I’m guessing this should be here, rather than GQ. I bought an LCD TV for the bedroom and mounted it on the wall. The sound from it is less than optimal, so I’d like to enhance that aspect. What I’m looking for is a powered (or maybe even passive) speaker array that is compact (all elements in one enclosure) and can sit on the dresser under the TV. I do NOT want satellite speakers, wired or not. Problem is, I can’t find one on the net. Well, I did find one, but it cost more than the TV. Any suggestions?
I can think of three categories of products that work as self-contained (single enclosure) speakers: boom boxes with AUX input, iPod speakers (most of them also have AUX input), and portable speakers for laptops (example).
I was in Best Buy and saw something that would work. It’s a Yamaha Digital Sound Projector Home Theater Speaker System (model: YSP-800) and it’s a box about five inches high, 2.5 feet long and six inches deep containing a subwoofer and 21 speakers. At least in the store it seemed to give a fairly impressive simulation of surround sound. The downside was the cost of $800.
I think that may be the one I saw online. Exactly what I want, but the price is only $100 less than the TV was on sale, so I may have to look elsewhere for now.
IIRC that Yamaha has two small woofers and a bunch of mid/tweeters, no built-in subwoofer. Polk has a similar product but with much fewer drivers.
The only other category I can think of is stereo table radios, such as the Bose Wave Radio or the Cambridge Soundworks 730. Unless you want one of these (or the surround bars), I think the Ipod systems would be the most elegant solution.
There are plenty of them out there. Google surround sound,single speaker. Here’s a quick look at some of them.