- You don't need a subwoofer if you have a couple of full‑range speakers
- People tend to overspend because paid reviewers tend to push things you don't need
- A soundbar could be all you need if all you're looking for is clearer dialogue and crisper, fuller sound
- If you're a gamer, a rear speaker is quite important and will often be used by your game
Introduction
After seeing so much ‘advice’ written about audio that lacks a lot of understanding about the limitations of the human ear or –even worse– pushes an elitist narrative of ‘you need this’, ‘spending below $300 is useless’, ‘brand X is garbage’, etc., I've decided to write this non‑sponsored opinion piece on what you actually need to improve your living room audio experience. Unlike some experts, I do hold an academic degree in audiovisual communications, and, most importantly, a doctorate in common sense.
Part 1: What do you need?
This is the most important question, so often overlooked. If you are my mother, you might be perfectly happy with the audio coming from your television as‑is; if you don't think you need more than that, then you're done. Congratulations.
But maybe you're more like my uncle, who found it a tad difficult to understand the dialogue of his action series clearly. For him, a sound-bar is all that was required to bring his audiovisual experience to a level he was happy with.
A little about soundbars
Soundbars are a great improvement to the audio that comes out of your television. You see, audio is just a physics game where bigger is better, so driver (speaker) size matters. The ones on a television are usually quite small. A sound bar or media bar is the easiest way to improve your listening experience. Many 5.1 surround sound aficionados hate sound bars, but you should never shun the right tool for the job. In my previous apartment, I had a 5.1 setup in a little TV room, and a soundbar in my bedroom because that is all I needed.
Here are a couple of tips about buying a soundbar:
- Make sure it comes with a biggish woofer: The human ear has a hard time figuring out where low‑frequency sounds come from, so you can put this bigger woofer speaker anywhere in the room. Most connect to your soundbar without cables.
- Don't overdo it. A lot of more expensive soundbars will have a lot of features you might not need. Consider your needs before looking at soundbar options, don't get things you won't use.
- The human ear cannot be fooled. Soundbars might advertise that they can make sounds seem to come from behind you, or from the ceiling, or from your sides. However, our ears are designed to locate sounds with precision, and are very difficult to fool. If you want to hear sound coming from behind you, you need a speaker behind you.
Let's keep it short and simple: For sound bar, what you need is at least a 2.1 or 3.1 setup, and nothing above it. What do 2.1 and 3.1 mean? So, the number before the ‘.’ is how many speakers the unit has, and the number after the ‘.’ is how many woofers/subwoofers the system has. So 2.0 is a simple stereo system, and 3.0 is a stereo system with an additional centre channel. Since soundbars tend to be quite small, the little speakers (tweeters) will benefit from a ‘0.1’ addition, a woofer or a subwoofer. That's why I recommend 2.1 or 3.1.
If a soundbar claims to have 5.1 sound but only has two speakers (the bar and a big woofer) it won’t probably live up to its claim, and is a waste of money.
Also note that soundbars that have separate satellite speakers will, of course, deliver surround sound.
Surround sound for your home‑theatre
This is for you if you, like me, have an appreciation for good sound but also have neighbours. If you have a basement room or no neighbours, this guide isn't really for you, but to you I do have a recommendation: spend more money on trying to kill echoes in your room, as that, and not 2 sub-woofers, is what is going to make all the difference.
On to the 5.1 aficionados. So, if you want great sound here are some technical considerations and tips for you. First, figure out how many speakers you'll eventually want. If you think at some point you can get 7 speakers, or are looking forward to the unnecessary addition of ceiling speakers to your setup, you'll need to invest in an AVR unit that has the channels you need. Most Netflix movies are mixed at 5.1 (which is great), and to actually receive the latest movies that are coded with Dolby Atmos you actually need to pay for the correct top‑tier plan that gives you access to Atmos. I do pay for the Atmos privilege, but not for the sound (I only have a 5.0 system), but because the ‘premium’ plan has 4K. I'm not a big believer in the need for ceiling speakers, but if you think they'll make you happy, don't let me tell you what you need.
But let me tell you what you do need: a capable AVR with at least two good speakers. Do try to find an AVR that supports eARC and HDMI 2.1, and stick to brands that weren't invented yesterday: Denon, Yamaha, Sony, et al.
As for speakers, a good speaker will have a driver size of at least 4 inches, in my opinion. Here physics plays a role, as bigger is better, and the threshold for what is acceptable is subjective. But do ask yourself how much time you spend with your TV at a really loud setting; I like my system to have crisp sounds, not necessarily loud sounds. A speaker size of 5.25 inches is more than sufficient. Anything above 6.5 inches is overkill for home applications. There is a not‑often‑mentioned advantage to smaller speakers, which is that the smaller (anything below 5") speakers spread their cone of sound wider, so it will make it harder to locate the speaker, which will, in turn, give the impression of a wider sound‑stage, which is pretty cool for movies, but not as necessary for music.
Also, there's not a lot of magic going on inside a speaker. A unit with a 5" speaker and similar‑sized cabinet will not sound that different from a similarly dimensioned speaker from another brand. Sticking with brands that have been in the business for more than a minute is all you need.
A good LR speaker pair with a good AVR will get you 50% of the way to great sound.
A center speaker is good, but stereo speakers playing the exact same sound at exactly the same time do fool your ears into thinking that the sound is coming from the middle of your television. Since dialogue is very bassy, bigger speakers are required to portray these ranges accurately.
Our hearing captures sounds in the 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz range; big woofers are good for producing the low sounds, though to produce high‑pitched sounds speakers of just one inch are more than enough. Since most central speakers usually have smaller speaker‑units, they are not great for the task they are meant to do. For a central speaker, see if you have room to put something with 4" speakers below your TV set. If you can, great. If not, I think passing on a central speaker might be best. I personally have had two central speakers of 3". One was by Micca, and it was great and necessary because my side speakers were even smaller. Now I have a Polk ES35 which is the biggest I could get below my TV, but frankly it is not up to the task in my current setup, as my LR speakers are much more capable.
So let's say a central speaker is about 10% of what's important. The next 20% will come from surround speakers. For these side speakers you can go smaller, as your LR pair, (if you buy good ones) will be able to handle the deeper, lower sounds. For your surround pair you just need a sound source, basically. Anything 1" will do, and it will be great.
So we're at 80%. What's the other 20%? A subwoofer, right? No, I don't think so. If your LR speakers are good enough, there is no need for a big, expensive, power‑consuming subwoofer. If you are building a home‑theatre in a basement, sure– get one. Otherwise, the audible portion will be perfectly handled by decent LR speakers, specially if they are 5" or above. You heard it here first, subwoofers are unnecessary, and those pushing them are (hopefully) getting a commission for their sales. The missing 20% is from a proper calibration. You need to tell your system you don't have a subwoofer, have your LR stereo pair handle the crossover of the lower frequencies, and tell the AVR how far your ears are from their speakers. A proper setup is also important: I won't go into a lot of detail about this, as there are many great charts on speaker positioning, but basically you want to set‑up a triangle where you are a corner and the LR speakers the remaining vertices; the central speaker goes below your telly, the surround pair go directly to your right and left. AVRs will come with a microphone for them to figure out how far your ears are from each speaker, but a measuring tape will do the same. Don't be afraid to tweak the increments, particularly with the central speaker: if you find yourself raising the volume of a movie when there's a lot of dialogue but lowering it when there are explosions, you need to increase the central channel.
For gamers
There's not enough information exclusively for gamers out there– until now. The advice above still applies, but here the addition of a rear‑speaker is worth considering.
While setups are usually made for 5.1 or 7.1, it's my experience that most living‑rooms won't have space for two extra speakers behind you. If you already have room 5 speakers and are thinking of squeezing an extra pair behind you, know that if you won't be able to get your speakers 135° behind you, it might not be worth it, as there won't be enough separation for your ears to pick them up as an independent source. As stated above, movies are 5.1 anyways, so you won't be missing out with Netflix, but, with gaming, there's a strong case for adding one extra speaker right behind you. First of all, your PlayStation or PC will make use of it (I haven't had an Xbox in a while, but it should work, too) automatically. As long as your AVR supports 7.1 audio, there will be a way to just plug one speaker behind you. This is awesome for games, where you often turn your back to sound‑emitting objects. As mentioned earlier, a relatively small speaker will go a long way for this purpose: I used to have a 3x1 speaker bar whose actual speakers must have been no bigger than half an inch screwed to the wall behind my couch, and while gaming, it was glorious. You walk past a waterfall? You can hear it fading away behind you. It's amazing– but, keep in mind, it will be useless for Netflix. Adding a cheap little speaker to go under your couch is a worthy addition.
On a Windows PC, setting up 5.1 audio is a bit of a chore, and if you sneeze the wrong way the system will default to 2.0. This happens so often that now I can navigate the system quite quickly: just remember, don't test your 5.1 setup with browser‑led sound, open an actual game, and don't forget to tell the game in the settings that you're using surround sound (if available).
For Windows settings, I didn't have to fiddle with my NVIDIA GPU, but I did have to go into ‘Sound Settings’, (System>Sound) and then go to ‘More Sound Settings’, where I select my TV and GPU, right‑click to ‘Configure Speakers’ and let the system know what my setup looks like, including telling it that only my stereo speakers are ‘full ranged’; even though technically all my speakers are fully ranged, I like my LR to handle the bass, and though my properly‑configured AVR should make that happen, the fact that one can choose this from this menu makes me think that one might as well do it.
At some point, I did have to download an app to force my PC to read the HDMI cable as capable of 5.1 surround sound. If you're having issues with your setup, this might be the culprit. I used CRU (Custom Resolution Utility) to force my Windows 11 PC to use 5.1.
I've tried 5.0 sound in Bazzite, and it worked fine with some minor tweaks (basically choosing the right output from the Steam interface), but the change wouldn't stick upon restarts, so I switched back to Windows.
If you're worried your games might not take advantage of a 6‑speaker setup, allow me to reassure you: most games will output to 7+ channels. I'm currently playing Eternal Darkness, from 2002, and this GameCube game has Dolby Pro Logic II, so it uses 5.1 channels. More recent games (basically anything from 2009 and beyond) will probably have surround support– the more recent, the more likely.
Image by vladstudio