Reddit says i shouldn't buy soundbars. I need your opinion.

[HT newbie]

Hi everyone. I have 43 inch Sony bravia 1080p TV in my room.

The room size is approx 12x13 feet. I live in a quite neighborhood.

There is just one house that is nearby. I only run AC so there is no fan noise. There is no neighborhood noise as well.

At best occasionally i hear bird noises. That's pretty much it.

So i don't use my TV above volume 10.

It supports upto 100. But even 5 to 10 volume is good enough for me to hear everything.

Yes i am currently using Sony built in speakers.

Netflix detects that I'm using stereo speakers so it plays stereo sound.

So I don't have that issue where the music is loud and dialogue is barely audible in some scenes.

However when i download something from the seas. It comes with 5.1 audio

Ideally my TV should down mix automatically.. But no i have to manually increase the volume to 25 or something in some scenes to hear dialogue because the music is too loud.

This means i have to constantly use my remote to increase and decrease the volume based on certain scenes.

I Googled and found out that 3.1 system with center channel would be perfect fix for this.

I searched on Amazon and it basically kept showing soundbars at the top and reviews were also very positive.

To get a second opinion i searched reddit and everyone and the wiki page says soundbars are not good. I should buy speakers.

So if I'm going to buy external speakers and wire my room. I might as well go for 5.1.

so i started looking for 5.1 systems.

The problem is i would still like to watch in low volume.

I understand that some people love to watch with high volume for theater like effect. But that's not me.

Another reason is that even though my room is in first floor and i have only one neighbor house( individual ground floor house) i don't want to disturb them.

My only reason to buy 5.1 is to enjoy the 5.1 files that i get from high seas without managing volumes constantly.


1.Is it possible to enjoy 5.1 audio at low volume?

P.s: i currently use Bluetooth headphone to watch 5.1

But it hurts my ears and i don't like to wear it for long time. I prefer speakers.

Do you guys have any recommendations?

i enquired in Chennai. They are saying starting rate for 5.1 setup is above 80K
But there is this guy on YouTube who assemble and sell 5.1 setup.


I watched many of his videos where he explain lots of technical details about his assembled setup. He seems like a very knowledgeable person and he even posts lots of installation done by him on his YouTube channel.

He quoted me 30k for 5.1 setup with ARC.

Please let me know if this is good deal.

TLDR: i watch at low volume is it even worth to buy 5.1?

 

[MaSh]

You cannot truly enjoy 5.1 at low volume. At Low volume, the only speaker that might be playing anything would be the center speaker. For your use case a Soudbar does make sense. Something like Sony HT-S500RF should fit well. You can go audition it in a Sony, Reliance or Croma store.

MaSh

 

[Donivlapog]

Hi everyone. I have 43 inch Sony bravia 1080p TV in my room.

The room size is approx 12x13 feet. I live in a quite neighborhood.

There is just one house that is nearby. I only run AC so there is no fan noise. There is no neighborhood noise as well.

At best occasionally i hear bird noises. That's pretty much it.

So i don't use my TV above volume 10.

It supports upto 100. But even 5 to 10 volume is good enough for me to hear everything.

Yes i am currently using Sony built in speakers.

Netflix detects that I'm using stereo speakers so it plays stereo sound.

So I don't have that issue where the music is loud and dialogue is barely audible in some scenes.

However when i download something from the seas. It comes with 5.1 audio

Ideally my TV should down mix automatically.. But no i have to manually increase the volume to 25 or something in some scenes to hear dialogue because the music is too loud.

This means i have to constantly use my remote to increase and decrease the volume based on certain scenes.

I Googled and found out that 3.1 system with center channel would be perfect fix for this.

I searched on Amazon and it basically kept showing soundbars at the top and reviews were also very positive.

To get a second opinion i searched reddit and everyone and the wiki page says soundbars are not good. I should buy speakers.

So if I'm going to buy external speakers and wire my room. I might as well go for 5.1.

so i started looking for 5.1 systems.

The problem is i would still like to watch in low volume.

I understand that some people love to watch with high volume for theater like effect. But that's not me.

Another reason is that even though my room is in first floor and i have only one neighbor house( individual ground floor house) i don't want to disturb them.

My only reason to buy 5.1 is to enjoy the 5.1 files that i get from high seas without managing volumes constantly.


1.Is it possible to enjoy 5.1 audio at low volume?

P.s: i currently use Bluetooth headphone to watch 5.1

But it hurts my ears and i don't like to wear it for long time. I prefer speakers.

Do you guys have any recommendations?

i enquired in Chennai. They are saying starting rate for 5.1 setup is above 80K
But there is this guy on YouTube who assemble and sell 5.1 setup.


I watched many of his videos where he explain lots of technical details about his assembled setup. He seems like a very knowledgeable person and he even posts lots of installation done by him on his YouTube channel.

He quoted me 30k for 5.1 setup with ARC.

Please let me know if this is good deal.

TLDR: i watch at low volume is it even worth to buy 5.1?

The reason for 5.1 is not just to enhance sound. It channels the audio through surround soundstage. You could have a bare minimum volume and can enjoy sound coming from different zones. Thats the reason for a need for hifi surround system.

 

[aeroash]

Hi everyone. I have 43 inch Sony bravia 1080p TV in my room.

The room size is approx 12x13 feet. I live in a quite neighborhood.

There is just one house that is nearby. I only run AC so there is no fan noise. There is no neighborhood noise as well.

At best occasionally i hear bird noises. That's pretty much it.

So i don't use my TV above volume 10.

It supports upto 100. But even 5 to 10 volume is good enough for me to hear everything.

Yes i am currently using Sony built in speakers.

Netflix detects that I'm using stereo speakers so it plays stereo sound.

So I don't have that issue where the music is loud and dialogue is barely audible in some scenes.

However when i download something from the seas. It comes with 5.1 audio

Ideally my TV should down mix automatically.. But no i have to manually increase the volume to 25 or something in some scenes to hear dialogue because the music is too loud.

This means i have to constantly use my remote to increase and decrease the volume based on certain scenes.

I Googled and found out that 3.1 system with center channel would be perfect fix for this.

I searched on Amazon and it basically kept showing soundbars at the top and reviews were also very positive.

To get a second opinion i searched reddit and everyone and the wiki page says soundbars are not good. I should buy speakers.

So if I'm going to buy external speakers and wire my room. I might as well go for 5.1.

so i started looking for 5.1 systems.

The problem is i would still like to watch in low volume.

I understand that some people love to watch with high volume for theater like effect. But that's not me.

Another reason is that even though my room is in first floor and i have only one neighbor house( individual ground floor house) i don't want to disturb them.

My only reason to buy 5.1 is to enjoy the 5.1 files that i get from high seas without managing volumes constantly.


1.Is it possible to enjoy 5.1 audio at low volume?

P.s: i currently use Bluetooth headphone to watch 5.1

But it hurts my ears and i don't like to wear it for long time. I prefer speakers.

Do you guys have any recommendations?

i enquired in Chennai. They are saying starting rate for 5.1 setup is above 80K
But there is this guy on YouTube who assemble and sell 5.1 setup.


I watched many of his videos where he explain lots of technical details about his assembled setup. He seems like a very knowledgeable person and he even posts lots of installation done by him on his YouTube channel.

He quoted me 30k for 5.1 setup with ARC.

Please let me know if this is good deal.

TLDR: i watch at low volume is it even worth to buy 5.1?

Considering your use case, a comfortable pair of wireless earbuds should do.

Headphones could cause warming of the ears, and at times the clamping force could be uncomfortable, hence, earbuds with comply or silicon tips.

 

[rsklogin]

You need a good 5.1 only if you want one. For your usecase, a good 3.1 soundbar is more than enough.

I have a dedicated room with a home theater complete with projector and a proper surround sound setup. Yet, I also have a soundbar in the living room where most of our family's OTT content is served. I have a simple Sony 5.1 soundbar there just for the extra bit of sound and elevation my Tv cannot produce, voices being one of them.

Most soundbars come with various profiles, vocal being one of them. You can choose that so that you hear more clearly.

 

[HT newbie]

You cannot truly enjoy 5.1 at low volume. At Low volume, the only speaker that might be playing anything would be the center speaker. For your use case a Soudbar does make sense. Something like Sony HT-S500RF should fit well. You can go audition it in a Sony, Reliance or Croma store.

MaSh

My Max budget is 30k.
But the soundbar you linked costs 43,990 rupees. There is no way I'm spending that much on a soundbar.

Considering your use case, a comfortable pair of wireless earbuds should do.

Headphones could cause warming of the ears, and at times the clamping force could be uncomfortable, hence, earbuds with comply or silicon tips.

This is actually a really good idea when I'm watching alone. I'll definitely buy one.

But i am also interested in 5.1 setup to experience that surround system.

I only watch movies and TV shows in English language. I also don't watch most Tamil movies because I'm just not interested in it.

The movie theaters in my small town rarely play English movies. Even if they did its in Tamil dubbed. The dubbing is kind of okay but i just don't like Tamil dubbing. They don't play in English because.. Nobody would watch it and that's understandable.

I'm just really excited about the idea of watching my favorite content on 5.1
i just want one lol.

 

[DB1989]

Reddit is wise. Reddit is your friend. Listen to Reddit.

 

[DB1989]

Hi everyone. I have 43 inch Sony bravia 1080p TV in my room.

On second thought, I think its time for a new TV

On a serious note, all you need is a stereo amp and 2 bookshelfs (or a 2.0 active system) for outstanding voice clarity, even at whisper quiet volumes.

 

[MaSh]

My Max budget is 30k.
But the soundbar you linked costs 43,990 rupees. There is no way I'm spending that much on a soundbar.

Yeh makes sense. Did you check the other variants with just optical input? I am usually the last one to suggest a soundbar,however for your use case I don't see any sense in getting a bigger system. Just my opinion.

MaSh

 

[DB1989]

My Max budget is 30k.

Get a Hivi D1200 from Amazon and you can call it a day! It has very good clarity, good sound dispersion, good imaging, good bass when the scenes require it, you can also tweak the bass and treble to your heart's content and more importantly, it has decent connectivity options including bluetooth, coaxial and optical. Oh, and did I mention it has very good build quality?

 

[vkalia]

A couple of thoughts:

1) It's weird that your TV is not downsampling the 5.1 to stereo. It typically should, as far as i know.

2) 30k isnt really going to get you a decent HT system. Even with something like a Denon AVR-X250BT, you are looking at around 60-65k or so for the setup.

3) Given the above, i will also suggest a good pair of active/powered speakers.

4) Another option - start building a 5.1 system. Get a receiver (consider used, if need be) and a pair of decent speakers: PSB Alpha P3s are 17k on The Revolver Club and fantastic compacts. Then add other components as budget allows.

 

[sivag08]

Hello bro,

I could very well connect with you since I am also living a rural (or semi urban) area just in the outskirts of Trichy, surrounded by few individual houses where there is not much of noises except for the birds' chirpings and nature's sounds.

TLDR - 2 immediate options for you:
- Option 1 (cheap but good): 4.1 system from Obage (head over to section b for my personal experience with Obage).

- Option 2: Edifier R501BT 5.1 speakers if you insist for a 5.1 system. But on the flipside, there are not enough reviews to validate but Edifier is a great budget audio brand which has ample positive reviews for its Hifi grade sound stage and music clarity. I am using a couple of earphones from Edifier and they're kickass. you can research for yourself.

Soundbars: Would not recommend it as some of my friends told me the quality of vocals are often muffled out during actions sequences in movies, mainly the hollywood ones - given against your budget.
Else you cough out as good as 75k and above to get a high quality product from Sony/LG or one from Sonos, all equipped with Atmos.

---

I just wanted to share my experience here below, so it might be helpful to you since your case is much similar as mine (read thru if you're interested):

a. My media consumption pattern:
- I consume mostly english movies and tamil movies through all major OTT platforms with a 100mbps broadband connection, where all of the OTT platforms i use (Netflix, Hotstar, Amazon Prime, Zee5, SonyLiv, Aha Tamil, SunNxt) all outputs content encoded in 5.1 setup and some in Atmos.
- Family members (at times I also!) watches cringe tamil tv serials through Hotstar which outputs serials at Stereo.
- Occasionally stream music, not a daily routine though (thru Spotify, Prime Music) & Listen to FM at times.
So on the whole, its almost 90% for the movie/series and 10% for streaming music - i can roughly say.

b. Gadget used in the past: (Aug 2021 - Jan 2022):
Used Obage's tower speakers - DT51 which was really good for a stereo 2.0 setup and the bass it produces for that price was sweet enough, mids doesnt get muffled out during action sequences when compared with a similarly priced sound bar, and the highs are just adequate.
It was NOT loud with my super boomy bass but subtle and clear with a decent sound stage.
In short, it was really a VFM product and the results were satisfactory.

c. My journey on getting a True 5.1 setup:
Though satisfactory, the sound enthusiast within me expected for more and then I thought of switching to a 5.1 surround system.
My search of course started with auditioning from the assembled amps which claims outputting sound in 5.1 upto 11.1 which is inturn side-scales the incoming audio signal and radiates out the stereo sound to a 5.1, and DOES NOT upscale a 2.0 to a true 5.1!..

After checking out with the so called 5.1 dts amplifiers which are locally made, I decided to increase my budget a bit more upto 60k and started to search for a better, truly sounding 5.1 surround setup system and then ended up auditioning a Denon AVR (the basic model X250BT) where I was quite surprised to hear the way it encodes and outputs the surround sound with some decent precision. I bought it for 40k that time from a HiFi audio dealer since Amazon is not sure about warranty.

Then shelled out a 36k more for Taga 606 5.0 speakers from Amazon, and connected it to the AVR and voila, the sound I experienced was truly remarkable when compared to my humble Obage stereo towers! Even my mom was happy to watch the Vijay tv serials in Hotstar thru the AVR as its nicely up-scaling the 2.0 stereo to a multi-channel 5.1 audio out (still its NOT a true dolby surround 5.1 encoded audio, fyi).

For movies coming with Dolby 5.1 in the OTT apps, the experience gets even better as one can truly feel the sound coming from the rear speakers when only needed, not each and everytime. Watching movies/web serials are now an immersive experience with the surround setup, and I've installed the system in my hall, without any sound proofing of course except for a window screen and a carpet. My AVR does not support Dolby Atmos though!

Sometime later I've bought a sub-woofer from Mission (an England audio company) for 18.5k online from hifimart.com and the experience gotten even better as i could able to hear the low frequency thumpings and soft thud sounds in hollywood movies sounded way better.

d. Currently...
As of now am using the same setup: Denon AVR X250BT, Taga 606 v3 5.0 speaker pack, Mission MS 200 subwoofer. and we're quite happy.

Note: I dont have any cd/bluray player or a gaming console | Not connected the Settop box (airtel digital tv) to the AVR though having provisions.

 

[ajuvignesh]

On second thought, I think its time for a new TV

On a serious note, all you need is a stereo amp and 2 bookshelfs (or a 2.0 active system) for outstanding voice clarity, even at whisper quiet volumes.

I don't think a stereo setup will work in his case. His TV is downmixing the 5.1 content and the downmixed stereo has weak vocals is his issue. I don't think a stereo amp can improve vocals that are reduced by the TV. Hence, a 3.1 soundbar or a 2.1/3.1 AVR will do justice only if the TV can pass through the 5.1 audio to the receiver/soundbar.

 

[sbg]

Yamaha YHT-1840 - you get better control on each channels( raise 6db on surrounds for night time listening at lower master levels)
Logitech Z906 5.1 - THX certified , should be good and in your price bracket.

 

[Sandipbarik]

You can enjoy low volume listening experience even in a 5.1 system, just use night mode and it will suppress the loud dynamic range and will distribute the sound evenly without going insanely high levels. And you can use all the bells and whistles of Dolby from all the OTT platforms

I use my 5.1.2 system at night time normal listening volumes, and its so clear and soothing that you wont be able to hear the same from any soundbar or tv speaker again.