Having never had anything other than a normal/cheapish TV with inbuilt speakers I thought I'd ask if people think it's worth getting a soundbar of some sort when you're not looking to spend that much. £7-800 TV and £1-200 soundbar vs £9-1000 tv type thing. I've never really felt like sound was lacking (ignorance is bliss after all!) but I'm aware objectively it probably is, and also don't mind the idea of being able to use it as a speaker via bluetooth or something vs having the whole PC/TV on just to play music sometimes.
We bought a Q acoustics M2 soundbase a few years ago, it was a great improvement. Now heavily discounted, https://www.richersounds.com/q-acoustics-m2-blk.html
Whilst it would come down to the specific TV and Soundbar in question - I think as a general rule I would prefer a £800 TV + £200 soundbar over a £1000 TV alone. At most sizes, £800 will get you a TV that's "good enough" in terms of picture and another £200 isn't likely to give any massive upgrades. And basically every TV out there has pretty poor sound, so a soundbar will make a world of difference. There are a few TV models that have "okayish" sound, but they're generally in the upper echelons of pricing, and boil down to what's basically a bolted on soundbar included anyway.
Having rearranged the living room since aiming to buy a new TV we were looking at an ambilight as we really liked the last one but the TV will not longer be against a flat wall so now thinking it might not be so good. As a result looking at some of the TCL models as they seem to be well reviewed/specced vs the competition. Was thinking of a Hisense 65U7K but I believe it's comparable to the C745/C805 from TCL which are both a bit cheaper and we could basically get just the Hisense or a damaged packaging TCL C845 or one of the cheapers TCLs and a soundbar type thing. 2 vs 5 year warranty but not sure how much that actually matters. AO have an offer at the moment to get £100 off the Samsung C430 if you buy a TCL TV (so down to £90), so a couple of options that I'm considering at the moment would be the original Philips PML9008 from richer sounds which comes with a bluetooth speaker for £950 (and is an offer to get a TAB5305 soundbar for £75 with it), TCL C845k no packaging from mark's electrical for £940, or the TCLc805k and Samsung C430 for £940, or C745 and Samsung C430 for £840. Of course we could get a soundbar seperately/not as part of any deal if that would actually work out better. My general understanding is the Philips is technically the worst TV out of the lot (Philips < C745 < C805/U7K < C845) but all of them should be better than whatever we've had in the past so not sure how big a deal the differences between them will be.
Whenever I see soundbar bundle deals they seem to offer really good value for what you're getting, though I've never actually opted to get a bundle. The TV is the bigger item that you're likely going to get more life out of so I'd probably prioritise that, TCL offers some fantastic TVs for the money, with Philips you're paying for Ambilight (but also Ambilight is nice to have). If you're not in too much of a hurry of course you have some potential after Christmas sales to look around, but failing that CES is coming soon and that usually prompts manufacturers to start discounting 2023 TVs in preparation for 2024 ones in the spring.
In other news... More amp, surprising even to me now 48 channels total Rack status: getting sort of full
Yeah the TCLs seem great value and previously we'd decided the ambilight was worth the premium, just not sure how good it'll be in the potential new TV spot which is in front of the stairs so an uneven/further back background for it. If there are some decent £1-200 soundbars then I'd happily go for one of those seperately, issue being just like TVs there seem to be so many and loads without reviews. We'd meant to replace the TV months ago and it's kept getting put off, and now we've rearranged the room and probably gained getting on for 1m in terms of extra viewing distance it's making the current 37" really seem small so I'm pretty keen to just go for something
TBH that would push me to the TCLs... IMO the ambilight effect ranges from "meh" to "looks actively worse" when not placed against a flat wall. when you start getting shadows cast, highlighting potential things behind, potentially wrong/weird colour combinations (e.g. when cast on a wood finish for example) being picked out by the ambilight, clutter, pictures on the wall... it all knocks the effect right down.
messiest part done and cleaned up, jesus christ even my teeth were black after ripping it all down. started wiring cable for the heights but tbh im at the point where theres nothing else I can do for the next 2 weeks. gonna pop into Richer tomorrow, gonna see if i can get all the speakers ordered for delivery end of Jan.
Yeah that was the thinking, was a uniform slightly dark wall and we thought it worked really well, going to a further away light coloured wall with some stair case in the way? not so sure I'll do some googling for recommended cheap soundbars but am leaning towards one of the TCL tvs plus that samsung soundbar for an overall big upgrade.
I feel ya. I did something really stupid the other week involving a non-properly-utilised face mask that resulted in boogers of a darker and more clumpy order than usual. I'm hoping it stopped there and didn't progress to my lungs.
had a womble down to Richer earlier, managed to wangle a 500 odd quid discount on everything i wanted but i'll have to pit it all up at the end of feb, managed to get some Monitor Audio c165 ceiling speakers, i can at least get something wired in until then.
I saw something about them giving the best prices in store, having never been in one is there much wiggle room on stuff? When calling there didn't seem to, didn't manage to get anything off/bundle type deals if they're not on the site from hughes either. But I've got tomorrow off so may have to drive to the Glasgow store and see if I could get some kind of deal. Edit: Well having decided I'd quite like a new TV in time for Christmas and people visiting etc not many options (waited too long for the AO deal now wouldn't arrive til after Christmas) but Hughes will deliver for free on Saturday so have put in an order for 65C805k for £825, didn't bother with a soundbar at the moment as there didn't seem to be any particular deals/bundles so will potentially look to add one at a later date, unless I still decide to try richer sounds tomorrow if I could get a deal, but don't think they have anything competitive TV wise so not sure. Also will just try to focus on the objective improvement vs relative value of other options
Tbh they're better the more you buy from them, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be getting that much of a discount if I bought it in bits as opposed to all at once. That and the guy knows I'm job so that might have something to do with it.
My brother in law is looking to buy a soundbar, but I don't know **** about them. I think he's struggling with the whole.. HDMI port situation, and frankly I didn't know they acted like HDMI hubs at all. Is there some crash course reading I can do?
I was thinking more, I didn't expect them to have an input HDMI, I kind of just expected some sort of TOS link or something - That's how little attention I've paid to the things.
EARC basically offers greater bandwidth than toslink which iirc you'll need for stuff like DTS-X or ATMOS
