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There is a large enough quality divide between TV speakers and an AV system with wired speakers to allow for a soundbar to be both an order of magnitude better

There is a large enough quality divide between TV speakers and an AV system with wired speakers to allow for a soundbar to be both an order of magnitude better than TV speakers and also an order of magnitude worse than the AV system.

dpark 8y ago
Given that audio is so subjective, I'm not sure it's meaningful to discuss orders of magnitude. There are people who think even the best sound bars are terrible compared to a set of bookshelf speakers. But there are also people who think they can tell the difference between 44.1k and 48k, and it's just not a fight I care to involve myself with.
- coryfklein 8y ago
  Although audio is subjective to our own qualia, it is silly to suggest that you can't quantify the difference in quality of various audio setups. Even though I used the term "orders of magnitude" colloquially rather than literally, it is well within reason to use the term literally as well. It is not difficult to imagine a machine with multiple sensitive recording and analytics devices that could measure the reproduction of audio in a room and generate a score based on how well it matches the original recording itself. This device, in fact, is not even imaginary but actually exists, and can legitimately give scores to audio configurations that differ on "orders of magnitude". Certainly there is a point where this device would rate sensitivities far beyond human ability to distinguish, but I would argue that the difference between sound bars and AV+speaker setups is well within the range of standard human perception. We're not even close to the controversial $5-10k+ setups.
  - dpark 8y ago
    I did not suggest that audio cannot be measured quantitatively. However, it generally is not. I've never read a sound bar review that used any kind of objective measures except maybe SPL. It's always about whether the sound is crisp or muddy and the sound stage is wide or tall or compressed or whatever. I also did not say that the difference between sound bars and receiver setups is too close for human hearing to detect. This is clearly not the case, since it's entirely possible for humans to detect sound differences even between two sound bars or the same receiver with different speakers. However, sounding different doesn't mean one is actually better. When two setups differ in volume slightly, human listeners will consistently choose the louder one as "better" unless the sound is clearly low quality (i.e. no bass, laptop speakers), disregarding the supposed intrinsic superiority of the "better" system.
    - coryfklein 8y ago
      I stand corrected - I misread your earlier comment much too quickly. After re-reading this thread again, I realized my comment was written in prejudice. > human listeners will consistently choose the louder one as "better" unless the sound is clearly low quality This is news to me, and very interesting. Thank you for sharing.
- sumedh 8y ago
  > There are people who think even the best sound bars are terrible That should be easy to test with a blindfold. If they can clearly figure out the difference between the two.

dpark 8y ago

Given that audio is so subjective, I'm not sure it's meaningful to discuss orders of magnitude. There are people who think even the best sound bars are terrible compared to a set of bookshelf speakers. But there are also people who think they can tell the difference between 44.1k and 48k, and it's just not a fight I care to involve myself with.

coryfklein 8y ago
Although audio is subjective to our own qualia, it is silly to suggest that you can't quantify the difference in quality of various audio setups. Even though I used the term "orders of magnitude" colloquially rather than literally, it is well within reason to use the term literally as well. It is not difficult to imagine a machine with multiple sensitive recording and analytics devices that could measure the reproduction of audio in a room and generate a score based on how well it matches the original recording itself. This device, in fact, is not even imaginary but actually exists, and can legitimately give scores to audio configurations that differ on "orders of magnitude". Certainly there is a point where this device would rate sensitivities far beyond human ability to distinguish, but I would argue that the difference between sound bars and AV+speaker setups is well within the range of standard human perception. We're not even close to the controversial $5-10k+ setups.
- dpark 8y ago
  I did not suggest that audio cannot be measured quantitatively. However, it generally is not. I've never read a sound bar review that used any kind of objective measures except maybe SPL. It's always about whether the sound is crisp or muddy and the sound stage is wide or tall or compressed or whatever. I also did not say that the difference between sound bars and receiver setups is too close for human hearing to detect. This is clearly not the case, since it's entirely possible for humans to detect sound differences even between two sound bars or the same receiver with different speakers. However, sounding different doesn't mean one is actually better. When two setups differ in volume slightly, human listeners will consistently choose the louder one as "better" unless the sound is clearly low quality (i.e. no bass, laptop speakers), disregarding the supposed intrinsic superiority of the "better" system.
  - coryfklein 8y ago
    I stand corrected - I misread your earlier comment much too quickly. After re-reading this thread again, I realized my comment was written in prejudice. > human listeners will consistently choose the louder one as "better" unless the sound is clearly low quality This is news to me, and very interesting. Thank you for sharing.
sumedh 8y ago
> There are people who think even the best sound bars are terrible That should be easy to test with a blindfold. If they can clearly figure out the difference between the two.