BEST SOUND BAR DEALS SERIES
BEST SOUND BAR DEALS TV

In that same sound test, the Polk came in at 64.4 decibels, 2.7 higher than the TaoTronics. The Polk Signa S2 is bigger, badder, pricier, and it comes with a subwoofer. But the bass is still lackluster and the high sounds can still be a bit piercing, but that's where the Polk bar comes in. The TaoTronics bar does have a little more bass, but it doesn't do a ton to change the character of the sound you're hearing, mostly just its loudness and its presence. What about the quality of the sound that we're getting here? But it's not just about how loud it can get. Now that doesn't sound like much maybe, but decibels are measured logarithmically, not linearly, which is just a fancy way of saying that 0.5 decibels really does make a difference.

BEST SOUND BAR DEALS TV

But hey, as long as I'm using the same bad tool across all the tests, it should work okay.Īccording to that app, at the same output of about 33% of volume, the built-in TV speakers gave me 61.2 decibels of sound, while the TaoTronics soundbar spit out 61.7 decibels. Anyway, I sat on the couch with a decibel meter on my phone, which I know is not going to be a scientifically accurate decibel measurement. It's a plenty loud scene, which I can't show you because you know. I set up a test in which I watched about 60 seconds of the motorcycle chase from Mission: Impossible - Fallout. And wouldn't you know it, it actually shoots the sound forward so I can hear it.Ĭompared to the TV sound, how does the TaoTronics soundbar do? Pretty well, actually. So already, we're getting more than double the wattage than what the TV is giving me. Were you keeping track before? That TCL is 16. So this budget soundbar has an output of 40 watts. The price does vary, but it's going to be the cheaper of the two that we're going to talk about today. Now this is the budget option that we're going to be talking about here. This is the TaoTronics TT-SK023, which sounds more like a stormtrooper designation than a soundbar.

So that's the baseline.Īnd now it's time to bring in the competition.

BEST SOUND BAR DEALS SERIES

Even the mega 85 inch Samsung TU8000 series only has 20 watts of output. But the sweet new Samsung I'm looking at is going to be way better.' And you might be thinking, 'Yeah, that's TCL. But to fill up a room with a well-rounded sound, yeah, that's not happening. What does that mean? Well, if you're listening to something on little headphones that are right next to your ear, 16 watts would be more than enough. My 65-inch 4K TCL TV comes with two speakers, each of which has an output of 8 watts for a total of 16 watts. The other problem is that those backfiring speakers, well, they suck. Anyway, the backfiring speakers are only part of the problem. Well, what? You don't cover your walls in foam? Just me, I guess. Sometimes, your wall is covered in sound absorbing foam. Now, the teeny tiny speakers are in the back.Īnd the idea here is that the sound will bounce off the wall behind the TV and back to you, so you can hear it. These are the thick borders that you see on those older TVs, that used to be where a lot of the TVs components were located. Now speakers are put on the back of the TV and they do that for a simple reason, to get rid of those bulky bezels. So why is that? Well, historically, TV's have put their speakers on the front of the TV, like this 15-ish year old Vizio that I keep around in my basement. If I do crank it up, I can at least hear it, but it comes off really sharp, very tinny, with almost no bass response at all. This, over my shoulder, is the TCL 65S525, or in other words, it's the 65-inch Roku enabled TCL Smart TV that I keep here in my studio. Now, before we get to comparing the best soundbars on Amazon, let's establish a baseline for our sound, so we have something to compare them to.

Best sound bar deals