In the six years I’ve been writing and editing home theater reviews, the recurring complaint I’ve heard time and time again, even about some flagship TVs, is how horrible their sound quality is. Thanks to their increasingly thin panels, there is less and less room to insert the speakers, so sound is sacrificed on the altar of style. As a result, the stock warning for buyers reads: “It’s best to budget for a soundbar too.” »
But my faith in this sacred cow began to waver. Having recently upgraded my mid-range TV with a mid-range soundbar, I’ve seen first-hand how the sound gap between the two is quickly closing. So I started to wonder: is the soundbar still as essential as it once was?
This crisis of faith was first triggered when I upgraded my TV to last year’s superb TCL QM8K. Besides its very vivid mini-LED screen, perhaps its most striking feature is its sound. I admit that when I heard that my new TV had sound designed by Bang & Olufsen, I was skeptical. Surely even such an audiophile-grade audio giant couldn’t deliver high-quality sound to a TV, given its notoriously tinny sound?
Let me tell you: my cynicism was misplaced. Thanks to its large rare earth neodymium iron boron drivers, the TCL QM8K delivers truly convincing sound that rivals the best TVs, delivering both clarity and fairly credible bass. Additionally, B&O’s signature tuning lets you adjust the TV’s sound along two axes: clear/warm and relaxed/energetic to reflect your personal preferences.
As a result, rather than the mewling, timid sound that many TVs play, the TCL is able to render dialogue crisply while still giving the soundtrack some decent sweep and weight. It’s honestly a bit Also effective sometimes: every time I launch a counterattack on Chiaroscuro: Expedition 33the impact feels quite seismic but also makes my girlfriend flinch like a pet on the 4th of July. For native TV audio, this really doesn’t hold up.
And it’s not the only TV that’s trying to reverse the trend. For example, the Panasonic Z95B offers a 160W, 5.1.2-channel, 160W audio system, featuring a front external speaker array that delivers powerful bass and a strong soundstage. Meanwhile, the Sony Bravia II has built-in actuators that turn the screen itself into a speaker, allowing it to precisely position dialogue and effects based on their position on the screen and produce spacious but full sound.
Raise the bar?
Despite this, I was excited to get my first soundbar. While I’m not as obsessed as some with unlocking theater-quality sound in my home, getting even more gravitas for movies is a truly tempting offer. And as a gamer, I love spatial audio – the idea of being encompassed in a hemisphere of real Dolby Atmos sound seems like the perfect way to make my visits to Lumière even more captivating.
So when a colleague asked if I was interested in rehoming his recently discontinued Samsung HW-Q800D, I jumped at the chance. Still, when I first set it up, I was honestly a little surprised by how little improvement it could make to the TCL’s already impressive sound.
With the soundbar operating in isolation, it was able to achieve a slightly more spacious sound – thanks to its side-mounted speakers, the width of its soundstage is much greater than what the QM8K is capable of. But the sound was also thinner: lacking the TV’s larger-diameter speakers, its output didn’t seem to have as much substance as the sound I was used to. Dialogue still maintained a decent level of clarity, but soundtracks sounded more neutral, taking me out of the moment as I watched. Divert Or The night manager.
However, it’s important to note that a soundbar like the HW-Q800D can do some things better. Although it seems sweeter in isolation, when paired with his raced submarine… oh my god, is he capable of reaching some gravity, with spaceships inside? Avatar: Way of Water it looked like they were literally landing in my living room. And while the HW-Q800D’s upfiring speakers can’t achieve the spatial, ceiling-bouncing effects of more premium soundbars, they do a good job of locating sounds in the right area of the screen.
Still, after many years of accepting the necessity of soundbars, I was a little surprised to see how marginal some of the improvements were. Make no mistake: adding a soundbar of a decent enough spec can definitely unlock premium sound, especially as your budget grows. But my experience here shows that the gap narrows here, and rather than having a default soundbar, it becomes more important to consider where your sound most needs improvement and whether a given soundbar will provide it.
Because, honestly, maybe it’s time to put an end to the assumption that “TV sound is always terrible.”