Right now my audio solution is a Pioneer VSX-832 receiver, Audioengine P4 stereo speakers, and am Audioengine subwoofer. It sounds fine but is kind of a cable management nightmare and the speakers don’t actually fit on our TV stand right now so it looks a mess.

I’m considering replacing that setup with a soundbar and small subwoofer. I know real home theater nerds sneer at soundbars, but realistically we’re not going to do surround sound. Our living room is super narrow so the sofa is only about 6 feet from the TV and that’s with it up against a wall, so there’s no putting rear speakers in here. When we tried we hated it. It just doesn’t work well in the room.

I’m okay with basically a 2.1 system but I’m wondering if I could do that in a way that’s compact, looks nice, and has a center channel so we can hear some goddamn dialog occasionally.

Would a nice soundbar actually be an upgrade from this situation?

  • finemike@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Pioneer VSX-832 is 5.1 capable, you can buy a center channel speaker to improve dialogs.

  • verycoolusername@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Sound-wise, I think you will not see a huge improvement. Are you able to go to a store near you to test the soundbar?

    • funnyletter@lemmy.oneOP
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      1 year ago

      Realistically probably not. I think the only place around here that carries the ones I’m interested in is Best Buy, and I don’t think testing something in a Best Buy would give me much insight to how it would sound in my house. :( I’m looking at like $800-1200 stuff and the local fancy home theater place mostly carries $2000 stuff.

      • achance4cheese@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I never bought anything from Best Buy but I visited one near me to preview a few speakers that I eventually bought from accessories4less for my 5.1 setup. I was using a soundbar for years before that and I’ll never go back. Just my recommendation based on my experience. I have a 2.0 setup also that I just upgrade my AVR for and am very happy with it.