Why Do Some People Hate Soundbars?

sound bars have dramatically increased in popularity over the last five years or so they have successfully filled the need for better audio and homes while making it extremely simple and easy to install it's as easy as plugging in a power cable and connecting the sound bar to your tv and that's it basically any sound bar out there over 50 dollars is gonna sound much better than any built-in speakers on a television however for some reason sound bars are still heavily disliked by a large community of traditional sound system users why is this well let's discuss what's up guys jonah mathis here i might be a little biased towards sound bars because they're basically what's gotten my channel to where it's at today if you have a second i'd appreciate it if you'd smash that like button really quick it just takes a second thank you i've reviewed and tested many sound bars out there so i have my fair share of experience in this area on all of my soundbar videos there's always a handful of comments bashing and hating on sound bars in general i think i've narrowed this down to a few different reasons one back in the day active soundbars just weren't that good an active soundbar by the way is the most common type of soundbar or the amplifier or amplifiers are built into the enclosure and don't require an external amplifier or receiver to work they've improved tremendously over time slightly with the speaker technology but more so with the processing and software that goes along with them it is possible that some people may have been burned in the past by spending a lot of money on a high-end sound bar but didn't get the quality they expected out of it and that goes right into reason number two the best sound bars out there will never sound better than a traditional sound system this all comes down to acoustics and how they're designed sound bars are usually built to be compact and somewhat pleasant on the eyes all of the speakers amplifiers and other electronics are typically contained within a single enclosure that can't be too big otherwise most consumers would not want to use them however the best way to improve the sound quality in a sound bar would be to increase the size of the mid-range drivers and increase the size of the speaker driver's enclosure generally and i mean generally there are a lot of factors that go into this but the more space there is in a speaker enclosure the better that speaker is going to sound now with that said there are two factors here that are heavily working against each other sound bars need to be compact and slimmer to appeal to a larger variety of people but if they make the speaker drivers and enclosure larger it would dramatically increase the sound quality so manufacturers are very much forced to balance the size and looks of a sound bar even when it can result in overall lower audio quality a traditional sound system with large tower speakers or even bookshelf speakers where the drivers are much larger and there's lots of space inside the enclosures is just going to sound better than almost any sound bar out there three a lot of people feel that high-end soundbar systems are way too expensive when they think they can build a much better traditional system for the same price or an even better price and the thing is they're kinda right but also kinda wrong to break this down let's look at the different flagship sound bars that are out there right now the sonosark surround set is 1856. very expensive yes i know the lg sn11 rg 7.1.4 system is 1500 and the samsung hw q950t originally retailed at 1800 but is now priced at 1300. now sonos is definitely one of the more expensive brands out there that's absolutely loved by many including myself i have a sonos arc surround system in my living room and very much enjoy it but sonos is also very much disliked by many because of their high prices in comparison to audio quality i would say that most other high-end sound bars are somewhat fairly priced once they've been out for six months or so but now let's look at a traditional surround system that we could compare to these high-end soundbar systems you could definitely go out and purchase each speaker separately which is probably what you should do but to make this comparison simple we'll look at a bundled speaker kit for example this sony 5.1 channel surround sound kit including the av receiver is around 1500 not a bad price this set comes with the av receiver two tower speakers a center channel two bookshelf surround speakers and a subwoofer now quick disclaimer i've never listened to or used this system personally i'm simply using it as an example if you're interested in seeing a video where i try to build a traditional surround sound system and compare it both in price and quality to a sound bar then please let me know in the comments down below tower speakers if built correctly can sound extremely good bigger mid-range drivers more space in the enclosure etc etc if the drivers themselves are pretty decent they'll easily help a traditional system outperform any soundbar system doing some quick research again no real life testing here the tower speakers aren't amazing i mean they're only 200 each so they probably aren't built with very high-end materials the bookshelf speakers seem to be more impressive but overall none of the components would be considered anywhere near high end in the proper room layout like a small to medium sized rectangular room that's closed in this system could potentially outperform one of the sound bars that i mentioned now what are we not getting with this system no upward firing or height channel speakers aka adobe atmos or dtsx you could add some height channel speakers to this system but then that would likely put you over budget of any of the sound bars mentioned if we're including all the speaker wire needed as well with this system you'll more than likely get a better overall sound stage and separation of channels due to spacing out the three front channels however what i haven't mentioned at all yet is the time or amount of labor necessary to get this system set up unless you already have wire ran for all of your speakers or an unfinished room it's going to be a semi-difficult challenge to properly run your speaker wires unless of course you just run them across the ground like an animal but i'd say 99 of people's significant others aren't going to be okay with that and you probably shouldn't be okay with that either someone that isn't experienced with properly running speaker cables should definitely hire a professional for the sake of their sanity and their walls although i'd say with almost any soundbar system out there you can get the cables connected and everything working in under 30 minutes that's extremely doable even for someone that has no idea what they're doing and most surround speakers with sound bars are actually wireless and only require power cable to work so there's no speaker cable that needs to be run from the front of the room to the back of the room most are just stupid simple to set up now if you were to go out and buy all new equipment separately it's going to be very difficult to build a traditional system that will outperform something like the samsung hw q950t at that price i mean thirteen hundred dollars for a system like this is really a steal when you listen to the quality and overall performance that it has of course you can always build a traditional system piece by piece which makes it much easier to find good deals on quality speakers and you can spread the purchases out over months or years so that's one large benefit that you don't get with sound bars but how you can really build a traditional sound system for a big discount is by buying second hand speakers and receivers you can do this by searching places like facebook marketplace facebook groups craigslist offer up and more you could definitely build a phenomenal traditional system with used products but it will take a large time investment and probably lots of driving time to actually get the equipment that you want because shipping heavy equipment like this is usually very expensive but in general most people don't want to do this unless you have a dedicated media room or home theater it's just too much for the average consumer for a majority of people out there it's not worth all the time and effort to find the deals of equipment go pick up the equipment run all the speaker cables configure the system etc etc it's far more convenient and easy to spend a thousand plus dollars on a high-end sound bar where you can just connect a few cables and everything wirelessly pairs it's just so easy consumers have definitely shifted to a convenience mindset rather than a quality mindset and i really don't think there's anything wrong with that trust me i would love to have a traditional system in my living room but i'm not interested in running the wires necessary trying to find speakers that my significant other is okay with displaying and more it's just a lot i'd rather have a high-end soundbar that i can set up extremely quickly and is very easy for anyone in my family to use and i promise this isn't just my opinion i've spoken with quite a few av installers and they completely agree with me here over the last few years they have had exponentially more customers that are less interested in traditional sound systems and more people interested in sound bars most people just want a really solid sound bar installed with their tv that's easy to use looks great and sounds pretty good i think consumers have kind of spoken here with both their interests and their wallets and again i'm not hating on traditional systems i love them and i think there's definitely a place for them in some homes but they definitely aren't for everyone i hope you guys could understand where i'm coming from in this video it's not out of hate or spite it's more so to show the different perspectives that are out there if you enjoyed the video feel free to subscribe to my channel to see future videos centered around home technology okay rant over thanks for watching i'll see you guys in the next one bye you

Channel: Jonah Matthes

Views: 141,773

Keywords: soundbar, sound bar, tv, receiver, a/v receiver, projector, speakers, projector screen, HDMI

Id: 1xsyY5sYFPg

Length: 9min 32sec (572 seconds)

Published: Mon May 03 2021