TV speaker(s) for open plan room

bazwaldo

Hi guys,

I enquired a couple of weeks ago about TV soundbars and after some thought about it I'm hoping you can advise me again. We have a large 9m x 7m room. Its virtually split up to be a kitchen/dining/tv area. The living space takes up around 4m x 4m.

I'd like to get decent sound for TV viewing, but I can't have wires around the sofa. Speakers can only be at the TV or either side of the TV. I don't know if a soundbar would be lost in a space where its very open with just a wall behind the TV and to the right of it. Would I be better going for a home theatre system with the speakers along the wall with the wall hung TV?

Once I know this, we can pick the right product. Budget is around 300.

Richersounds.ie: John

bazwaldo wrote: »

Hi guys,

I enquired a couple of weeks ago about TV soundbars and after some thought about it I'm hoping you can advise me again. We have a large 9m x 7m room. Its virtually split up to be a kitchen/dining/tv area. The living space takes up around 4m x 4m.

I'd like to get decent sound for TV viewing, but I can't have wires around the sofa. Speakers can only be at the TV or either side of the TV. I don't know if a soundbar would be lost in a space where its very open with just a wall behind the TV and to the right of it. Would I be better going for a home theatre system with the speakers along the wall with the wall hung TV?

Once I know this, we can pick the right product. Budget is around 300.

baz,

thanks for the post and apologies for the delay getting back to you - difficult problem really as I honestly think that on a circa £300/€300 budget you are really not going to get a great home theatre system and worse again it really wont work to its best if all the speakers are on one wall - you wont get any real surround effect - so I'd probably advise you to go the sound-bar route -

...of course with a 9*7 room it will have to be a decent soundbar - I'd recommend either the Onkyo LSB50 which is a great bar with active wireless sub and Bluetooth connectivity at just £249.95 / €299.99 ( the euro pricing includes delivery ) https://euro.richersounds.ie/p-200224-lsb50.aspx#tabSpecifications-tab 

..or if you can stretch the budget the amazing new Q Acoustics M4 sound-bar which has just won the What Hifi Soundbar product of the year award: http://www.whathifi.com/q-acoustics/media-4/review

https://euro.richersounds.ie/p-200641-m-4.aspx

Literally as the spiel says, the M4 is 'room-filling' and sounds amazing - short of the Monitor Audio BSB2 there is very little that will be as good for you! Its normally £399.95 / €498 but I'll do it at just €470 including delivery if you can  S T R E T C H the spends a bit..

Thanks again and of course keep us posted if we can assist in any way,

ATVB,

John Mc & Crew

bazwaldo

Ok. A soundbar it is then.

I took a look at those and they are in the running. I'll need to read up on their functionality a bit. My concern is the interaction with the TV remote. Ideally I want the TV remote to control the sound of the soundbar. This looks to be possible on these soundbars. But then I wouldn't want any sound coming from the TV is connected to the soundbar. I'll see if the TV speakers can be switched off via the setup.

As its a Philips TV, I would expect that it would interact well with a Philips soundbar. The Philips HTL5140 gets 5 stars in What Hifi. http://www.whathifi.com/philips/htl5140/review. Its bang on budget of €300 too. Can you still source Philips stuff?

On your site you have a Pioneer soundbar too which caught my eye. Looks to have great connectivity including miracast which would be handy. Its doesn't have HDMI though which seems odd.

Richersounds.ie: Kenny

bazwaldo wrote: »

Ok. A soundbar it is then.

I took a look at those and they are in the running. I'll need to read up on their functionality a bit. My concern is the interaction with the TV remote. Ideally I want the TV remote to control the sound of the soundbar. This looks to be possible on these soundbars. But then I wouldn't want any sound coming from the TV is connected to the soundbar. I'll see if the TV speakers can be switched off via the setup.

As its a Philips TV, I would expect that it would interact well with a Philips soundbar. The Philips HTL5140 gets 5 stars in What Hifi. http://www.whathifi.com/philips/htl5140/review. Its bang on budget of €300 too. Can you still source Philips stuff?

On your site you have a Pioneer soundbar too which caught my eye. Looks to have great connectivity including miracast which would be handy. Its doesn't have HDMI though which seems odd.

Hi Bazwaldo.

The Philips one is not one we can get our hands on unfortunately.

The Pioneer soundbars do sound well I have to say.
To get HDMI on the Pioneer range you need to go to the SBXN750 (Has 1 IN) which is priced at 369.99 Euro
http://euro.richersounds.ie/p-200202-sbxn700.aspx

Or the Pioneer SBXN500 which also has 1 IN priced at 289.99 Euro
http://euro.richersounds.ie/p-200201-sbxn500.aspx#tabSpecifications-tab

bazwaldo

At the moment its between the Q Acoustics and the Pioneer SBXN700. You mention SBXN750 but link to the 700. Was that a typo or are they the same thing? Looking at the Pioneer web site it lists both models but the specs are the same.

All reviews of the Q Acoustics rave about it. The Pioneer reviews are generally excellent but some complain about the sub woofer and fiddly connections. The features on the Pioneer are fantastic which is a bit of a plus. There is a huge difference in price though. Do you price match amazon? Its £200 from them. Decisions decisions...

Richersounds.ie: Dave

Hi Bazwaldo, thanks for the reply.

We will price beat any competitor as long as they ship to Ireland, the price includes delivery and it's in stock.

I personally wouldn't compare the Pioneer against the Q acoustic. It's like comparing a Ford fiesta to a BMW 5 series.

The Q acoustic has great depth, but amazing tonal balance and even though there could be a load of action going on in the background, the speech is still very accurate. It doesn't need a subwoofer either as there's plenty of impact from it. It did win the What Hifi award for best bar though.

I love it and if it were me, the Q acoustic wins.......and easily too.

The 700 and 750 looks absolutely identical so I'm not sure why there are 2 products the same but with different models.

Hope that helps.

ATB



Dave

bazwaldo

Richersounds.ie: Dave wrote: »

Hi Bazwaldo, thanks for the reply.

We will price beat any competitor as long as they ship to Ireland, the price includes delivery and it's in stock.

I personally wouldn't compare the Pioneer against the Q acoustic. It's like comparing a Ford fiesta to a BMW 5 series.

The Q acoustic has great depth, but amazing tonal balance and even though there could be a load of action going on in the background, the speech is still very accurate. It doesn't need a subwoofer either as there's plenty of impact from it. It did win the What Hifi award for best bar though.

I love it and if it were me, the Q acoustic wins.......and easily too.

The 700 and 750 looks absolutely identical so I'm not sure why there are 2 products the same but with different models.

Hope that helps.

ATB



Dave

Thanks Dave. I understand where you are coming from. The price is also comparable to the Fiesta vs beamer. What I'm wondering is whether the Ford Fiesta is good enough for my needs. The £200 price tag is a great reduction since it was released so its nice to think you're getting a bargain. I know if it isn't good enough though, I'll regret it. Before taking the plunge I need to think for a bit. €470 is a lot more than I budgeted.

BTW, I found out that the 700 is matte and 750 is gloss. That's the only difference. It was in the Pioneer summer catalogue.

Richersounds.ie: John

bazwaldo wrote: »

At the moment its between the Q Acoustics and the Pioneer SBXN700. You mention SBXN750 but link to the 700. Was that a typo or are they the same thing? Looking at the Pioneer web site it lists both models but the specs are the same.

All reviews of the Q Acoustics rave about it. The Pioneer reviews are generally excellent but some complain about the sub woofer and fiddly connections. The features on the Pioneer are fantastic which is a bit of a plus. There is a huge difference in price though. Do you price match amazon? Its £200 from them. Decisions decisions...

just to go back over a bit that Dave missed -

the SBXN700 is £200 on Amazon.co.uk, but as there is no stock available at this price we don't price-match - the best price on Amazon on the SBXN700 is £224 ( when they ship to Ireland they modify the vat so that will come out at £229) I'm happy to go £224 / €287.99 with delivery included...

Thanks again and keep us posted if we can assist in any way,

ATVB,

John Mc & Crew

bazwaldo

Connected the Q Acoustics Media 4 up on Christmas day. Unfortunately I can't get the volume buttons to change the volume on it using either my Philips 47PFL7606 remote as the remote doesn't learn or can't be programmed. And the UPC horizon remote doesn't list any codes for AV equipment. All UPC list are TV codes.

Using the sky remote codes I tried using the code listed for the M4 and took note of all the brands which used that code. Then on the horizon remote code table, looked up those brands. Got a list of about 10 codes to try. None worked.

So I've searched the internet for hours at this stage and am stuck. I've sent Q acoustics an email to see if they know the code. I'll contact UPC too next. Any other suggestions?

Richersounds.ie: Kenny

bazwaldo wrote: »

Connected the Q Acoustics Media 4 up on Christmas day. Unfortunately I can't get the volume buttons to change the volume on it using either my Philips 47PFL7606 remote as the remote doesn't learn or can't be programmed. And the UPC horizon remote doesn't list any codes for AV equipment. All UPC list are TV codes.

Using the sky remote codes I tried using the code listed for the M4 and took note of all the brands which used that code. Then on the horizon remote code table, looked up those brands. Got a list of about 10 codes to try. None worked.

So I've searched the internet for hours at this stage and am stuck. I've sent Q acoustics an email to see if they know the code. I'll contact UPC too next. Any other suggestions?

Hi Bazwaldo.

Not one I've came across before unfortunately.
I may also need to speak to Q Acoustics directly to see what they say.

I maybe that the codes for the M4 are not compatible with your sources.

I did find this on a review of the M4:
[font=verdana, arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif]Thankfully the Media 4 can be controlled by any programmable remote that uses Philips RC5 codes, such as the Sky handset.[/font][font=verdana, arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif]
Read more at http://www.trustedreviews.com/q-acoustics-media-4-review#zYTLZcKkrQU24HhW.99[/font]


[font=verdana, arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif]Have you tried the code for the Philips RC5?[/font]

bazwaldo

The UPC Horizon remote codes lists just brand names and one code for each linky. So it lists just one for Philips. And this code when used will change the volume of my Philips TV but does nothing with the M4. The M4 manual lists a code to use when using a Sky remote and a UK based cable company remote  (it doesn't say which one but I'm guessing Virgin Media). I have neither of these remotes. Just the standard Philips TV remote which cannot be programmed and a UPC Horizon remote which can be programmed but I don't know what code to try. I have tried many but none work with the M4. It would be ideal to use the Horizon remote. If I can't get it to work, I might to invest in a Harmony remote.