Upgrading your TV setup shouldn’t be daunting, but with so many options on the market, you may find it hard to wade through them and see what works best for you. That’s where we come in.
While TVs on their own have gotten better over time, they still don’t hold a candle to external speakers. Really, how much speaker can you fit in a razor-thin TV?
The easiest way to enhance sound (without investing in an entire home theater system) is to get a soundbar. Soundbars are small but mighty external speakers that provide an immersive sound experience.
We spoke with John Couling, senior vice president of entertainment at Dolby, to break down everything you need to know about picking the best soundbar for you.
“One of the challenges for anyone making a television is, you want to make it big, and you want to make it really thin — and that makes it difficult to make really great sound,” Couling says. “What a soundbar does is it takes that responsibility to make sound and puts it into its own device where that can be the focus of that device.”
Couling recognizes that home theater setups with many speakers are impractical for most, even those looking to get a “full cinema experience,” and points out there has been a lot of innovation over the past few years in the soundbar category. Considering that, there are a few factors to remember when finding the soundbar that’s right for you.
First, Couling recommends looking at the formats the soundbar supports. “It needs to support Dolby Digital at the bare minimum in order to give you some type of surround sound, but really you should look for Dolby Atmos,” he tells Decider.
Dolby Atmos is now available at such a wide range of price points that the advanced technology shouldn’t be cost-prohibitive for most people looking to upgrade their TV rooms.
Practical elements matter, too. Couling suggests looking at the various sizes of soundbars available and envisioning how they will look in your specific space. Is there room underneath your TV, whether your TV is mounted to the wall or placed on a console or credenza?
The sound coming from the same place the picture is coming from is what makes the most sense to us. If you’re investing in a piece and paying for the technology, it’s important that it fits your setup so that you get the absolute best-intended performance out of it.
You should also look at how many speakers make up the soundbar and in which directions they fire. This comes in the form of a “speaker channel” number — for example, a 5.1-channel speaker has five main speakers and one subwoofer.
“Some are firing up, for example, to give you a height impression or to the sides to give you more width,” Couling explained. “That shows you that the soundbar maker is really thinking about how to fill the room and is investing in the speakers that are going to allow you to do that.”
Some soundbars are sold in a set with a subwoofer, which amplifies bass. Couling has a trick when strategically placing the woofer in your room since they interact with the space: “Put it where you sit — and then walk around the room and listen to where it sounds the best, and then switch places.” Then, once you sit in the space, you get the optimal sound.
Brands also matter — if you’re buying a soundbar to pair with the TV you already have, there may be a soundbar specifically manufactured to interact with your TV.
The last consideration is ensuring it works for you across different types of entertainment. If you plan on using the soundbar as a speaker for music, too, make sure it supports the music services you use. For gamers, soundbars with low latency are a great option.
Below are eight of the best soundbars you can buy in 2023, listed alphabetically — all of them are recommended by Dolby experts.
