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Sound Bar Advice


GORGAR 1

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Hi

 

I’m after some advice about sound bars as I received a $200 JBHI gift voucher from the kids for my birthday. I’ll be connecting it to a 64 inch Hisence TV which I have to say is a fantastic tv with already great sound it has small front facing speakers plus a small sub in the tv which does sound pretty good but I just want that extra punch when watching movies or music blue ray. I have a external sub and speakers through a amp but the sound bar would be used for that in between sound when not using the amp :). The TV has a spare HDMI cable is it just plug and play? Does it turn on when the tv turns on automatically ? Cheers for advice hopefully $200 gets me something resemble, so any advice on a good brand what be much appreciated.

 

Peter :)

Edited by GORGAR 1
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Good questions.....

 

You need something because the sound will deteriorate on your TV because small, little dicky TV speakers on modern TVs simply don't last.

 

Make sure you grab one that doesn't need to be turned on manually as mine does, ( about every 6 hours it turns itself off ).

 

Consequently while this soundbar was hooked to the wife's TV, it was rarely being tuned on defeating the whole purpose of having a sound bar.

 

Best I found for her application was a LogiTec PC sound system. Far better sound and once on, it stays on rather than needing to find the soundbar's remote.

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Cant go past Yamaha Sound Bars...just looked JB Hifi dont stock them :(. If your TV is 4k make sure what ever you get get has 4K pass through for future proofing.

 

Had another look...nothing at the $200 level. I highly recommend the Yas 108 @$250. The shape is different to the Yas-107 which I got for $99. If you can find a 107 then grab that

 

Never heard of someone having sound bar AND an amp. I got rid of the 5.1 amp & speakers cos the missus never liked the bass. Really happy with the 107 and has surprisingly great sound for the cost and what it is.

 

If you havent already get yourself a Logitech Harmony Remote - makes life easy (for the wife) https://www.jbhifi.com.au/logitech/logitech-harmony-650-universal-remote/87127/

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nothing will ever replace a true Surround system with big speakers and amp setup, But If your going a sound bar, Go with BOSE if you can spare a few extra bucks. with anything speaker related its best going for the brands who have Good reputations in the industry for lasting a very long time, Like Jensen, Bose and a few others.

They have a BOSE sound bar for around $390, and Jbhifi are prety easy to talk down on price, The problem is allot of those other brands are just toys with fancy features you likely wont use but make them attractive to buy.

I just think out of what JB stocks Bose will last and Sound Brilliant.

 

You can buy fancier looking ones in the sony, JBL, Samsung and so on for the same money and they will do the job, but its the speakers and Speaker boxes that make brands Like BOSE and Jensen stand out, they design things for good acoustics and sound rather than Wank factor that allot of the other brands focus more on these days.

Yamaha would be a safe bet also.

I find with Audio its best to figure if your wanting to focus your money on fancy features or focus your money on good speakers,

Edited by jason1
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There's nothing decent in the $200 range. Bottom range soundbars sound awful.

 

Should go without saying, but don't buy anything until you listen to it first. If they don't have a display model insist on getting one opened up or go to a different store that has a working display unit.

 

If your TV supports Anynet+ you'll be able to configure it so the soundbar turns on/off with the TV, using just the TV remote (which will also control soundbar volume). Your mileage may vary here pending TV and soundbar.

 

I concur with Yamaha, they make nice audio gear. Samsung is hit and miss, some of their stuff is quite good but typically overpriced. LG are decent in the lower price bracket. Not a fan of lower end Sony stuff. I wouldn't go near JBL, nasty stuff.

 

Best bet is to listen to as many as you can, Harvey Norman usually have better showrooms for this.

 

Mind you, for the money you need to spend to obtain a soundbar that doesn't sound like tinny garbage you may be better off with a small 5.1 setup, these are sometimes cheaper than soundbars and sound a hell of a lot better. Yamaha have great entry level receiver / speaker sets.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Going through JBs website, this appears to be the best budget model available. Has all the features you want / need without costing too much. I have no idea how it sounds though, you'd need to hear it for yourself.

 

https://www.jbhifi.com.au/panasonic/panasonic-sc-htb488-2-1ch-soundbar-with-wireless-subwoofer/425530/

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Going through JBs website, this appears to be the best budget model available. Has all the features you want / need without costing too much. I have no idea how it sounds though, you'd need to hear it for yourself.

 

https://www.jbhifi.com.au/panasonic/...woofer/425530/

 

Yer Panasonic Would be good in that price range, out of those sorts of brands they would be better, they have been doing decent speakers for a very long time.

Obviously they were really well known for it when they had their Technics range back in the day, But they are still pretty good at the level they play at now,I would pick them over samsung, Sony or JBL at that price range. obviously the limitation is what is being Stocked at Jbhifi.

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Yep it's a Yamaha YAS 101 I have and it is the one that turns itself off after about 6 hours after it is turned on even though the TV is still turned on...WTF is this stupid feature for?

 

It needs a separate wall wart to power it and I originally was using the optical sound input but found this volume level way to low so that got changed to just basic 3.5mm from the Tv's headphone jack which sort of defeats the quest for good sound but at least it is now a desirable level of sound.

 

I suppose for the purist this would be an ideal unit but to me it is simply a way to get better sound from a TV that all TVs used to have but modern TVs don't.

 

LogiTec 2.1 PC unit I use now on the wife's TV like I said. Simple volume control on the unit itself as well as a ON OFF switch on the unit so even though you get a remote, you don't need it. The unit just sits there and does the basic TV speakers replacement role I was after and doesn't turn itself off, you do.

 

I set it's volume once and the TV's original volume on it's remote takes over. Simple but remember, it was just a simple job I bought the soundbar to do originally and unfortunately the soundbar manufacturer decided it best to make it all to complicated that requires to much fiddling just to do this simple job continuously.

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Yep it's a Yamaha YAS 101 I have and it is the one that turns itself off after about 6 hours after it is turned on even though the TV is still turned on...WTF is this stupid feature for?

 

So there is no way of turning that power saving feature off? wow that is a big over sight for sure. that would drive me nuts also.

 

Bit off topic sorry But I had aSimular problem with a samsung Blueray player that came with with its own speaker system.

I gave the speakers away as I have a big surround sound system. Problem was Every time I turned the Player on I had to change the setting on the sound to play out the Optical Or else I would get no sound. It was set default to the Samsung speakers and sound bar I no longer had, and Samsung didnt allow you to set default to the optical Out. Man it drove me nuts having to do that every time I turned the blueray player on. Even with the HDMI it wouldnt send sound to the TV unless you changed it every time you turned the Blueray player on so I couldnt even get around the problem that way.

 

Some times you wonder what these companies were smoking when they come up with the firmware, everytime the blueray did a firmware update I was hoping and preying they changed that feature, But they never did lol

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I have the Yamaha (Yas 207) soundbar also hooked up to a Hisense 65"

Really happy with the sound

Big bass ( My windows actually rattle!) and great surround sound

My Mrs actually turned her head thinking a bird was behind her!

Its more than you budget but check the reviews its worth it

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So there is no way of turning that power saving feature off? wow that is a big over sight for sure. that would drive me nuts also.

 

 

Yes it did or still does actually because I use the soundbar on my TV now. it was totally unsuitable for the wife's setup so I grabbed it. I did fail to mention the other major pissoff with this unit.

 

Not only does it turn itself off over time but you not only need to turn it back on, you also need to turn the volume back up to the level you had it on because it automatically defaults on power up back to no volume at all so you MUST turn the volume back up and until you do you have no sound at all.

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