New TVs are incredibly thin, which is great for how they look on your wall or in your entertainment center. However, that tends to wreak havoc on how they sound. Speakers usually need a lot of space to produce good audio (with a few unique technical exceptions, like electrostatic panel speakers), and there isn't much space in really flat televisions. This means that, as nice as the picture looks, your TV's built-in speakers probably won't cut it. You need a separate sound system if you want loud, high-quality audio for your home theater that doesn't sound thin or tinny. That's what soundbars are for.
Soundbars are long, usually relatively thin (but still thicker than your HDTV) speakers that incorporate stereo, left/right/center, or even 5.1-channel audio into an easy-to-set-up device you plug into your TV's HDMI or optical port. They're add-on sound systems that don't take up much more space than your TV itself, but add much-needed power, range, and clarity to your viewing experience.
Bars or Slabs?
Most soundbars are one- or two-piece devices. The soundbar itself is the aforementioned long, thin speaker, and it can work fine on its own. However, for strong bass performance you need the additional power of a subwoofer. Fortunately, many soundbars come with a wireless subwoofer you can hide next to the couch or in the corner of the room, and it will automatically sync with the speaker you place in front of your TV.
Besides the standard bar shape, several one-piece sound systems have adopted the sound slab format. These are large, flat speaker systems that incorporate everything into a single monolithic base upon which you place your TV. The greater area and volume often means that these can produce better midrange and bass than soundbars, and some can even produce solid sub-bass.
Both sound system designs let you augment your TV's audio significantly with a minimum of wires and fuss. Soundbars and sound slabs both keep a minimum profile, and generally require just one cable connecting to your HDTV and another cable to a power outlet. If included, wireless subwoofers also need to be plugged into a power outlet, but that should be all you need to get running.
You can also get smaller speakers that can sit in front of or under your television, like the Creative iRoar and the Naim Mu-So. Any speaker with an optical input can function as a soundbar, though its power and ability to produce a sound field might work better with smaller screens than big ones.
What About Surround Sound?
Most soundbars and sound slabs claim to offer some form of simulated surround sound, but this can be a bit misleading. Audio processing and driver placement can create a sense of being surrounded by sound even when the only speakers are directly in front of you, but the large sound field can't reproduce the accurate imaging of a surround sound system with dedicated satellites for each channel. If you really want to feel surrounded by your movies and for every sound effect to come from just the right direction, you need a full surround sound speaker system.
This doesn't necessarily mean that a 5.1-channel speaker system is the best choice, though. While surround sound is authentic with these multi-speaker sets, there are many drawbacks that make them less appealing than a soundbar or sound slab. Primarily, these conventional surround systems mean much more clutter for your room. Each satellite requires wires running either to the wall or to a centralized device like an A/V receiver, and that means a lot of cables to potentially trip over. You can hide them with rugs or in-wall conduits, but it's still going to be more expensive and less convenient than a soundbar or a sound slab. If you have the budget to build or remodel your living room around a surround sound system, it's a great choice for your home theater, but for most users it isn't particularly feasible.
If your sound system is going to have more than one piece, the most important addition is a subwoofer, like the one pictured above that comes with the Sony HT-NT5. As touched on earlier, a separate subwoofer, about the size of a small ottoman, has the space necessary for low frequencies to really come out and shake the walls without distorting.
Streaming Audio
All of the speakers on this list can wirelessly stream music from your smartphone or tablet. Most of them use Bluetooth, and some use a Wi-Fi-based wireless audio system like Play-Fi. Wi-Fi isn't quite as simple to connect as Bluetooth, but it lets you set up multi-room sound systems so you can seamlessly play music all over your house. Either way, thanks to wireless audio, you probably won't need to get a separate wireless music speaker for your living room if you have a soundbar. For more, see The Best Wireless Speakers.
This list comprises the best soundbars we've tested, ranging across all prices, sizes, and feature sets. For more soundbars and other audio solutions, check out our Speakers Product Guide, as well as The Best Computer Speakers and The Best Bluetooth Speakers.