It is largely seen as a consumer product, but the soundbar is starting to make an appearance in custom installations. Paul Skelton reports.

Certain words make integrators cringe when they hear them and, until recently, ‘soundbar’ was one of them. That’s because soundbars have traditionally been a strictly ‘cash and carry’ product.

Now, capitalising on growing consumer demand and acceptance, soundbars are slowly moving into the custom channel, and several manufacturers are starting to include integrator-friendly features in their products.

For instance, the high-end audio manufacturer Niles has a new product designed to change the perception that soundbars are purely for a transient audience. It’s called the Cynema Soundfield.

Distributed in Australia by QualiFi, the Cynema Soundfield is the industry’s first in-wall soundbar and can be installed flush below any flat panel TV without the need to cut studs.

The three self-contained speaker modules can be adjusted along the rails for best separation and imaging, regardless of stud locations, for seamless audio performance.

A separately mounted DC supply sends low-voltage power through the wall to the amplifier module, allowing installation without the need for an electrician.

Bowers & Wilkins also kept integrators in mind when designing its Panorama 2 soundbar.

The head of marketing at B&W distributor Convoy International, Sohan Karunaratne, says many homes now have several televisions.

“The quality and screen size is continually rising, but sound quality is declining, providing more opportunities for upgrades and add-ons such as high-quality soundbars.

“The growth of technologies like Airplay means that with the addition of a product such as Apple TV or other streaming media servers, consumers can take advantage of a much wider range of options for enjoying media.

“And well-informed integrators can inform consumers of the possibilities available and leverage additional sales through education.

“Soundbars offer a natural speaker solution that fills the need without complicating consumers’ lives or adding unnecessary equipment to their listening rooms.”

Sohan says connectivity is king. As options for integrating a soundbar into a home system are concerned, it’s a case of the more the better.

“Of course, the soundbar needs to have the flexibility to live comfortably in a variety of room styles. Integrators need to ensure the options for playback incorporate the popular decoding formats, as well as stereo and adjustable delay to account for lip sync errors.

“They need to offer advanced set-up options for different kinds of room layouts, furnishings and placement – for example, wall or shelf mounting – and these should include good cable management and remote controllability. The ability to add a subwoofer where required is also a plus.

“Some soundbars are simple plug and play devices, but models like Panorama 2 enable easy integration into larger multi-room or whole-home set-ups. It’s important to choose a model that takes wider design possibilities into account.

“In addition to multiple HDMI, digital and analogue connections, the RS-232 connection on Panorama 2 allows it to be integrated with popular control systems such as AMX and Crestron.

“The Panorama 2 also has on-screen display and a proximity sensing front panel display, adding to its flexibility and user appeal.”

KEF marketing director Grace Lo says it was important for her company to apply its acoustic heritage to the burgeoning soundbar market.

“More and more we consider ourselves to be not just a hi-fi speaker brand but a premium audio brand,” she says.

“We are a premium audio brand providing premium audio solutions to consumers – and to the trade to facilitate consumers.”

KEF is distributed in Australia by Advance Audio.

“We look for market sectors in which consumers are interested in premium audio applications. One of the things we’ve noted more and more is that consumers are looking for good-quality, simple solutions to complement their TVs and, mostly, these are simple soundbar solutions.

Grace says KEF has provided something the market did not offer before: a simple solution that takes advantage of the audio return channel (ARC) and consumer electronics control (CEC) features of TV panels.

“The benefit of ARC and CEC for end-users is that they don’t need any additional remote controls. This is a big advantage in terms of ease of use.

“Another benefit is that we let the TV panel be the centre of the video switching, which makes connectivity even simpler. If users have more devices that they need to connect, they can hook them up to the TV panel and use that as the central hub.”

Mark Schafle owns James Loudspeakers, which has Convergent Technologies as its Australian distributor. He agrees that soundbars had become too big a market segment to ignore.

“We saw it as a growth market without any manufacturer offering a true performance solution,” Mark says.

“It seemed everyone was satisfied with just improving upon a very poorly designed TV speaker, so we asked our engineers to create high-performance drivers that produce excellent sound quality out of a 38mm deep bar with 12mm of box volume.”

Performance concerns
Although soundbars have been popular among transient audiences, concerns remain about their performance.

Anthony Grimani is the resident audio specialist for Connected Home. He is also president of PMI Ltd and MSR Acoustics.

“Soundbars seem like great idea,” Anthony says.

“They’re sleek, compact, high-tech and look like a great companion for a thin TV. Unfortunately, things look better than they sound when it comes to soundbars.

“A soundbar typically consists of three sets of transducers: one each for the left, centre and right channels. Each set is sometimes configured in a classic horizontal ‘midwoofer-tweeter-midwoofer’ (MTM) array.

“All nine of these transducers have to fit in a cabinet that’s a few centimetres tall by a few centimetres deep and perhaps 100-150cm wide. This is less than ideal for several reasons.

“First, the speakers are much too close together to produce any kind of imaging or soundstage.

“Ideally, the left and right speakers should form a 45º to 60º subtended angle from the listening position. So, roughly speaking, if the soundbar is 100cm wide, you should be 150-200cm away from it. I’ll bet you’re not sitting that close.

“When you put the speakers so close to each other you get no separation; the soundstage collapses into a giant mono blob. If you don’t believe me, get a test disc and try playing pink noise that cycles through left-centre-right (LCR). Not much difference, huh?

“Second, horizontal MTM arrays exhibit significant comb filtering (regular deep notches in the frequency response due to transducer interferences) and ragged overall frequency response when you get off axis.

“Unless you’re sitting directly on-axis with the array, you get poor intelligibility and a swooshy, mushy character to the sound.

“With a soundbar, it’s impossible for even one person to sit on axis with the MTM arrays for all three channels. The most you could do is one. You might get decent sound from the left or centre or right, but the other two will sound bad.

“Third, the cabinet volume is not great enough to support any kind of significant low-frequency reproduction. Assuming the soundbar has three channels in it, each one gets one-third of the total volume of the soundbar.

“It’s not enough to produce frequencies below 150-200Hz. Although you can add a subwoofer, you’re asking for trouble trying to get a good blend.

“Placement will be challenging, as the subwoofer is playing frequencies high enough to localise it. Plus, you’ll be dealing with all kinds of resonance issues that further restrict where the subwoofer can go.”

To summarise, Anthony says you’ll have giant mono sound with no separation or imaging, poor intelligibility, poor frequency response and no dynamics or bass:

“It’s just a big, confused, jumbled mess.

“There are some things you can do to improve matters, though. Since you’re going to end up with mono anyway, it would actually be better for soundbar manufacturers to just concentrate on making very good monophonic sound.

“Instead of three MTM arrays, sum the LCR channels and send them to one horizontal configuration consisting of a larger woofer, midrange and tweeter all lined up.

“A ‘two and a half’ way MTM (the second midrange is rolled off on the top end) accomplishes the same thing. If the crossover network is steep and well designed, you can eliminate the bad comb filtering and off-axis frequency response errors.

“The sound will be much cleaner, more detailed and easier to understand.

“If you’re really determined to get stereo separation, there are some alternatives. One is to use the soundbar just for the centre channel and route the left and right to hidden in-wall or in-ceiling speakers. It’s not perfect but it does give you a wider soundstage.

“A final alternative would be to split the soundbar in half, put one piece on either side of the TV and go with a left/right phantom centre set-up. This gives you some separation and soundstage without quite as much comb filtering.

“Centre-channel dialogue will still have problems off axis, as it’s coming equally from the left and right, and the small cabinets will have lots of trouble with bass.”

Installer perspective
Mark Jeisman, director of custom integration business Surround Sounds, says soundbars come into their own when other options have been exhausted.

“Retail sales of soundbars are exploding, and we’re starting to see that filter through to specialist dealers,” Mark says.

“For that reason, we stock a range of soundbars to complement real hi-fi. Soundbars work well for minor TV set-ups and they can also be a handy ‘get out of jail free’ card.

“They can be a bit of a Swiss army knife, but we certainly wouldn’t install one to the exclusion of a proper system.

“Soundbars serve a purpose, and some do that very well. They certainly improve flat-panel TV sound quality and we support any improvement in that area. They can also bring better quality music to areas where there may not have been audio previously.

“However, given the opportunity, we prefer to work with dedicated multi-room audio products and speakers.

“Further, selling soundbars is not as fruitful as selling the components of a 5.1 speaker pack. Soundbars are becoming something of a commodity, going the same way as a lot of other products.

“The dealers that sell soundbars when there is a chance of selling component hi-fi are really shooting themselves in the foot – and they may not be giving the customer the best possible experience.”

Grace believes that integrators are businesspeople who want to offer their clients a good solution, and knowing about soundbars will make them look good.

“Soundbars are a good second-room option,” she says.

“Consumers, if they are really into high-performance home theatre, will invest in a five-channel system with a proper AV receiver.

“If they want a simple solution, a soundbar will be suitable for about 80% of installations.”