Hasta La Gadget!

Home theater is about compromise. You probably can’t afford tens of thousands of dollars to make a real home cinema. Neither can you convince your significant other that you need to jam a speaker into every corner of the room and, worse, run cables to them. And even if you’re happy with just a big TV hooked up to your PS3, the wall-mounted flat-panel is likely firing its rear-mounted speakers straight through the plaster into the (unimpressed) neighbor’s bedroom.

Thankfully, there is one compromise that looks like it will pay off in your favor, offering sleek good looks along with decent sound. The solution is a soundbar, a discreet strip of speakers that sits below the screen and, while not delivering the power or clarity of a full 5.1 setup, will certainly be good enough to make it worth watching T2 yet again.

We were expecting a slew of new soundbars at CES 2010, ready and eager to team up with all the big new HD TVs people have convinced themselves they needed for the analog switch-off. But we were disappointed, both with the quality and the quantity. The worst we saw were from Dell, paired up with its new Mini 10, the netbook with a hi-def screen and TV-tuner. A netbook is probably the computer in most need of a decent set of speakers, as the built-in ones are almost always tinny and terrible. Dell’s effort did nothing to improve the sound of the machine it was attached to.

The best (as in most convenient) models are those with built-in amplifiers, as they don’t need a separate receiver: instead they hook up to your TV’s outputs. Make sure, too, that there are enough inputs for all your sources, from DVD to games console to (gasp) VCR.

The most promising soundbar at CES was from Panasonic. The SC-HTB1 not only packs in all the speakers and electronics needed to trick you into thinking the sound is coming from behind you, it also has a pair of subwoofers inside, mounted pointing in opposite directions to reduce vibration. The unit hooks up via HDMI (for two-way audio) and has processing to make it sound as if the dialog is coming from the entire TV screen.

We’re skeptical on those subwoofers, though, as they are too tiny to shift the amount of air needed to punch the bass into your gut. Consider instead convincing your spouse that a sub-woofer is a worthwhile addition. Like the sub-and-satellite speakers most of us use to listen to music these days, adding a big, bad bass speaker to the mix will give explosions the kick that the little soundbars just can’t deliver. Better still, as bass is mono and mostly non-directional, you can always hide it behind the sofa, like a little kid watching Doctor Who.