Monitor Audio

[Benns654321]

Hi first post so go easy.

I am thinking of selling my M/Audio setup and replacing with a sound bar.
A pair of S2s also pair of S1s plus silver centre and rear radius 90s and finally a radius
720 sub quite a rare sub all in black plus Onkyo TXNR646 What soundbar should I get that would come close to my set up?.

Thanks.

Edited by Benns654321 on Tuesday 7th March 09:53

[Shinyfings]

I can't comment on your set-up but I have a Sonos Arc with surrounds and sub in my lounge and in my den a recent AV Amp (Denon AVR 2700) with older surround speakers and sub (Mission M3). The amp and surround set up is clearly better to my ears and is around half the price. Of course different rooms etc but you might find the soundbar is not as good as what you have. I think that many people go for a soundbar as it's easier to set up (much easier) and not as many cables to hide. The Sonos is great but if I had been tearing the lounge apart I'd have gone for an AV amp and small surrounds.

[Benns654321]

Hey.
Thanks for that I will see what I get for my setup and then look at the Sona's in Richard Sounds.

[SweptVolume]

Shinyfings said:

I can't comment on your set-up but I have a Sonos Arc with surrounds and sub in my lounge and in my den a recent AV Amp (Denon AVR 2700) with older surround speakers and sub (Mission M3). The amp and surround set up is clearly better to my ears and is around half the price. Of course different rooms etc but you might find the soundbar is not as good as what you have. I think that many people go for a soundbar as it's easier to set up (much easier) and not as many cables to hide. The Sonos is great but if I had been tearing the lounge apart I'd have gone for an AV amp and small surrounds.

I have to second this. A soundbar is always a compromise if you're comparing it to (or worse, downgrading from) a discrete surround sound system. All but the most expensive seem to be pitched at people who have bought a nice TV and are enduring the awful sound that televisions now have as standard. Compared to a TV speaker, a soundbar is a worthwhile upgrade, but I'm not sure I could go to a soundbar from my 5.1 setup.

[Benns654321]

Thanks.
I bought an LG C1 65inch and thought the lounge would look less cluttered with less speakers but maybe I should play safe and stick
with what I have.

[Timothy Bucktu]

Why are you thinking of doing that out of interest? Seems like a step backwards to me.

[Benns654321]

Hi yes your probably right but the wife has put up with speakers dominating our lounge and she's had enough
I thought the only way out and to keep the peace was to downsize when the sub is full on the windows shake and pictures fall off the wall
.

[rewild]

I replaced all my HiFi separates, AVR and floorstanders with a Sonos Beam soundbar, sub and 2xOne rear surrounds. It's not perfect.

Good bits:
The kids can use it.
Multiroom.
Consistent user experience throughout the house.
Plenty of volume.
Night mode and vocal enhancement for TV soundtracks (which turns down the explosions and makes the vocals easier to hear, and works really well for old people and the terrible mixing on Amazon etc). I would not want to be without this feature ever again, as we mostly watch TV in the evenings when the kids are in bed.

Bad bits:
The monthly-ish firmware updates cause the sub and rears to stop working. If we're not watching 5.1 soundtracks, it can take a while to notice. Then updates always fail and require manual intervention (powering everything off, then powering on and upgrading one device at a time, takes about half an hour and a lot of swearing). Automatic software updates on Sonos are completely and utterly broken, and have been for years and show no signs of being fixed.
The sound is obviously a compromise for your favourite digital recording of the Berlin Philharmonic, but for TV/Movies is quite enjoyable really.
For music, the best speakers are the rears, which can far out-punch the soundbar. If sitting on the sofa, it makes the sound stage rear-biased, which is very weird. You can turn it down at the rear but then you're missing a lot of punch. It's just not quite right. I would like another pair of Sonos Ones at the front, or more likely a stereo setup and floorstanders again just for music, but then we're back to cables and clutter and big objects in the room and I'm done with all that.

It's all a bit compromised really, but I don't think I'd go back to the old setup for my needs. If you still have any audiophile in you, don't do it. Wait till you're just fed up with all the kit and clutter and endless remotes and just want rid of it all forever, then Sonos (or similar) will suit you better.

[journeymanpro]

I bought a sonos arc, sub 3 and two one SL speakers with the idea of replacing my zeppelin (used for music) and a yamaha ysp3300 soundbar.

Ended up selling all the sonos gear as the zeppelin sounded superior to me and for the cost it just wasn't worth keeping the sonos stuff to be just a soundbar for occasional TV use.

[RizzoTheRat]

By the time you've added rear speakers for decent surround are you going to save a lot of space compared to your current setup?
The main advantage will be the lack of wires and possibly support for newer audio encoding.

I've just bought an LG soundbar to replace my old Onkyo receiver and 5.1 setup. The bar is a lot bigger than the previous center and side speakers, and the sub is about half as big again as my old Cambridge Audio S80. The rear speakers are about the same size as my old ones. However the advantage is the lack of wires. The rears have wires to a central box that sits behind the sofa, and that and the sub connect wirelessly to the bar. With the shape of the lounge there wasn't really any sensible way I could get wires from the TV to the rears.

Additionally, my Onkyo was pretty old and had to use optical to connect to the TV and component for anything else, whereas now I have audio over HDMI from everything with eArc to the bar.

[AC43]

Benns654321 said:

Hi first post so go easy.

I am thinking of selling my M/Audio setup and replacing with a sound bar.
A pair of S2s also pair of S1s plus silver centre and rear radius 90s and finally a radius
720 sub quite a rare sub all in black plus Onkyo TXNR646 What soundbar should I get that would come close to my set up?.

Thanks.

Edited by Benns654321 on Tuesday 7th March 09:53

I wouldn't bother; I have a set up in my front room with a Yamaha Aventage amp, MA 90's L & R, Radius 225 centre and Tannoy sub & rears.

In the other room I have a Yamaha YSP2700 sound bar which cost me £900. It's good for a soundbar but it's no match for the separates.

At the end of the days it's physics; you need space for processing sound properly and more space for shifting air.....

[Benns654321]

Hey guy's.
Thanks for all your responses I did not realise there are so many people out there with the same problem.
Just to clarify I am better staying with what I have/.

[DavidY]

If its going in the TV stand (as opposed to TV on the wall) then a Naim Mu-So is a good compromise, not got the earth shattering bbass of a dedicated sub, but is quite musical, so can easily double up as an audio player/streamer.

[AC43]

DavidY said:

If its going in the TV stand (as opposed to TV on the wall) then a Naim Mu-So is a good compromise, not got the earth shattering bbass of a dedicated sub, but is quite musical, so can easily double up as an audio player/streamer.

I've hear a Muso demo'd a couple of times; once on a hollow cabinet when it didn't work very well and once on a solid shelf when it blew me away - but you're right, it can't do the really low frequencies that a sub can, obviously, and that's a big thing for me.

I've got a sub on my main AV setup up and subs with the soundbars on two of my other three TVs. And a sub in the main sound system downstairs and one on the system in the master bedroom. To my ears, anyway, they make a big difference. Not in terms of providing a thundering undercurrent, more just in terms of rounding out whatever music or soundtrack is playing.

[Dave Hedgehog]

I had a monitor audio 7.1 silver system with a pair of RS8's

- this is from the perspective of a film watcher not an audiophile -

For me the there was only one choice and that was a Samsung 11.1 Dolby atmos sound bar with sub and satellites, they are a big step up over other systems, and the small size and wireless connection is OH friendly unlike the RS8's. It was the first sound bar i heard that i considered to be good enough. It passed the will it induce PTSD watching Band of Brothers Bastogne test.

https://www.samsung.com/uk/audio-devices/soundbar/...

Edited by Dave Hedgehog on Wednesday 8th March 15:57

[Benns654321]

Hi Dave.
That looks awesome I really am impressed I will try and see if I can get a demonstration some where.
Thanks for all your help guy's.