I see that a lot of people have a Sonos sound bar. Question:
Does anyone use one in conjunction with a pair of tower speakers? I have very good tower speakers that provide great sound, but I'd consider getting a soundbar if it helped with the speaking. I would still use the tower speakers.
I use tower speakers for the front left/right channels, and bought a separate center speaker. I think a sound bar would be redundant, it includes R/L speakers, you already have those with the towers, so your money is being diluted as only a portion of it is going to the very important center speaker.
Here's what I bought for the center, ~ $210 now (was $250 when I bought it! What inflation?) :
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09BMWZ29F
web image, not my set up:
I repurposed some other tower speakers for my front left/right - pretty low end as far as my tastes in music reproduction go, but they fit in nicely with our TV and entertainment center. Not stellar for high end music listening, but are still 1000x better than most built in TV speakers. I actually bought them for background music for the 3-season room of our old house, and went for the size and style and price over music reproduction, but they had decent reviews for the price.
These, just $145 for the
pair (really good for the price):
https://www.parts-express.com/Dayto...aker-Pair-with-AMT-Tweeter-300-654?quantity=1
And a $200 small subwoofer to round it out (just $149 now! What inflation?):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006HCQZDQ
I just repurposed some small bookshelf speakers for the rear surrounds, not much volume is sent to those.
I haven't looked at many soundbars, but they all strike me as too much compromise. You can't break the laws of physics, speakers need some size to produce volume at low distortion. Some electronics (and some alter the sound in bad ways - like use a lot of compression) and detail to construction can help, but in the end, you need to move some air.
-ERD50