jono300

iTrader: (8)

Looking to buy a sound bar to go with a new Panasonic smart tv we plan to buy next week, looking to spend around £250 to £300 on the sound bar, anything worth considering ?? how do the all in one sound bars compare to the ones with the separate sub etc ??

Rescue Dude

iTrader: (11)

I bought a new Panasonic tv a few months back and researched sound bars for it.

I came to the conclusion that for that money they're not that good.

I ended up buying this as I was also thinking of getting a Blu ray player.

http://www.avforums.com/reviews/Pana...51/Review.html

It get's decent reviews and I can't fault it. Sounds great and is well worth the money.

http://www.whathifi.com/review/panasonic-sc-btt590

Graz

Did pretty much the same albeit with an earlier version of that system.

A sound bar will probably be better than the TVs built in speakers but it's never going to be as good as a 5.1 system.

Thing I really like about having the Panasonic Blu-Ray home cinema with the Panasonic TV is that they communicate with each other down the HDMI cable (Viera Link) such that when I turn on the TV it automatically turns on the home cinema and then the TV volume controls the home cinema volume

urban

iTrader: (1)

That's a fantastic feature.

warrenm2

Funnily enough I was in Richer sounds last weekend asking about surround sound. His opinion FWIW was that 5.1 systems are good but often set up poorly with suboptimal speaker placement. He recommended the Yamaha YSP2200, although way out of your budget though

http://www.trustedreviews.com/yamaha...-System_review

Chip

I have the Yam 2200 and its very good.

dpb

600 quid.!! Fabulous

Devildog

Spend the extra and get a Sonos Playbar.

Awesome quality, app controlled via tablet or smartphone, plays all your music too.

Rescue Dude

iTrader: (11)

This. ^^^


My tv sounds great but you realise just how much better a decent 5.1 sounds when after watching something through the 5.1 then you turn it off and hear the tv!!

After over thirty years in motorsport i'm a bit 'Mutt 'n' Jeff' and a decent sound system really makes all the difference in sound clarity.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I don't have any particular products to reccomend (I'm searching for a bar that I can use with a 22" TV) but I can tell you what to look for in a good setup. Here's a fewpoints to look for:

Small speaker drivers/enclosures...the smaller the speaker driver the less bass it will produce without distorting, the smaller the enlcosure, again bass and midtones suffer. Some soundbars have speakers no bigger than what already is inside the TV!

Open vented (dipole type ) enlcosures (like on most LCD/PLasma TVs) sound poor. Unless assisted by a subwoofer. Sealed or ported enclosures will sound better. Small enclosures will need some form of subwoofer to assist them (be it seperate or built in).

Setups that have one-way speaker drivers (no tweeter) are pointless. You miss far too much high frequency clarity. Many low-end sound bars and Home-cinema-in-a-box systems are like this and personally I'd seek to check behind the speaker grills to see if they have tweeters before even considering listening to them.

Hope that helps.

jono300

iTrader: (8)

Cheers guys really appreciate the info.

John