Tell me about sound bars vs surround sound.
 

We are looking for a little better sound than our tv provides. The room is 18' x 25'. The tv is a Vizio 60" mounted over the fireplace mantle.

I'm not pre wired for sound, so wireless is needed. A sound bar can be placed on the mantle below the tv.

Would I need a sound bar to match the width of our tv? Or would a 38-42" one work?

Thoughts?

You're going to need some fairly large speakers and a bunch of watts to make decent sound in a room that big. I don't think a sound bar will do squat. I have a room about 1/4 that size for my television and my center channel speaker is quite a bit larger than a bookshelf speaker, as are my left and right speakers. I don't really see you doing anything fantastic with wireless components.

JR

I wanted something with a clean look; I got a sonos soundbar with a sub and two play:1 speakers for surround. My room is about 18x22. I didnt want "audiophile"'sound, just something reasonable. I was very surprised! The price is pretty out of hand but the convenience is great.

I imagine there's something that sounds as good or better for much less money if you aren't into the sonos thing in the rest of the house already.

If you are willing to remove the baseboards, in walls are quite do-able. Down, across and up. Drill the firebreak through the hole you cut and use a fish tape. Put in a 7.1 setup this way in an afternoon.

Add a decent sub (in my case a VMPS large) and the dB level can quite be acceptable.

Thanks guys. We aren't looking for audiophile quality, just a little bit better sound.

If you are looking for a bit more volume and fuller range of sound, then I would think that a good center channel speaker and powered sub would do that (without giving you audiophile sound quality).

I assume you do not have a stereo in the room to run the sound through. If that is the case, then you'd probably need something like a center channel speaker with a subwoofer output if such a thing exists. What sort of audio outputs does your TV have? That might somewhat determine what your options are. If you want to go with surround sound, you'll probably need a stereo to separate the channels unless your
Tv has a set of outputs.

I'll have to see what outputs are on the tv. It's brand new, so I hope it has what's needed.

It's hard to say. It's not unusual for there to be two models of the same basic TV, one with 1 or 2 inputs and one with a full complement of inputs and outputs.

Really like my surround sound, but am a freak.
Have had surround sound since 1982.

Use my sony TV to switch sources, cable, Apple TV, and a computer setup as a media server. TV has 4 HDMI inputs. Use the TV's external sound output to a receiver to do Surround Sound because a receiver has the 5 amp channels needed to power the center, front right, front left, rear right, and rear left. All I use the receiver for is to play the TV sound for whatever source the TV is playing.

My goal was to create a sound stage that has the largest sweat spot as possible. That means that no matter where you sit in my living room you don't hear one of the speakers over the others. You can even sit right next to any one of the speakers and the sound doesn't sound like it is coming from that speaker more than the others.

Have had visitors comment about how great it sounds and that they want to get surround sound.

Movies stereo soundtracks have included surround sound encoding since 1972.

Sonos soundbar and matching Sonos speakers. It is wireless, speakers are active and software is top notch. Pricey? Yes. Good? Yes.

Just about exactly our situation. Sony 55" over the fireplace in a room about that size. I mounted a Vizio soundbar right under the TV and placed the wireless subwoofer on a nearby shelf. Not surround sound by any means but way better than the crappy speakers in the TV.