Do I want a soundbar? (1 Viewer)

So here's my dilemma. I have a beautiful Samsung LED 55in tv.about a year old. Sometimes I just feel like I'm adjusting the volume so much. It's too loud or not loud enough. I know the speakers on these tvs aren't great. I can't get a full on surround sound system because I live in a condo and don't want to blowout the neighbors above me or next to me. So I was thinking of getting a soundbar. I'm not looking to amp the thing up and rattle the walls I'm just looking for something that is going to give me more of a full complete sound. Not having to constantly max the volume out on my TV when there's dialogue in a movie and then turn it way down during music or explosion type scenes. Any thoughts on what I should get? Do u think a soundbar would solve my problem? Thanx

You have to be able to control the dialogue volume, which comes from the center channel. And to do that you need an A/V receiver. I don't think there are separate volume controls on soundbars. Am I right guys?

i don't want to control dialogue, I'm just wondering if a sound bar would be an improvement over just the sound that comes out of my TV speakers.

Tony, welcome to HTF!
I have a Polk SurroundBar which requires separate amplification. There are sound bars that have amplification built in (the last one I looked at was Yamaha).
Yes, it should sound better than TV speakers, but it won't be surround sound.

I'm not looking to amp the thing up and rattle the walls I'm just looking for something that is going to give me more of a full complete sound

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For just better sound from your TV - you may look into the zvox systems...here is there site:
http://www.zvoxaudio.com/
These are boxes with built in amplification, that connects with a single cable to your TV....kind of acts as a TV stand.
Not sure of your budget - the cheapest of these goes for $200.00
http://www.zvoxaudio.com/cgi-bin/item/4002201
As for the dialog issue - having a better quality speaker than what comes in your TV will help - and these things have an extra feature for that as well....
"Incredibly Clear Voices. Our Dialog Emphasis feature uses hearing aid technology to make voices unbelievably clear."

Therucc said:

i don't want to control dialogue, I'm just wondering if a sound bar would be an improvement over just the sound that comes out of my TV speakers.

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Yes, it will sound better than the TV speakers, but it won't solve your problem with not hearing the dialogue properly. Again, you would need an A/V receiver to be able to correct that.

That still won't solve the dialogue problem.

The Yamaha Digital Sound Projector (DSP) soundbars, which have built in amplification, allow you to adjust the channel volumes individually.
I used the autosetup on mine, but found after a while that I needed to increase the centre channel volume to avoid dialogue being drowned out in busy scenes.