TV needs better Audio - Soundbar versus 2x Echo

[hovig]

Hi friends, some way I feel LTT got me through this home office phase in corona time without almost going crazy because of loneliness and almost feel like part of the family.  And now I hope for the much praised swarm knowledge of this forum.
If LTT merch shipping to Europe wouldn't be so crazy expensive due to customs and taxes, I would have ordered some long ago. But then Floatplane will be fetched soon. Anyway, I hope this thread doesn't break any rules!

My TV is a Samsung TV from 2012 and although my fingers are itching my wife and I want to wait until it is really broken and yes, that's ok and right, we do not want to produce so much e-waste. But the sound is really shit! 

Now the video of Linus with soundbars has given me the idea to buy a soundbar. I just do not know which one yet! 

OR

Furthermore, there is also a second generation Alexa Echo in the living room. Now I've seen in the app, you can connect 2 devices together and can then also hear the TV audio on it supporting. 
One option would be, I could buy a used, additional Echo 2G and interconnect it with the existing Echo 2G in the living room, or I take the Echo Dot 4th generation from the office into the living room and get me an Echo Dot 5th generation and interconnect it with the Echo Dot 4G in the living room. For this, the Echo 2G comes into the office. 

What do you guys think? Is a soundbar the better solution? We are not audiophiles. We listen to normal music in the living room and on the TV via the Fire TV stick, the common streams. I just find the audio is often played very quietly or incomprehensibly from the TV and in certain frequencies it to squeak (do not know how I can call it better). So we do not need a high-end solution, but rather price-performance balance.

[Omon_Ra]

I would go with a soundbar. Check if your TV has an HDMI port with the 'ARC' label (usually HDMI 2 on Samsung's), not all Samsung's in that era had it. But most soundbars all have an optical input at the very least. The only annoying thing using optical is, typically you'll have to use the soundbar remote, not the TV remote, to control the volume. Though if you get a Samsung soundbar, depending on the model, the TV remote will control the soundbar volume, even over optical. You can get cheap ones without a subwoofer and simply just having the speakers aimed forwards, rather than downwards like almost every modern flat panel TV, will give you an improvement in dialog clarity. But for the time being, go into your sound settings on the TV and change the sound mode from 'Normal' to 'Clear Voice' (I think that's what they call it) and see if that helps at all. It seems like all it does is boost the midrange EQ, but it does help a bit.