to have the volume ramped up to max. I just intend on watching TV normally. Monday-Friday we don't really watch a lot and we can't stay up long enough to watch TV in the early hours anyway

debitcardmayhem

Oh come on where's your ambition go for an A+hole

Yep thats got an arc hdmi (input #2) and an optical socket too. Plus the aformentioned sound bar also works with headphone socket (but that will also turn off the TV speakers I guess) and RCA audio from the TV so the choice is more or less up to you. Since it's from amazon then you could always send it back , anyhow it's just a suggestion  the proof of any audio product is in the eyes ears of the beholder. I also use mine for playing sound from my iPad/Android phone/PC via bluetooth (only when SWMBO is out)

another_casualty

Have you thought of a soundstage ? 

This is where a tv is placed ontop of it . On most soundbars / soundstages , there are RCA outputs on back , so if your TV has RCA sockets , that would work should your hdmi or digital output doesn't . 

It may be best to take a pic of your setup ,and go to richer sounds or post a pic here and things will be a bit more clear for us to advise .

JustAnotherSaver

I'm at work at the moment so will have to wait on a photo but I'm not sure if that setup would work. It might but without knowing what's out there I don't know. 

I can move the TVs 2 stands more centrally if needs be but right now they're on the edges of the TV and they span a bit of distance. 

The slots where you'd put things like the BT box and a DVD player etc are 1) full, although there is room depending on one of the shelves but 2) quite narrow. 

As said, any photos and actual measurements will have to wait until tonight. 

Sandtree

JustAnotherSaver said:
I guess soundbars with separate subs will be better than built in. 5 channel better than 2, 7 better than 5 so on and so forth so until you've got the best of the best, there's always something better. 

A separate sub for us would have to just sit right on the floor on carpet, unless we cut some ply or something to sit the sub on. I don't really know the impact of it all. Our flooring is suspended timber floor - not solid flooring.

Some will say "you're looking in to it too much". Yeah yeah heard that before. I don't really fancy shelling out £150-£200 to find i didn't look in to it enough and the sound echoes like crazy and sitting a sub on the floor with our flooring turned out to be a horrendous idea.

Currently just rely on the TV speakers which are pretty naff. Are soundbars with built in subs decent enough and a good upgrade? Are they not a patch on separate subs or only just behind and should a separate sub be A-ok sat on a carpeted timber floor without causing too much vibration?

And what of wireless subs? As if it has to be wired then that could be a bit of a problem with location but if wireless is fine then we could sit it at the other end of the room no bother - unless that creates its own problem?

Life, as always, is more complex than that....

If you have a fixed budget, say £200, then your assumption is incorrect... 2 channel will be better than 5 and 5 better than 7 and no sub better than with sub. The more parts you have the more thinly your budget is spread over each item and so the lower quality each one is likely to be.

You also have to consider what "better" means... back in my student days I had a ~£500 stereo and a ~£150 all in one 5.1 system. For pure sound quality the stereo was miles better than the 5.1 system but the 5.1 system gave a much more immersive experience. I personally love the immersive effect of Dolby Atmos etc and so I have (in theory as its not set up fully) a 5.2.2 system but I certainly know some guys who've spent more on a 2.0 system (aka stereo) and you could certainly argue it sounds better.

All speakers have a set frequency range that they can output but its no a binary yes/no but they tail off when you go above or below that. Certain speakers when pitched at certain frequencies have been somewhat arbitrarily named things like tweeters, woofers, sub woofers etc. You'll generally find the wider the diameter of the speaker the deeper the notes its best at producing and so there is certain basic physics involved in what size you can fit in a little box that goes under the TV.

Anyone can say a speaker has a sub woofer in it if there is a speaker that aimed at producing notes below a certain frequency... really it should be below 80hz but in the sub/sat craze of the early 2000s many could be going as high as 200hz. Doesnt really mean its good at its job though. By sticking the sub into a separate box that doesnt go under the TV you can fit a larger speaker in it and thus on paper it'll have better chances of being better as long as you've increased your budget to reflect the extra stuff you're buying and that bigger speakers generally need more power to be driven which means a more expensive amp built into it.

Now the fun think about our ears is that they are really bad at working out the direction of low noises and massively better at working out high frequencies. This is where the whole 5.1 sub sat thing came about.... you dont need each speaker to be able to produce the lowest notes because you can have the mid to low notes produced by the rear/front/side speakers as appropriate which tells the listeners brain where it is coming from and the rumble from the sub will just be added to it. The "problem" though is that many smaller systems the sub is going above 80hz at which point most of us do start to have a sense of direction for the sound (even at 80hz there is some sense of direction hence the .2 in my setup). So in theory you can put your sub anywhere but if its having to produce higher notes then you may lose some of the experience.

So finally onto what probably should have been the first question.... what do you actually want to achieve? Is it a home cinema type setup or would you be happy with just much better stereo? Do you have an old (or new) hifi/stereo somewhere in the house as it could be worth seeing how things sound with that hooked up to the TV and the speakers appropriately positioned.

JustAnotherSaver

That's a very good question - what do i want.

Well i could stretch beyond £200 if i had to. I just went with £200 because usually when you put a budget everyone replying goes, if you just stretch by another £xyz then you can have this - so £200 gave me room to play for all that kind of stuff. That's not to say i'm itching to blow £400 on this. If stretching an extra £20 or £30 will make a night & day difference between soundbar A and soundbar B then i'd do it.

As for what i want - just better sound. Better bass without actually vibrating the floor and walls. I'm not really for having a full on surround sound install but i read you can get soundbars that'll chuck out left and right sound if you get me? This kind of thing would be a nice touch. 

Almost everything i watch has subtitles. I don't know if this is mostly due to my hearing or because the TV speakers are poor or what. I'm hoping a soundbar would remove the need for subtitles but if they don't then they don't. I've plenty Asian movies (no not those! martial arts movies) so i'm used to subtitles anyway.

It would also be great if it helped with those films that you have to constantly be changing the volume up and down depending on the scene - whether it's action or dialogue because that gets very annoying. I read one soundbar which had a feature (i forget the name of it) which actually claimed to help with this. True-somethingorother.

The TV stand is 13850 wide and the TV itself is 12850 wide.

I couldn't really put a sub to the right of that because it's right next to the fire where the fire equipment is and i couldn't really put a sub to the left of it as there's a fish tank on a stand with no room. Any sub would have to be located somewhere else in the room. Probably actually at the other end of the room behind or at the side of a chair, which would be maybe about 4 metres away (room is about 7 - 7.5 mtrs long and this TV is situated at one end.