Soundbar Way Better than TV Adapter for Watching TV

FYI Polk was sold out of my surrounds, but another option for purchase in the US is Crutchfield, and in Canada Crutchfield.ca (where I bought my surrounds). They have a 60 day return policy (on anything?) - only difference is that you pay return shipping, and they reimburse you later.

Polk do make good soundbars, it seems. My partner bought a low-cost ZVOX AV205. Dreadful! Its enhancement feature “designed on hearing aid science” makes all sounds click-click, and a sharp speaker resonance renders voices as though spoken into a jug. Hard to follow. I have just found a good soundbar comparison website, adequately technical though not obscure: Best budget soundbar 2024: Our top audio upgrades after countless hours of testing | Expert Reviews19

This is the best review I’ve read - one reason is that they do blind tests…
Wirecutter - The Best Soundbar33

In multichannel audio, speech is quite often in the center channel. It could be that these soundbars are just providing more center channel and less of the other channels.

@rojmiller said:

(it is perfectly clear for me on the soundbar, with dialog enhancement set to max

I’m considering giving these a try in the bedroom, where currently we only use the TV speakers and I’ve given up trying to hear anything. How do you adjust the dialog enhancement? Is this a button on the thing, or is it set some other way? Also, have you tried it without the subwoofer? (I assume that’s what the 2nd box is). We have pets that might not appreciate the bass.

Well folks… A small update on my listening experience to the Sonos Beam 2 & Sonos Subwoofer, I was in all truth, blown away with the sound of music, almost brought a tear to my eye listening to old stuff, could even follow most of the lyrics, that’s a first for a long time! TV dialogue is close, but I am still missing the odd word, even with the speech enhancing feature, but alas, I will never hear everything perfect with my loss, even with TV Connector 2, but music most definitely got a, WOW!!! The Subwoofer, didn’t come till today, and getting the Beam 2 & Sub to work with a Panasonic Smart TV, and a Fire Cube TV, wasn’t without a challenge, audio was a bit of a hit, and a miss in certain programs, with either HDMI-ARC or indeed Toslink, eventually I got it sussed, Google to the rescue, via YouTube The secret seems to be, getting your Fire Cube TV Remote, to work the Sonos volume control, you do this in the the Fire Cube settings, once that was achieved, every channel worked, with excellent sound quality… An enjoyable outcome, for a change. Cheers Kev

@rojmiller said:

(it is perfectly clear for me on the soundbar, with dialog enhancement set to max

@grantb5 said:

I’m considering giving these a try in the bedroom, where currently we only use the TV speakers and I’ve given up trying to hear anything. How do you adjust the dialog enhancement? Is this a button on the thing, or is it set some other way? Also, have you tried it without the subwoofer? (I assume that’s what the 2nd box is). We have pets that might not appreciate the bass.

You get a remote with this unit that has button to control the volume, dialog setting, bass, program (music, movie, 3D etc), and surround sound. Any changes are shown on the soundbar itself.

This unit only comes with a subwoofer, because with the tiny soundbar the sub also handles midrange sounds, apparently. But you could turn down the bass if it bothered your pets (doesn’t bother our 4 cats…)

If just getting a soundbar I would recommend the Sonos Beam (Gen 2). It received a lot of strong recommendations, and the sub is sold separately. See @kevels55 post above.

So how does a soundbar enhance dialogue for me without it sounding like a chipmunks’ childrens’ party to everyone else? Where’s the magic?

No idea @d_Wooluf, perhaps a sound engineer might enlighten us, or one of our A.uDs, must be a sound processor of some sort, perhaps it cuts back the background noise, and focuses on the speech, much like the algorithms on our aids? But, I am only guessing

Apologies for hijacking and backtracking!

I watched the You Tube “Why we all need subtitles now” suggested earlier in this thread and landed up following on through to the You Tube one on “why do all films seem dark now”.

As someone who has only vision in one eye, I “view” dark films with the same enthusiasm as ones without sub titles.

Helps to explain why I seem to like older films

Dialogue enhancement typically means boosting speech frequencies, that’s all. It’s not so much that it would annoy people without hearing loss and it’s not so much that it’s amazing for those with hearing loss. This feature came about because many movies are now mixed in a “muddy”, difficult-to-hear way unless you have a setup with numerous separate channels (especially a good quality centre channel speaker).

Something to consider instead of a soundbar might be a 5.1 (or more) setup. When we watch TV, I can set the receiver to 5 channel stereo mode, which brings the same sound to front and back speakers. That means the rear speakers positioned closer to my ears help me hear more easily. A soundbar can give the illusion of surround sound through processing and pointing additional speakers in different directions but it cannot bring the sound physically closer to your ear. Many new receivers will also let you transmit Bluetooth at the same time as the speaker output (unlike many TVs), which can be helpful when listening with others. The receiver I am upgrading to also has a “Zone 2/Zone B” function that may be useful for output to my Phonak TV connector.

@greg.smith said:

When we watch TV, I can set the receiver to 5 channel stereo mode, which brings the same sound to front and back speakers. That means the rear speakers positioned closer to my ears help me hear more easily. A soundbar can give the illusion of surround sound through processing and pointing additional speakers in different directions but it cannot bring the sound physically closer to your ear…

My Polk MagniFi Mini AX has surround speakers, and with that an “All Stereo” mode (which they don’t seem to mention very often in their documentation). Of course in that configuration you lose your surround sound effects, which for movies may not be a good trade-off. I haven’t tried it for TV programs (which, even if broadcast in 5.1 Dolby, don’t seem to have much of a surround sound component)

To be more specific, my comments about soundbars refer to a setup consisting of a soundbar alone. A soundbar with additional surround speakers is essentially a surround setup where front and centre speakers are in a single package. If there are separate rear/surround speakers then the advantage of all-channel stereo is available.

For some movies we do use Dolby 5.1 surround, especially those with more extreme effects (or, on the other hand, movies where the dialog is so lost in the stereo mix that having it play through the separate centre channel is vital). But for most, it’s not a great loss and the trade-off to have a stereo downmix available in the surround speakers closer to our ears is worthwhile for much improved dialog intelligibility (along with subtitles of course).

We just bought a Soundbar from Crutchfield. They are a good company. We have bought several electronics from them. Their tech staff are great.