Upstairs in the theater room, we have a full receiver and 5.1 speaker setup that provides nice sound. It’s not anywhere near audiophile quality, but it’s more than enough to provide enjoyment. On the downstairs TV, we are just using the built-in TV speakers. I’ve never heard a TV speaker that does a very good job of producing sound and this TV is no exception. However, we don’t need to have a full receiver and surround sound system down there.
Thankfully there is a happy middle and it’s called a soundbar. It’s a long rectangular speaker that fits nicely underneath your TV. Tim and Chelsea just upgraded theirs and sold us their old one. So now we have a Vizio SB3821 installed in our house. It not only has the soundbar but there is a subwoofer that only needs power to operate. It connects wirelessly to the soundbar so that you don’t have to run an audio cable to it. The soundbar connects to the audio output on the TV so whatever plays on the TV gets played through the soundbar.
Is it as good has having 6 discrete speakers spread around your room? Nope. But it’s way better than the standard TV output. As an added bonus, this soundbar supports Bluetooth so I can play music from my phone to it while I’m cooking or playing with Elijah.
It took a little bit of work on our Harmony universal remote to make it all operate seemlessly, but I think we’re there now and the experience is great! Thanks to Tim and Chelsea for selling us their hand-me-downs. Now I’ll probably start drooling of their new setup and want that instead.