Sound Bar Opinion

[anfield11]

Not sure if this is the right place for this and also not totally Apple related.....but I do have lots of Apple products .

I have an android box that is set up for Kodi and It's directly attached to the TV by HDMI cable, but the sound is awful. By awful I mean that all the sound effects (like passing traffic, clock ticking etc etc) is so loud that it makes it a struggle to hear the dialogue.

The sound on the regular cable box is fine.

On a separate TV I have the same Kodi box set up through my Surround Sound and the sound is fine.

I'm wondering if buying a sound bar would help?

Any help appreciated.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

If you have surround sound already, a good goal would be to try to flow any sound from any source to those (probably better) speakers. Instead of buying another speaker(s) (the sound bar), consider buying a receiver and flow all your audio sources into that receiver then out to your surround sound speakers.

However, if you don't want to do that, about any speaker should be better than the one in a TV. So you will probably get better sound out of a sound bar. But again, if the surround sound speakers are already good, you could probably spend the same money you are thinking of spending on a sound bar to get a decent receiver.

 

[anfield11]

May have confused you a bit. The surround system is at one property and the sound bar would be needed at another with no surround system. The owner of this property (lady friend) would not want a full surround system, so my thoughts on a sound bar are to get better sound out of this one device/source being an android box set up for Kodi. As mentioned the background sounds to a show are making the dialogue hard to hear from this one device. When regular cable is being used it's fine.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Then yes, any speaker is likely to sound better than the speaker built into the TV. A sound bar- any sound bar- will likely sound better.

 

[anfield11]

Then yes, any speaker is likely to sound better than the speaker built into the TV. A sound bar- any sound bar- will likely sound better.

Okay, thanks. I was hoping it wasn't the source (Android/Kodi box) that was the problem.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

That could be the case. But you can easily test it by temporarily substituting it for the other Kodi box. If it sounds good in your setup, you eliminate that it's the problem.

That could also rule out that any cable could be the problem too.

 

[anfield11]

That could be the case. But you can easily test it by temporarily substituting it for the other Kodi box. If it sounds good in your setup, you eliminate that it's the problem.

That could also rule out that any cable could be the problem too.

Will give that a go. Did try different HDMI cables, but made no difference.

 

[ActionableMango]

TV speakers are awful. Not much the manufacturers can do about it since there is no room for speakers any more in a thin TV.

A soundbar will do wonders for you. A real surround sound system will sound even better, and as a bonus you could increase the center channel (dialog) independently and as much as you want, making it relatively louder than the channels which are carrying rest of the audio.