A few weeks back my Yamaha Aventage home theater receiver gave up the ghost. I guess it had a right to since it was 13 years old.

For a replacement, I considered similar new receivers from Yamaha, Onkyo, Pioneer and Denon.  I’m not an audiophile, but wanted a good quality replacement since I keep electronics a long  time; I am not on a constant upgrade treadmill.  I also initially shunned soundbars as not as capable as traditional receivers, but after research, I don’t think that’s the case.  So after a lot of reading, I looked at Polk, Samsung, Sonos, and Sennheiser.

Sorry, I hate all things Sony. Too much of their stuff has died prematurely on me over the decades.

Most home theater receivers have similar features with differences here and there. On some, the price can go up 50% for an extra 10 watts of power and not much else.

Comparing most soundbars, I found little difference and one could really get wrapped up in paying for a name.  Most all of the systems in the middle pack or above sport Dolby Atmos and some flavor of DTS, bluetooth connectivity and similar features. Look for the number of HDMI connections to the main soundbar to connect your equipment, that it can handle 4K and that ALL speakers are wireless and not just a subset.

Some good sites for research are Crutchfield, AVSForum, soundandvision.com and rtings.com (although the last one has gotten kinda paywalley now). Buy from wherever you want, but I don’t like ebay for electronics because of stolen equipment.

I ended up buying the Samsung HW-Q990C soundbar system. It includes the front center, a sub-woofer and two rear speaker for “5.1”. It’s advertised as 11.1.4, but it’s really 5.1 with some fancy footwork with several speakers pointed in different directions. The sub and two rear speakers connect to the main soundbar wirelessly and then that attaches to the TV via Audio Return Channel, which is built into most TVs (ARC and eARC). The two rear speakers actually have three speakers in each pointed in different directions, so that’s the game for trying to reproduce surround.  The thing that tipped me over to a soundbar system over a receiver was wireless between all components.  Yeah, sacrilege, I know. But it does work well when done correctly.

In speaking with others about the technology, one thing I was told was that the signal processing circuitry in the components has to be quick because any bit of latency between all speakers or sound and video can cause lip-syncing issues. I have found it to be spot on so far after a couple of weeks. No dropouts or static, although some earlier models have had those problems. So make sure whatever brand you purchase, they’ve been doing soundbars, not just audio equipment for a while. That’s important!  

Most audio equipment today is built to a price point, so look for sales as the the economy gets worse and the holidays hit.  There is some crazy priced equipment out there. Try not to get trapped in to paying for a name.

Finally, there has been considerable consolidation in the audio industry. JBL is owned by Samsung. Denon is owned by DEI, the same holding company that owns Marantz, Polk and Boston Acoustics. Onkyo purchased Pioneer and filed for bankruptcy a few years later, but they still sell product via the “Premium Audio Company”.  It’s good to know this when you buy stuff for warranty purposes, but let’s just say, “Everyone is buying everyone” and the Venture Capital firms are busy wheeling and dealing, merging and acquiring.


Setup was really, really easy.   I’ve watched Close Encounters, Star Wars and Heat so far.  Pretty damn good.

We had a decent 600ish Klipsh Sound Bar and Sub, with many bells and whistles...

Got decently loud and sounded good doing it.  It even tricked you into thinking it had some surround sound with only having a Sound bar and Sub.

While I had Zero complaints about the sound (for its only 600) we had nothing but problems out of it.
Wouldn't turn on, then wouldn't turn off, turn on, but could not control the volume, would turn on, but sub would not turn on.
Every night at about 9, when I'd want to watch TV for the 1 hour before bed, I'd have to futz with it till about 9:45 to get it to work as it should.  By the time I get a show on screen, its time to get ready for bed.

Finally, it 100% shot craps, neither it or the sub will come on.  Both pretty much dead.

If the sub had an RCA/low level input, I could possibly use it with another bar or off a receiver that had a sub out. Nope, its Bluetoth or some proprietary RF only, no inputs...

The unit has been discontinued and there is no way I'd buy another.  The manufacture has been less than helpful.
I'm going back to a receiver and 5.1 Speakers.

We purchased that same soundbar a few months ago. At first I thought the sub didn't work and almost took it back, but after setting up the smart things app and a lot of adjusting, I got it sounding good enough

B&W or bust

Even a cheap soundbar will beat practically any built in TV speakers.

I wouldn't get hung up much on atmos or whatever on most soundbars. Atmos can be used on anything from 1 to a zillion speakers, doesn't mean you'll get the spatial sound effect. You need speaker coverage and much more importantly speaker placement and a well laid out room to actually get that sense of presence that atmos and dts provide. Those upfiring atmos modules barely work even in ideal settings.

If you're in Europe, isn't auro3d fairly big there? Some of the newer denons come with it. I have a 3600 that I can pay for it on but never have. I do think my current setup at 7.5.4 is fucking awesome, but it literally takes a full room dedicated to it to do "right". You can't really half ass a theater room and get great spatial audio.

Check out accessories4less.

Buy 2 soundbars.   Set up one on each side of the tv.  Or just buy some good speakers and forget about soundbars.

Two old Sony systems are working fine.
Had general good luck with Sony.

I would probably get the Sonos, mostly because I have them for music in two homes.  Wireless is pretty convenient and reliable….a speaker now and then needs reset.

Got my last two soundbars at costco.  don't care anymore.

Soundbars are for convenience and minimal wiring.

I have a full Sonus system with 2 subs.  It’s great.  It’s way more money than a comparable wired system, but it looks great without all the wiring.  

As far as I’m concerned it sounds great and looks great.

I also picked up the Samsung Q990C recently. $800 after AAA discount through Samsung. It's pretty amazing for a sound bar.

Good to hear they are figuring out the delay/latency issue. Tried 2 soundbars in the last 10 years- both had a slight latency I could not get past.

I will mention I play e-drums and use MIDI- I'm very sensitive to ANY latency issues.  

For home theater, I'll personally stick to receivers and wired surround systems.

I’m fully invested in Sonos

Have the arc, sub, rears in one room. The beam in another. And an SL in the master bath.

Oh and a roam for camping.

They all work great.

If you think they're at all comparable to a traditions home theater setup, you're somewhere between completely wrong and delusional.

No wireless audio solution in a commercial spectrum is going to be error or delay free, so keep that in mind. Also, the size of the drivers matters. You can't change physics to fill in deficiencies in a speaker's response curve.

That said, they are a great option for bar TVs, small game rooms, kitchens, and anywhere you are otherwise limited to TV speakers. They are orders of magnitude better than built-in speakers. The convenience and minimal wiring definitely helps.

Those guys remind me of a couple of wild & crazy guys I used to know...