Sound bar in a box . . . can't understand dialog.

Cabinets and wives are the bane of audio and home theater.  Not sure which I hate more, but at least cabinets don't talk. 

"ALERT! Wife is an interior designer so anything that does not fit inside box is not acceptable."

Does your wife fit inside the box?  The box is probably fine, it's your wife that's unacceptable. 

Or get wireless headphones.  They'll sound better and you won't have to hear your wife complain. 

Spend a crapload on a better soundbar and switch it when she's not around.  She'll never notice. 

+1 Erik.  I'd think pillows would be the easiest and most effective solution.  Just make sure they fill your wife's mouth completely. 

Best of luck. 

Try a better sound bar.  You can always return it.  Buy direct from visio.  I love my zvox but it has huge rear ports and a sub that would just rumble in a cabinet.

Re: pillows...Damn, I like that! Will try the experiment.

Re: the wife thing...this is my second pass...don't think I'll try that experiment again.

Re: better soundbar.  Actually, I think this one is dying so may be in the cards.

Cheers, Dan

Soundbar is something I find really difficult to give recommendations for because every one is unique be it size, features, performance and of course price.

You don’t really need to spend $1k for soundbar... There are soundbars with sub for less than $200. But if you can, spend more. Lots of $$$ in soundbar goes into the form factor and home theatre features such that normal speakers can sound as good for half the price. I find myself needing around $1k to get acceptable sound from TV soundbars, and many brands don’t even manage to reproduce proper sound even at higher prices (Granted, these brands, which shall not be named, also do not manufacture either a) AVRs, b) HT speakers, c) literally any proper audio product of any form, hence me concluding that their target customers are the kum gongs)

Cheap soundbar:
https://wisepick.org/best-soundbar-under-500/

At cheap prices really, soundbars don’t give much improvement over TV speakers (unless you’re using those new super slim LCD/LED TVs which have horribad speakers - maybe the cause of cheap soundbars rising?) except mainly for the fact that it has a subwoofer.

I'm surprise the Samsung HW-MS650 isn't on that list with the link.
I've yet to read a bad review on it and am considering getting one myself.

All the best,
Nonoise