Looking for cheapish 3.1 for home audio

[madcracked]

Have a tv in the bedroom that is the center for all family movies. The tv is mounted on the far wall opposing the bed. Bedroom is 14ft. I dont really want to have speakers on the wall with the bed since it i dont want wires that far and dont want to deal with cost of wireless thats why 3.1 is probable the best for what im looking for. I would say 300 is the most i would want to put towards this at this time. Single solutions or peicemeal solutions welcome 

[Dedayog]

7 minutes ago, madcracked said:

Have a tv in the bedroom that is the center for all family movies. The tv is mounted on the far wall opposing the bed. Bedroom is 14ft. I dont really want to have speakers on the wall with the bed since it i dont want wires that far and dont want to deal with cost of wireless thats why 3.1 is probable the best for what im looking for. I would say 300 is the most i would want to put towards this at this time. Single solutions or peicemeal solutions welcome 

Get a decent soundbar, mount it under the TV and it'll look great.  Most soundbars are 3.0 or 3.1 depending.

 

I have a Mirage/Denon setup for 3.1 in my living room (I hated the rear speaker placement so nixed them), and love it but it's still a bulky thing in a small room.

 

Soundbar or just really good studio monitors for a 2.0 solution and let the AVR mix the center.

[Omon_Ra]

17 hours ago, Dedayog said:

Soundbar or just really good studio monitors for a 2.0 solution and let the AVR mix the center.

Only thing I disagree with is the studio monitor part. At that distance you're outside the ideal range for near-field monitors. Studio monitors are great for when sitting at a desk, but once you get further from them than that, imaging and sound quality can get wacky (at least to my ears, some might not notice it I guess).

 

But yeah, I'd just go with a soundbar. If you have a dresser or other piece of furniture under the TV you could have the AVR sit there and either mount speakers to the wall beside the TV (if you have the wall space) or sit them on the dresser. But that stuff takes up a lot of surface area; so I'd still rather have a soundbar mounted on the wall.

[saintlouisbagels]

You really don't need the center channel unless you have really bad stereo channels combined with weird/poor audio mixing..

 

I love using accessories4less for a lot of my audio, so I would recommend this
https://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/dendhtc210-rb/denon-dht-c210-compact-soundbar-w/dolby-atmos-2.1-bluetooth/1.html
https://www.denon.com/en-us/product/sound-bars/dht-c210/300582-new.html

 

There is also this directly from Denon's website
https://www.denon.com/en-us/product/sound-bars/dht-s218/301003.html

 

Strangely, it appears to be exactly the same soundbar as the previous one. Like the dimensions, number of drivers, and even power usage are all identical.

https://www.denon.com/on/demandware.static/-/Library-Sites-denon_northamerica_shared/default/dwff1d923b/downloads/626766_Denon_DHT-S218_Infosheet_021524.pdf
https://www.denon.com/on/demandware.static/-/Library-Sites-denon_northamerica_shared/default/dw9c234ed8/downloads/DHT-C210_infosheet.pdf

[Psittac]

13 minutes ago, saintlouisbagels said:

You really don't need the center channel unless you have really bad stereo channels combined with weird/poor audio mixing..

 

I love using accessories4less for a lot of my audio, so I would recommend this
https://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/dendhtc210-rb/denon-dht-c210-compact-soundbar-w/dolby-atmos-2.1-bluetooth/1.html
https://www.denon.com/en-us/product/sound-bars/dht-c210/300582-new.html

 

There is also this directly from Denon's website
https://www.denon.com/en-us/product/sound-bars/dht-s218/301003.html

 

Strangely, it appears to be exactly the same soundbar as the previous one. Like the dimensions, number of drivers, and even power usage are all identical.

https://www.denon.com/on/demandware.static/-/Library-Sites-denon_northamerica_shared/default/dwff1d923b/downloads/626766_Denon_DHT-S218_Infosheet_021524.pdf
https://www.denon.com/on/demandware.static/-/Library-Sites-denon_northamerica_shared/default/dw9c234ed8/downloads/DHT-C210_infosheet.pdf

Center for dialogue is still a thing, but a phantom center on a 2.0 can do just fine for most people.  I had my parent's set up on a 2.0 system but they're hard of hearing so I got a relatively expensive center channel and it helped, but not enough.  I eventually got some RF headphones that connect to the AVR headphone out and that was a game changer.  I need to get an update on how that's going because my mom has decent hearing but my dad doesn't.  I never did figure out how to output to speakers and headphones on that specific AVR.

 

Also, Accessories 4 less is a great site.  I got my original HT speakers from them as well as my AVR upgrade.  I did find that the AVR has a video flaw in that it goes dim to bright slowly and repetitively and it doesn't stop.  But that was my fault for not using it enough to figure out I needed to RMA it.  Nothing against the company, I believe on a hunch that they take RMA's test them and sell them at a massive price cut.  I've seen this many places, or rather I've assumed that this is common practice. *(people return perfectly good products ALL the time, a practice I don't believe in but if it doesn't suit their fancy they put the burden on the distributor because of their poor research)

 

As to the OP, for your situation I would say certainly get a soundbar.  They can be pretty good I hear, and your situation doesn't allow for wall mounted speakers or an AVR.  A clean one and done solution sounds exactly what you need.

 

On 2/8/2025 at 7:04 PM, Dedayog said:

Soundbar or just really good studio monitors for a 2.0 solution and let the AVR mix the center.

I would say that studio monitors would be a bad match for an AVR, no reason at that point to not have passive speakers.  This still has the issue of mounting speakers to the wall.

 

11 hours ago, Omon_Ra said:

Only thing I disagree with is the studio monitor part. At that distance you're outside the ideal range for near-field monitors. Studio monitors are great for when sitting at a desk, but once you get further from them than that, imaging and sound quality can get wacky (at least to my ears, some might not notice it I guess).

 

I can personally enjoy "near field" speakers in an open setting, however I will admit that it is for when I am up and moving around so I haven't done any critical listening with small speakers at large distances.  I can say though that reviewers have used bookshelf speakers for large rooms with good results.  Though I will admit that "near field" isn't in my audio vocabulary but I know it is a thing.

[Omon_Ra]

9 hours ago, Psittac said:

I can personally enjoy "near field" speakers in an open setting, however I will admit that it is for when I am up and moving around so I haven't done any critical listening with small speakers at large distances.  I can say though that reviewers have used bookshelf speakers for large rooms with good results.  Though I will admit that "near field" isn't in my audio vocabulary but I know it is a thing.

It really depends on the monitors; size, speaker design, etc. Several of my producer friends have the Rokit 5's, and even sitting next to them at their desk, if I move to where they sit, it's a different sound. But the bigger models I haven't noticed it quite so much. One of my friends has some 8" Pioneer monitors for his living room, and they're fine if you're on the couch in front of the TV; outside of that area it's not bad, but it does sound off, to me at least. IMO though, the biggest annoyance using monitors with a TV is that most don't have IR, and since they don't have ARC (analog or optical/Toslink inputs typically), controlling volume means walking up to them.