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Does anyone have any recommendations for a soundbar? Not looking to break the bank or go crazy on features, but don't want to totally cheap out either, willing to go for anything in the <$200 range. Just something fairly simple, to make movies/music/games sound better (especially bass) than through my TV speakers.
After a very cursory search, the Sony S100F (which goes for only about $100) seems like basically what I'm looking for... but I'm curious if any of the tech-y people here have some personal recommendations. I'm not afraid to spend a little more money if the product is worth it.
As the resident audio enthusiast, I can only think of a couple use cases for soundbars, neither of which would seem to apply here. The logic behind soundbars is that, with televisions getting ever thinner, they lack the internal real estate to produce decent sound. This may be true enough, but I've sampled numerous soundbars at my parents' house and various vacation rentals, and I haven't noticed much of an improvement (and I say this as someone who can normally detect subtle differences between speakers). For soundbars to give a sleek form factor, they suffer from similar limitations as televisions, namely limited driver size and depth of cabinet. You simply aren't going to get significant bass improvement from 2" full range drivers, and models with subwoofers have to set the crossover frequency higher than normal.
There is an improvement in sound, but if you're the kind of person who listens to music streamed from Spotify over a small Bluetooth speaker, it isn't going to be the kind of improvement that's noticeable, and even a cheap stereo system is going to perform much better. This is especially true for movies, where most of the sound consists of human voice frequencies that are easy to reproduce. If you watch action movies with a lot of explosions and the like, TV speakers will have trouble producing deep bass, as you alluded to, but a soundbar without a subwoofer isn't going to make much of a difference in that respect.
The first use case I can think of is if your TV produces sound that is noticeable bad rather than merely inadequate, e.g if it sounds tinny or there is a noticeable resonance. In that case, it may be worth getting a cheap soundbar, but I wouldn't splurge for one. The other use case is if you're the kind of person who actually can detect minor improvements, but is prevented from using a stereo due to the spousal acceptance factor. But that person isn't asking about it in a non-specialized forum. I personally have my TV hooked up to a separate amplifier I use for music and speakers that are over 4 feet tall and weigh 75 lbs. apiece, but I only use it if I'm watching a movie, and even then not all of the time.
If you're looking for improvement in the $200 price range, a cheap stereo system is going to blow all but the most expensive soundbars out of the water. The used market is your friend here, especially stuff from the '90s and '2000s that's too old to have any value but not old enough to be "vintage". Pretty much any receiver you can find from the Big 3 (Yamaha/Denon/Onkyo) is worth buying, and even stuff from lesser brands like Pioneer, Sony, Techincs, etc. is going to be fine. Don't worry too much about wattage since anything above 15 watts is more than adequate at normal volume, and that's what budget receivers were running in the '70s. The speakers are going to be more important to the sound, though the brands will be different—B&W, Boston Acoustics, Polk, Infinity, Cerwin Vega, PSB, ELAC, Paradigm, and Klipsch are examples of what to look for, though these brands all sell new speakers with stratospheric prices so don't be discouraged if the prices on some used models seem high; I believe all of them have made inexpensive bookshelf speakers at some point that can usually be had for cheap on the used market, and they sold more of these models than anything else so they aren't hard to find. Avoid Bose; they sell cheap speakers that are marketed as a premium brand, and they always command higher prices on the used market than they should. If you find anything you're interested in locally, feel free to DM me and I can probably tell you if you're getting a good deal.
Will once again support this. The performance of my $200 bookshelves is lightyears beyond any soundbar I've heard
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