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“Did he say ‘I love you’ or ‘Olives are awesome?'”
If you find yourself struggling to understand the dialogue in movies and TV shows, there’s an easy solution: get yourself a soundbar. No matter how you watch your streaming content—on a TV, a monitor, laptop, or tablet—you have no excuse for suffering the tinny sound that comes with the display. Soundbars are simple to use, and add volume and resonance to the sound that’s a key part of your experience.
In the past few years, some soundbars have gotten cheaper—like under $100 cheap—while others have morphed into over-the-top audio systems that cost more than $1,000. Here are some of the best of what’s available.
Inexpensive Not Cheap
When I say there’s no excuse for not getting a soundbar, I mean it. You’ll find dozens priced at less than $100. But—with a few shining exceptions—you get what you pay for, so don’t just buy any one you find the least expensive one you find.
Megacra’s $90 Soundbar is small at 28 inches wide, but can fill a medium size room and even brings good bass without a subwoofer. Vizio’s SB36An-F6 36-inch soundbar can often be found on sale for $100 and sounds even better than the Megacra. If you can up the budget, Yamaha YAS-108 costs around $180 and will wow you will excellent detail and full bass. I especially like its Clear Voice mode for boosting dialog. You won’t get a subwoofer with these low-priced models, but you will hear an immediate improvement in how well you can hear what’s going on.
Buy the Megacra soundbar on Amazon
Expensive and Awesome
If you want to unleash the full potential of sound in your streams, go big with your soundbar choice. The best soundbars rival home theater systems with separate speakers and an A/V receiver (and many wires) for features and sound quality. They also tend to cost $1,000 or more. Your ears are worth it.
The $699 Sonos Playbase is an excellent all-around unit. It sits under your TV (thus the “base”). It doesn’t come with a subwoofer and you probably won’t miss it. Best of all, if you have other Sonos speakers in the house you can take advantage of the easiest multi-room sound setup available. If you really want to go for it, you can add a wireless sub for and wireless surround speakers for a completely kick ass system—but the price tag for all that is $1,800.
The Playbase sounds great and is the simplest to set up and use, but it doesn’t have any HDMI ports. Samsung’s $1,600 HW-N950 is a behemoth of a soundbar and packs in every port and feature you want. It comes with a wireless sub and two surround speakers, and can play Dolby Atmos—the latest in surround sound technology that includes height. Atmos makes helicopters feel like they are buzzing across the top of your head instead of simply moving from back to front.
If you want to try out Atmos but can’t stomach spending a lot, Vizio’s SB36512-F6 costs only $500—no other Atmos system comes close to that price.
Buy the Sonos Playbase on Amazon
Buy the Samsung HW-N950 on Amazon
Buy the VIZIO SB36512-F6 5.1 Soundbar Home Speaker on Amazon
Sound Smart
How do you make a soundbar smarter? You add in Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant. With Alexa inside, you don’t even need a remote—just say what you want it to do: turn on the TV, change the volume, or even start a stream. Smart soundbars are still relatively new, and you’re most likely to find them in midpriced models right now, such as the $300 Polk Command Bar or $399 Sonos Beam. Both are solid but the sound quality can’t compete with more expensive models.
If you’ve been hesitant to add a soundbar to your set up, get over it and pick up one of the inexpensive models I mentioned. If you already have a soundbar and are ready to take your experience up a notch, make the investment in a top-notch system. It’ll open your ears to what you’ve been missing.
Michael Gowan impatiently waits for somebody—anybody!—to stream the complete Moonlighting series. You can follow him on Twitter @zebgowan.
