Q I am interested in adding a sound bar to my TV, because it would be clean and easy to install. Are they any good? I am worried that they would not suffice for listening to music.
MARK GUILTINAN, STATE COLLEGE, PA.
A Some of the sound bar systems are indeed good. One of the best demonstrations I heard at the Consumer Electronics Show last year was the Definitive Technology Mythos SSA-50 playing a Blue Man Group DVD.
Sound bars are single speakers used when it is not practical to have a traditional array of left-center-right speakers across the front. They are usually about as wide and deep as a flat-panel TV and can be mounted inconspicuously beneath the set or on a stand. They are a perfect match for anyone who wants better TV sound but can't or won't run the wires for a full surround system.
Some sound bars, such as the Mythos, work in full surround mode and reproduce the five main channels of a 5.1 system. They are better termed a "surround bar." They also create surround effects via psychoacoustic trickery that is similar to techniques used in noise-canceling headphones. It is not as good as a surround system with multiple speakers, so if you can install a traditional system, I strongly encourage you to do so.
My top recommendations are the Definite Technology Mythos series (www.definitivetech.com) and the Polk Audio SurroundBar series (www.polkaudio.com). They range from $799 to $1,099 and require a separate subwoofer and a home-theater receiver.
Another option is the SLIMstage from Soundmatters (www.soundmatters.com). It is totally self-contained and includes everything you need, including the connection cables. It has a clean sound and is easy to set up and use. A downside to the SLIMstage is that it cannot decode lossless audio from Blu-ray. If your Blu-ray player can decode lossless audio, you might be better off using the analog connections and allowing the SLIMstage to create the sound field through digital processing. The SLIMstage models range from $699 to $1099.
If you would like to improve your TV sound with a small system that is affordable, Soundmatters has another great option: the MAINstage. It's about the size of a Bose Wave Radio. If you are used to listening to the tiny speakers in your television, the MAINstage will introduce you to sounds you never knew existed in your movies and TV programs.
