Wireless TV Speakers

Vaclav

Vaclav

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Not seen any threads for them yet, sorry in advance if there's a thread I'm missing....

Looking for advice on a receiver style setup with WIRELESS speakers that could all be moved well away from the TV since I'm starting to get some complaints from the neighbor that our current soundbar vibrates the shared wall some. (only in the rental for another ~7 months assuming the home we buy down here is ready for move-in exactly on the end of the lease, but still I hate conflict I can avoid)

Using a Samsung Plasma currently, it does not have bluetooth - although I am curious about what would be involved to get it to work with a set of BT speakers since that seems like it would add alot of flexibility.

Thanks for any answers in advance.
 
lurker

lurker

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I'm assuming you're watching TV with the soundbar when the neighbors complain. I'm curious because if that's the case, I don't see you moving the speakers away from the TV. What I mean is, watching someone's lips move on TV and having the sound come from any location other than the center is disconcerting. Your brain sees a picture and expects the sound to match that location. I would rather watch TV at a reduced volume for 7 months than put up with mis-matched audio and video locations. Maybe get some headphones. My .02.
 
Frenzied Wombat

Frenzied Wombat

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I have the Sonos system and it's fucking fantastic. It's a little pricey, but sound quality is great, setup is a breeze, and it just ALWAYS works without any fiddling or hassle. Besides it functioning as a sound system for your TV, you can also play audio for any number of internet sources, as well as your PC or IPad/IPhone.

Though the sound bar needs to be wired to the TV with an optical cable, the sub and any number of surround speakers all work wirelessly. I tried a few cheaper options from Samsung/Polk and they all either just flat out sucked, or needed constant tweaks/reboots to keep them running properly.

All the speakers except the sound bar (which is wired) connect to a private wifi network created by the Sonos Bridge, hence you can take the speakers anywhere you want in the house that has wifi signal and you'll get sound. Also, it asks for the placement of the various speakers during the setup, and adjust volumes/effects of each speaker to compensate for their locations/distance.

Sonos 10/10
 
taebin

taebin

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I've got Sonos too (5.1 wireless home theater - two Play:3's, sub, soundbar), a Play:5, and an amp for outdoor speakers. Can't say enough about the system, and thought about recommending it, but like Lurker said, if you can't have the soundbar mounted underneath the TV and you are reliant upon sound from side mounted speakers, it's gonna sound wonky. Is it possible to rearrange your furniture to have the TV mounted on a non-shared wall?
 
Vaclav

Vaclav

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taebin_sl said:
I've got Sonos too (5.1 wireless home theater - two Play:3's, sub, soundbar), a Play:5, and an amp for outdoor speakers. Can't say enough about the system, and thought about recommending it, but like Lurker said, if you can't have the soundbar mounted underneath the TV and you are reliant upon sound from side mounted speakers, it's gonna sound wonky. Is it possible to rearrange your furniture to have the TV mounted on a non-shared wall?
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It's quite possible, just would involve a ton of rearranging - I'm doing the combo TV den/couch/double PC set up - so the long way for the room really works best - and if I tried to just flip it that's the door, heh.

I may end up having to go something like Sonos though, if I don't find something well priced though - is the soundbar in the system adjustable separately from the rest of the system with it? [I guess it's not impossible to remove the wall mount and buy a stand so it's a few feet out too, I guess, but thinking to the future with house buying, I really prefer the idea of being able to do a gorgeous full room surround sound setup [especially for the wife, since she's deaf in one ear, so clarity with speakers being distant is sometimes rough] without having to fish wires through the walls.]

Honestly was really hoping (although it's 2 months off so not great for the immediate issue - but had already been a plan) someone would pitch something that would allow the TV to broadcast the audio signal over the optical to bluetooth or other wireless stuff, so I could just run it through my Echo when it gets here in June. Since it would be simple to place it perfectly square in between our PCs (we use two gigantic L desks side by side) to be square with the TV but close to maximize clarity and annoyance to those not with us.
 
Frenzied Wombat

Frenzied Wombat

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Vaclav_sl said:
It's quite possible, just would involve a ton of rearranging - I'm doing the combo TV den/couch/double PC set up - so the long way for the room really works best - and if I tried to just flip it that's the door, heh.

I may end up having to go something like Sonos though, if I don't find something well priced though - is the soundbar in the system adjustable separately from the rest of the system with it? [I guess it's not impossible to remove the wall mount and buy a stand so it's a few feet out too, I guess, but thinking to the future with house buying, I really prefer the idea of being able to do a gorgeous full room surround sound setup [especially for the wife, since she's deaf in one ear, so clarity with speakers being distant is sometimes rough] without having to fish wires through the walls.]

Honestly was really hoping (although it's 2 months off so not great for the immediate issue - but had already been a plan) someone would pitch something that would allow the TV to broadcast the audio signal over the optical to bluetooth or other wireless stuff, so I could just run it through my Echo when it gets here in June. Since it would be simple to place it perfectly square in between our PCs (we use two gigantic L desks side by side) to be square with the TV but close to maximize clarity and annoyance to those not with us.
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Trust me when I say that if you can't afford the Sonos, postpone this project until you can. I tried multiple other avenues including less expensive Samsung and Polk solutions, and they were all failures. Also, you may find that the sound for the playbar doesn't cause the same issues as your existing cheaper model. The speakers are front facing and they put a large amount of insulation to prevent reverberation from the rear. I am not sure if you can specifically adjust the playbar's volume independent of the surround speakers in the "Tv setup" (I'll look tonight), but you can adjust the volume of the sub and surrounds in proportion to the playbar volume, if that makes sense.
 
Vaclav

Vaclav

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Frenzied Wombat_sl said:
Trust me when I say that if you can't afford the Sonos, postpone this project until you can. I tried multiple other avenues including less expensive Samsung and Polk solutions, and they were all failures. Also, you may find that the sound for the playbar doesn't cause the same issues as your existing cheaper model. The speakers are front facing and they put a large amount of insulation to prevent reverberation from the rear. I am not sure if you can specifically adjust the playbar's volume independent of the surround speakers in the "Tv setup" (I'll look tonight), but you can adjust the volume of the sub and surrounds in proportion to the playbar volume, if that makes sense.
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Well that's the same net you're talking about with the playbar - unless the cap on the satellites is low, but assuming you can put the satellites at like 2x the playbar or whatever that would be perfect. Key was being able to adjust the proportionality of them, I'm sure one item (probably the playbar as you're describing it) will only adjust with the core volume setting seems unintuitive without.

And yea, it does sound perfect - just the idea of having a $2k soundsystem on a TV that would got for $600 or so now seems more than a tad silly is my prime point to balk - almost makes more sense to replace the TV with a BT capable TV model at that point, might accomplish similar cheaper...

It's a muse that seems like it should be a simple thing with plenty of options (there's so many decent BT speakers out there!), and there just doesn't seem to be - it's weird. Almost wish I had the people and know-how to do a tech startup (maybe even money in this case - tech startups sound rich for my blood even) with how much of a market hole this sounds like it is...
 
Frenzied Wombat

Frenzied Wombat

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Vaclav_sl said:
Well that's the same net you're talking about with the playbar - unless the cap on the satellites is low, but assuming you can put the satellites at like 2x the playbar or whatever that would be perfect. Key was being able to adjust the proportionality of them, I'm sure one item (probably the playbar as you're describing it) will only adjust with the core volume setting seems unintuitive without.

And yea, it does sound perfect - just the idea of having a $2k soundsystem on a TV that would got for $600 or so now seems more than a tad silly is my prime point to balk - almost makes more sense to replace the TV with a BT capable TV model at that point, might accomplish similar cheaper...

It's a muse that seems like it should be a simple thing with plenty of options (there's so many decent BT speakers out there!), and there just doesn't seem to be - it's weird. Almost wish I had the people and know-how to do a tech startup (maybe even money in this case - tech startups sound rich for my blood even) with how much of a market hole this sounds like it is...
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Well, the idea with the Sonos system is getting something comparable to a professional setup at a fraction of the cost. If you had a home theater company come in and do a standard 5.1 setup with in wall speakers, you'd be talking 5K EASY. The quote I got using a Pioneer setup was actually $6500.. Keep in mind these are high end speakers that not only can be used for your TV, but as a whole house audio system. You can setup any combination of speakers into their own "zone", then carry them anywhere in the house you may want music. Alternatively, you can just keep adding speakers on demand, setting up more zones, and continuously expand the reach of your sound system, as there are no limits since you aren't bound by wiring or inputs. Like I said, I've had cheapo 5.1 setups from Samsung/Polk, and they were basically toys compared to Sonos. This is the first and last sound system you'll ever need, and they constantly upgrade the firmware and software to add new features.

EDIT: Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but BT audio quality is inferior, and the range is limiting. My original Samsung 5.1 system used BT, and it constantly had sound quality and reception/sync issues.
 
Vaclav

Vaclav

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From what I'm seeing on your edit questions - not with a good BT, quality is a non-issue with a good BT speaker is what I'm seeing over at places like Tom's and Anand.

The benefits however are that it's a better expandable solution with multiple speakers - they make it sound like BT speakers all like working solo (which is fine by me though) versus a real 5.1 so you lose that versus Sonos, plus Sonos is expandable out into other rooms as you mentioned - which would only be a concern of mine when entertaining, and since BT would be portable seems like that's a nonissue for me for those rare events.

Oh and BT speakers since they're "dumb devices" tie up your phone a bit. (Not that I've ever seen Spotify/etc multitasking on my phone making an impact - maybe it would've mattered on my old GNex though)

I am noticing you can do Sonos piecemeal though, that's more appealing that a $2k dive right off the bat though, doing $400 for a Play 5 and then expanding with a Playbar down the line and then maybe some Play 1's for sattelites in the corner of the room eventually sounds much better than the initial "buy it all at once" package.

Course I'm realizing now thinking about running the optical to the Sonos Play 5 to the desk that I could just do the same with the soundbar... maybe a long optical is just in my cards ATM instead... fishing it through carpet doesn't sound that bad to do. (Bar's a bit long for the computer desk, but I think if I hide it on the floor immediately behind the couch firing up it might work well from the desks and well enough from the couch (we rarely use the couch anyhow)
 
Frenzied Wombat

Frenzied Wombat

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Vaclav_sl said:
From what I'm seeing on your edit questions - not with a good BT, quality is a non-issue with a good BT speaker is what I'm seeing over at places like Tom's and Anand.

The benefits however are that it's a better expandable solution with multiple speakers - they make it sound like BT speakers all like working solo (which is fine by me though) versus a real 5.1 so you lose that versus Sonos, plus Sonos is expandable out into other rooms as you mentioned - which would only be a concern of mine when entertaining, and since BT would be portable seems like that's a nonissue for me for those rare events.

Oh and BT speakers since they're "dumb devices" tie up your phone a bit. (Not that I've ever seen Spotify/etc multitasking on my phone making an impact - maybe it would've mattered on my old GNex though)

I am noticing you can do Sonos piecemeal though, that's more appealing that a $2k dive right off the bat though, doing $400 for a Play 5 and then expanding with a Playbar down the line and then maybe some Play 1's for sattelites in the corner of the room eventually sounds much better than the initial "buy it all at once" package.
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Yeah, I started with just the Playbar and bridge, then added the sub a few months later, followed by the two satellites (play:1) a few months after that. Now I also have a Play:3 in my bedroom. When I bought the playbar the salesman said "this system is addicting, you'll be back for more", and he was right. The playbar ALONE was a massive improvement over what I had, and the SUB simply brought things to a thunderous level. If it's a cost issue, start with the playbar and buy the other shit as time goes on, or use them as hints for Bday gift requests and such.
 
Vaclav

Vaclav

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Frenzied Wombat_sl said:
Yeah, I started with just the Playbar and bridge, then added the sub a few months later, followed by the two satellites (play:1) a few months after that. Now I also have a Play:3 in my bedroom. When I bought the playbar the salesman said "this system is addicting, you'll be back for more", and he was right. The playbar ALONE was a massive improvement over what I had, and the SUB simply brought things to a thunderous level. If it's a cost issue, start with the playbar and buy the other shit as time goes on, or use them as hints for Bday gift requests and such.
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Heh, wife doesn't drive and is terrified of budgeting so she never would do that - we've got money but I swear if she was the budget handler we'd be in trouble quick, we have her handle the budget a month every year to see how she's grown in handling things and it's always been poor. [Some years she overspends by a ton where she'd be eroding the investments - other years she goes WAY under and is living under a terrible standard of living doing shit like eating Ramen for lunch every day - she can't seem to grasp living life well but sticking to a budget]

But yea, doing it piecemeal might be the way - I'll have to soul search some. Having an excuse to replace the TV and then have a 51" TV for the bedroom and grab like a 65" for out here is tempting too though.
 
Frenzied Wombat

Frenzied Wombat

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Vaclav_sl said:
Heh, wife doesn't drive and is terrified of budgeting so she never would do that - we've got money but I swear if she was the budget handler we'd be in trouble quick, we have her handle the budget a month every year to see how she's grown in handling things and it's always been poor. [Some years she overspends by a ton where she'd be eroding the investments - other years she goes WAY under and is living under a terrible standard of living doing shit like eating Ramen for lunch every day - she can't seem to grasp living life well but sticking to a budget]

But yea, doing it piecemeal might be the way - I'll have to soul search some. Having an excuse to replace the TV and then have a 51" TV for the bedroom and grab like a 65" for out here is tempting too though.
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TV tech and cost vs size is constantly improving, and the gadget freak inside us all compels us to upgrade, but when it comes to home audio there may be improvements to features over time, but good quality audio has been around for ages, and anything better would require an upgrade to our ears for there to be any benefit. My stepdad has a high end audio system he bought in in the early 2000's, and there is no reason to upgrade because it works and the audio quality is impeccable. So if you're looking for justification to plunk down the money, just tell yourself (and it's the truth), that you won't ever need to replace this system with anything else, barring it going defective. Though I see myself upgrading my TV every five years, I see no reason to replace my Sonos in the foreseeable future.
 
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