Is it time for a soundbar
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Discussion

stevemcs

Original Poster:

10,115 posts

120 months

Tuesday 2nd June
quotequote all
We are currently decorating the living room and I’m wondering if it’s time to go for a Sonos ultra, currently we have

Demon 3400
Bk xl200
Monitor audio 90’s front and rear and a 200 centre

Most of the stuff we watch is tv - either sports or YouTube and it runs through amp and front speakers and we very rarely use the rears

So if I went Sonos it would be the ultra and a sub as I assume I cannot run the bk sub with it.

Or do I just pick up a set of used monitor audio bronze speakers and c150 centre ?

How good is the Sonos with music ?

Room is 5x3 with a lvt floor

clockworks

7,367 posts

172 months

Tuesday 2nd June
quotequote all
How about a passive soundbar?

I went for a Monitor Audio passive soundbar (SB3) to replace the three front channels, plus MA ceiling speakers for the rears. Kept my existing Quad sub and Denon AVR.

We've since reassigned the ceiling speakers to Atmos channels, and added a pair of slim Polk floorstanders as rears.


rodericb

8,722 posts

153 months

Thursday 4th June
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What is it that you want to do? Remove the Hi Fi infrastructure from that location and replace it all with something more one-box/discrete?

Paul Drawmer

5,140 posts

294 months

Saturday 6th June
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The Wiim Wiimbar may be worth waiting for. No proper reviews yet, but I'll be surprised if it doesn't work very well.

The wiim system is all digital with DSP doing the heavy lifting for creating a proper room sound. Their products include room correction through their app, and I really like my Wiim Amp Pro.

https://www.whathifi.com/tv-home-cinema/soundbars/...

juggsy

1,524 posts

157 months

Thursday 25th June
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I was going to start a similar thread as I m in the market for a new home cinema system, hope you don’t mind a piggyback.

We’re a Sonos house and have various speakers and soundbars dotted round the house. I can get an arc ultra, sub4 and 2x era 300 speakers to use as rears for a little under £1900 (with upgrade discount), giving me a full Atmos surround setup.

Watching a very helpful review has led me to believe this will be a more than competent Atmos setup. And I do like the low faff factor and clean setup this provides, particularly as we have many Sonos products in the house already. At the same time, I m debating what separates system I could get for the same money, particularly if it would blow the Sonos setup out the water.

Curious if anyone is in a similar boat or has gone through this decision?

stevemcs

Original Poster:

10,115 posts

120 months

Thursday 25th June
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I still haven’t made a decision, I think I’ll end up going small book shelf speakers

gareth h

4,250 posts

257 months

Monday 29th June
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I went Sonos Arc and a sub, tbh it was ok with TV but awful if I wanted to play any music, ended up selling it and going back to a decent amp, 5 speakers and a sub, much better solution

Dave Hedgehog

16,127 posts

231 months

Monday 29th June
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it might be worth auditioning an Sennheiser AMBEO Max, but i suspect no sound bar can compete with 'real' speakers