Soundbar that's good for movies and music?

Soldato
Joined
7 Oct 2003
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5,693
Location
Nottingham
Is there such a thing as a soundbar that will sound good with music as well as movie for under £500?
 
Looked at both suggestions and the new YSP 2700 and the all look excellent, could do with selling an arm or leg as these are pushing £800!!!
 
Thanks Moogleys but my heart is set on a YSP 2700 but my wallet is telling me YSP 2500!

I'd love to hear them both to see if the 2700 is worth an extra £300
 
In my opinion, no.

I used to have a sound bar with a sub, it was to bass heavy and no top range. Films sounded good, music terrible.
I opted for a pair of active speaker and use optical from the TV.
 
I've weighed up the HDR thing and on balance it's not that important, well not enough for an extra £300! I'm also hoping the YSP (Yamaha Sound Projector) sounds a little better for music than the average soundbar.

I've come up with what I think is a reasonable setup for £1250 from Richersounds.

MDA TUCANA 1200 HYBRID TV Bench £250
HISENSE 55M3300 55" 4K TV £550
Yamaha YSP 2500 Soundbar £450

The TV bench is the best I could find that will hide my AV stuff behind Glass Doors and raise the TV enough to put a Soundbar under without being in front, the oak version goes with the rest of my furniture. Both the TV and YSP get very good reviews across the Internet so I'm pretty confident they'll be OK.

If I wanted to go up a level to HDR it's going to cost me an extra £400 (650 TV & 800 YSP 2700) which I'm struggling to justify when 1080p on my old 50" LG plasma still impresses me!
 
Even on movies?

Yes. It has proper size drivers rather than lots of little speakers. It does not do fake surround but does give a much better presence.

Have a read online and see what you think. Pick what suits you best personally I would go for audio quality rather than gimics but everyone is different.
 
I've weighed up the HDR thing and on balance it's not that important, well not enough for an extra £300! I'm also hoping the YSP (Yamaha Sound Projector) sounds a little better for music than the average soundbar.

I've come up with what I think is a reasonable setup for £1250 from Richersounds.

MDA TUCANA 1200 HYBRID TV Bench £250
HISENSE 55M3300 55" 4K TV £550
Yamaha YSP 2500 Soundbar £450

The TV bench is the best I could find that will hide my AV stuff behind Glass Doors and raise the TV enough to put a Soundbar under without being in front, the oak version goes with the rest of my furniture. Both the TV and YSP get very good reviews across the Internet so I'm pretty confident they'll be OK.

If I wanted to go up a level to HDR it's going to cost me an extra £400 (650 TV & 800 YSP 2700) which I'm struggling to justify when 1080p on my old 50" LG plasma still impresses me!

Hisense tv's aren't that great. Cheap yes but why buy a decent yamaha sound bar and a cheap tv?

Buy a top of the range LG with Harmon Kardon built in, you won't need a seperate sound bar.
 
I just picked up a YSP2500 from richersounds today to replace my logitewch z5500 from 2009, and it's great, managed to get it for £400 as it was an open box so well chuffed. The sound in movies is amazing, not sure about the surround sound but the general sound including voices is great.
 
I decided to go all out and order the YSP 2700 along with the TV and stand I already listed, I know some will disagree with my choice of the TV and think I'm mad spending an extra £300 over the YSP 2500. I very rarely upgrade AV stuff about every 5 - 6 years so i'll get my moneys worth out of it!

I bought all 3 from Richersounds and they knocked £112 off and gave me free delivery so only £248 over original budget, better sell a kidney :)
 
I am blow away with Sony HT-XT3 amazing with Movies & Music , far better then my Sony HT-XT2

Looks the part also with my Sony sitting on top
 
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I just looked through manuals for YSP2500 and Q acoustics soundbars.
Neither seems to have a mechanism to control how 5.1 sound will be mixed down, so you can manually control the relative level of the centre vocal speaker - is that correct ? you just have to go with their pre-programmed modes.

(I want to get one of these for a parent, harder of hearing, and the ability to control the mix, or maybe have a graphic equalizer of some sort was on my list of needs.)
 
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