You don’t need to be an audiophile to appreciate the difference that a half-decent speaker makes to your listening experience. No matter what you’re listening to, a soundbar can bring out a new depth to any audio. Whether it’s films, TV, music or gaming.
The main consideration for soundbars is that they’re designed to work in tandem with televisions, in this case, unfortunately, size does matter. If your TV is small (50 inches across or less), you can opt for a small soundbar to match, and the same goes for a bigger screen. A larger soundbar will be better at syncing sound with its placement on a large screen.
If you’re chasing the 3D experience, consider the JBL BAR Gen 4. The slim product offers Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a HDMI input and HDMI ARC. An ideal soundbar for millenials, this one is perfect you’re looking to create a 3D surround effect for movies, music and video games. It may cost a little more, but it looks better and lasts even longer.
If you’re aiming high, there’s one feature you want to look for: Dolby Atmos. It’s an immersive audio system that breaks sound into three dimensions, allowing speakers of every form to play even small sounds in the clearest and most immersive way possible.
A baseline quality speaker, something like the LG Sound Bar S40T, will set you back no more than $400. In this case, its 300W capacity produces louder sounds for such a small model, but the 2.1-inch drivers won’t deliver as much for bass and complex sounds. While it does use Dolby Audio, it doesn’t provide Dolby Atmos.
A nice middle ground comes in the form of something like a Bose Smart Soundbar, which offers Dolby Atmos and Bose Truespace to scale up any audio that’s below that level as best it can. This is a great pick if you own Bose earbuds, as the soundbar can pair to broadcast select sounds into your headphones for a properly surround sound experience.
For a high-grade all-in-one package, you need to raise the bar for something like the Sennheiser Ambeo Soundbar Mini, which packs Dolby Atmos audio, Bluetooth and smart home compatibility and automated self-calibration to tailor its sound to your space into a 70-inch speaker and subwoofer.
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Then, there’s the full-blown home theatre direction. Trigger warning, it doesn’t come cheap. Samsung’s Q-series Soundbar HW-Q990F comes with an 11.1.4 ch Subwoofer & Rear Speaker. In short, imagine all the bonuses we’ve already covered but the speakers are in front of you, behind you or next to you, for just shy of $2,000 AUD. Don’t run it by your accountant.
Sony offers similar home theatre speaker sets, with soundbars, subwoofers and packs of additional speakers that range from stereo sound to proper Dolby Atmos levels of quality. To mix and match a setup — and not lose a drop of quality per product — this would be our recommendation.
