@hilde45, I recently faced a similar situation and share much of your perspective. IME, the sound quality from all the sound bars I heard demoed greatly underwhelmed. I was surprised that they’ve grown so in popularity given the huge red flag sound quality. I’d just upgraded to a Sony tv with great picture and a totally unserviceable built-in speaker, so I had to get something.
Long story short, consider a pair of small powered speakers & sub. Edifier, Kanto & Vanatoo are some of the better contenders all under $1K depending on sub or not and finishes etc. I chose an Edifier 2.1 setup and place the 10"h speakers on a tv stand shelf below the screen, with the sub on the floor nearby. For ~$400, sound quality crushes about a dozen of the sound bars I heard from all the usual suspect brands. These and others are visually unobtrusive and surprisingly pleasant sounding. They’re so enjoyable I find myself watching more musical performance documentaries and videos and getting more pleasure from them.
For perspective I’ve previously owned a full surround system including Aerial/Sunfire/Classe/Marantz that cost $10K and didn’t provide noticeably more pleasure than what I’m using now. Cheers,
Spencer
Long story short, consider a pair of small powered speakers & sub. Edifier, Kanto & Vanatoo are some of the better contenders all under $1K depending on sub or not and finishes etc. I chose an Edifier 2.1 setup and place the 10"h speakers on a tv stand shelf below the screen, with the sub on the floor nearby. For ~$400, sound quality crushes about a dozen of the sound bars I heard from all the usual suspect brands. These and others are visually unobtrusive and surprisingly pleasant sounding. They’re so enjoyable I find myself watching more musical performance documentaries and videos and getting more pleasure from them.
For perspective I’ve previously owned a full surround system including Aerial/Sunfire/Classe/Marantz that cost $10K and didn’t provide noticeably more pleasure than what I’m using now. Cheers,
Spencer