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Is a Soundbar Better Than Speakers: How to Choose for a Better Home Sound System

should you choose a soundbar or a speaker system?

If you want to improve your home theater, one of the most important things to consider is the sound system. But should you choose a soundbar or a speaker system? Is a soundbar better than speakers? While both sound systems will provide much better audio than your TV, they are quite different.

What is a Soundbar?

Is a soundbar better than speakers?

A soundbar is a simple way to improve TV sound without buying a home theater system. It’s handy because it’s small and can sit in front of, under, or above the TV. Soundbars are self-contained and do not have to rely on a receiver, which makes moving them from one place to another easy.

Is a Soundbar Better Than Speakers: Reasons to Get a Soundbar

They are Compact

Soundbars need less space than surround sound systems. Surround sound systems have many speakers, some of which must be mounted overhead, but soundbars don’t. They sit on your TV console, making them a better fit for homes that are tight on space.

You Get Better Sound Quality.

While they cannot offer the full experience of true surround sound, soundbars of decent quality can offer a sufficiently immersive virtual surround sound experience by using small, in-built speakers to trick your ears into hearing more sound sources around you than there are.

This is only the minimum if you plan to bring a movie, game, or concert’s soundscape to life in your living room.

What are Traditional Speakers?

This sound system has different parts to improve the sound. Separate speakers and an amplifier/receiver produce better surround sound effects than a soundbar. Furthermore, the setup can be customized for any space.

Why Should You Choose Speakers

They Create a More Immersive Experience

A properly calibrated surround or home theatre system offers an even more realistic experience than TV speakers and soundbars. It uses actual, dedicated speakers that each handle individual audio channels (or types of sounds), such as music, sound effects, and voices.

This also creates a true surround sound experience, letting you hear live-quality sounds from all directions, whether on your left, right, top, front, or back.

They Guarantee You Can Hear Every Line Clearly

Ever felt annoyed trying to understand a movie or show on TV but can’t hear even when you increase the volume? You can help with a surround sound system.

Having many speakers gives you true surround sound and ensures that every spoken word is clear. This is because a special speaker focuses only on dialogue. So you can hear voices over loud effects like explosions or gunshots.

They’re Highly Customizable

Why Should You Choose Speakers

Audio systems can be tailored to match your needs. Need more depth when watching movies? Get a 5.1.2 setup with ceiling speakers that’ll add a ‘height’ effect. Otherwise, a basic 5.1 setup will do fine, providing better audio clarity and immersiveness than your TV’s in-built speakers.

Which is Right for You?

Do you have a sense of soundbars and home theater speakers? Let’s see which works better for you. What you like watching and how good the sound is crucial. Each person has different needs for their sound.

Soundbars

TVs are becoming thinner, so their speakers must also keep up, but they still need better sound. Some soundbars even let you create surround sound by adding more speakers and adjusting their position. Some premium soundbars come with built-in Dolby Atmos technology, which provides a fully immersive experience that mimics having speakers all around the room. That includes left, right, center, and above, so you truly feel part of the action.

Traditional Speakers

Traditional speakers are for individuals looking to create a home theater experience

Traditional speakers are for individuals looking to create a home theater experience with enough space to accommodate it. Traditional speakers, including the receiver, rear speakers, floor speakers, and subwoofer, could be right for you if you’re into movies. Also, please look at our complete surround sound guide for extra details.

A traditional speaker system gives you a great audio experience for movies and TV shows. You can experience surround sound effects with rear speakers; the setup is flexible. These systems let you mix and match. You’re not stuck with just one brand. Choose speakers and parts you like. Plus, you can grow and improve them whenever you want.

You can buy complete systems in bundles, too. Bundles vary from a 2.1 stereo system with only left and right speakers and a subwoofer, suitable for music, to an 11.1 system with speakers on both sides in front and behind, a center channel, subwoofer, and above. Specific placement might change according to how the room is set up. Usually, though, folks go for a basic stereo or 5.1 arrangement.

What’s the Difference Between a Soundbar and Speakers?

Soundbars are much easier to install and usually cheaper than surround-sound speakers. However, surround-sound speakers usually have better audio quality, giving you more options and the ability to upgrade your sound system over time.

Soundbar vs Speakers: Installation

Soundbars are much easier to set up when installing a sound system than surround-sound speakers. To install a soundbar, you plug it into your TV. To install surround-sound speakers, you must wire each unit to an AV receiver.

Soundbars are an all-in-one device, so you usually need only one wire to connect to your TV. On the other hand, conventional surround sound speakers come with lots of individual speakers. In most cases, you must wire each speaker to an A/V receiver. Then, you will need to connect the AV receiver to your TV.

Soundbar vs Surround Sound: Features

These days, soundbars offer many features, such as Bluetooth compatibility and built-in smart assistants. However, you can get all the same features and more with surround sound speakers, as long as you have the right AV receiver.

Most soundbars and AV receivers connect to your TV with an HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) cable. However, soundbars usually only have one HDMI port on the back. That means you can only connect most soundbars to your TV. However, most AV receivers have several HDMI ports to connect your other devices, such as game consoles, Blu-ray players, etc.

Since an AV receiver has multiple HDMI ports, you won’t have to connect your other devices directly to your TV. It can make it easier to disconnect your devices or connect new devices. Plus, most AV receivers also have other audio ports on the back, which allows you to connect record players, radio antennas, and more.

It is important to note that there are two kinds of HDMI ports that you can use to connect your TV to either audio system: HDMI ARC (audio return channel) and HDMI eARC (enhanced audio return channel). If you want the best audio quality, you should find a soundbar or AV receiver that supports HDMI eARC. However, your TV must also support the latest HDMI standard to use this technology.

Soundbar vs Surround Sound: Upgrading

Speakers gives you more options to upgrade your sound system

Soundbars vs. surround-sound speakers: The latter gives you more options to upgrade your sound system. Depending on your budget, you can get a few speakers at a time and upgrade your sound system over time. Soundbars, on the other hand, offer little upgradability.

With a speaker system, you only need two stereo speakers and an AV receiver to start. Then, you can add a subwoofer, a center channel, and other speakers later. This will allow you to upgrade a 2.1 sound system to a 3.1, 5.1, or 7.1 channel system whenever possible. However, if you want to upgrade your system, you must have an AV receiver to handle all your channels.

Most soundbars keep you from upgrading your sound system over time. That means you must buy an entirely new soundbar to upgrade or when something breaks. However, a few high-end soundbars, like the Sonos Arc and the Sonos Beam, allow you to add a subwoofer and wireless rear speakers.

Soundbar vs Speakers: Audio Quality

While a soundbar will improve your TV’s audio, surround sound speakers usually deliver the best quality. Speaker systems usually offer a much wider soundstage than even the most expensive soundbars.

With surround sound speakers, you can have audio from all around you, which you can’t achieve with a regular soundbar. While some soundbars advertise that they offer surround sound audio, you must buy additional speakers to experience “true” surround sound.

Do you want to learn more about the differences between a soundbar and speakers and which one is right for your home? Please reach out to us today!