sound bar

Dazzle your ears with KEF's X300A powered speakers

KEF's new X300A is a nifty desktop speaker, but it can also be used as a hi-fi or stereo home theater speakers. Granted, it's a bit pricey, but it sounds a lot better than say, a $699 Sonos Playbar. The X300A is a bona-fide high-end speaker system, so it sounds clearer and all around better than all the high-priced sound bars I've heard to date. After all, performance goals for most sound bars are pretty low, they just have to sound better than the iffy speakers built into TVs, and that's easy. Compared with a decent … Read more

Sound bar buying guide: What you need to know

For most people, sound bars are the best way to get better sound quality in the living room. They're simple, inexpensive, and don't have all the frustrating wires that come with a true surround sound system. Sound bars don't sound as good as true separate speakers -- especially with music -- but if you're mostly looking for better sound with movies and TV shows, they're vastly better than your TV's built-in speakers.

So which sound bar should you buy? A good place to start is CNET's best sound bars list, although at the … Read more

Sonos Playbar review: A sound bar for Sonos disciples

Sonos perfected multiroom digital music for the home. It wasn't the first company to take on the task, but Sonos' system is so easy to use and undeniably superior that it's easy to recommend, even at a premium price.

Now Sonos wants to conquer the living room with the Playbar ($700). In many ways, the company's first sound bar is a success. Its understated looks fit Sonos' design ethos and it's ingeniously designed so it can lie relatively flush when wall-mounted or placed on a TV cabinet. The Playbar is also one of the only sound … Read more

SVS Ultra Bookshelf speaker offers clarity and bass

I had a good feeling about the SVS Ultra Bookshelf speaker even before I heard it. First, the high-gloss black finish was perfect, and the heft of this 19-pound beauty left no doubt about the speaker's build quality. It seemed solid.

I've confessed many times on this blog my fondness for big speakers, but if you don't have the space for a set of tower speakers, so-called bookshelf speakers are the way to go. I said so-called because the last place you'd ever want to put a set of bookshelf speakers is in a bookshelf cabinet. … Read more

Toshiba SBX4250 review: A ho-hum sound bar with surprisingly good features

Choosing a sound bar largely comes down to sound quality and design, with features being far less important than when evaluating other products. That's what makes the Toshiba SBX4250 ($270 street) a bit of a hard sell: it sounds and looks just about average, but has a great feature set. There's built-in Bluetooth, for wireless audio streaming from most smartphones and tablets, plus it has a ton of inputs, with two HDMI, two optical, an analog, and a minijack. And although the sound bar itself is visually lackluster, the included remote is nicely designed.

The question is whether … Read more

Get an AudioSource S325 sound bar for $59.99

A quick note of appreciation before I get started today: My Internet is down this morning (thanks, Comcast), but I'm able to continue working thanks to Tether.com, which lets me share my iPhone's 3G connection with my laptop -- no jailbreaking required. As a backup tool for situations like this and a pinch-hitter when there's no available Wi-Fi hotspot, it's a bargain at $29.95 annually.

Back to business. It's one of the great ironies of high-definition TVs that they look beautiful but sound terrible. Unfortunately, they're necessarily designed with thin, rear- or … Read more

The Vizio SB4021M-A1 sound bar is a solid pick -- for now

If sound bars are the ultimate "good enough" home audio solution, the Vizio SB4021M-A1 ($270 street price) feels like the typical good-enough sound bar. It's solid in just about every respect, with a sleek design, a good remote, and above-average sound quality. At the same time, it lacks a single standout quality that would put it head and shoulders above its competitors. It may be easier to enthusiastically recommend a less well-rounded sound bar that either looks or sounds fantastic, but there's something to be said for a balanced product.

The big hesitation about the SB4021M-A1 … Read more

Vizio's 5.1 sound bar packs wireless rear speakers, innovative remote

LAS VEGAS--Many sound bars promise to deliver "virtual surround sound," but with a few exceptions, you can't get the true surround without actual rear speakers.

The newly announced Vizio S4251W tries to have the best of both worlds, pairing up a traditional sound bar with wireless rear speakers, so you get the ease of the sound bar up front with true immersive surround effects in the back. It's actually not the first time Vizio has offered the sound-bar-plus-rear-speakers arrangement; I was a fan of the VHT510 when I reviewed it back in 2011.

The S4251W will … Read more

Philips sound bar has detachable rear speakers, gets you true surround sound

LAS VEGAS--If you go with a sound bar instead a speaker system, you generally have to give up true surround sound. Unless, of course, your sound bar is a transformer.

The Philips Fidelio Soundbar HTL9100 is billed as the "world's first sound bar with detachable speakers," as the far ends of the sound bar can be removed and used as rear speakers. The detachable, battery-powered speakers operate wirelessly and Philips claims 10 hours of battery life. The speakers then recharge automatically when they're reattached.

The HTL9100 also features two HDMI inputs, in addition to an optical … Read more