Thinking about getting a soundbar...

[Booty]

I live in a one-bedroom condo with my wife that we're looking to sell. We have too much stuff, and are attempting to "stage" our place. So... it would probably be a good idea to store my large-ish speakers until we move. In the meantime, though, I still want decent surround-sound for movies and (maybe more importantly) good sound for music.

I'm figuring my options are either a soundbar or a set of fairly small speakers (no bigger than something like 6"x3"x3" or so for everything but the center). If I got the small speakers, I'd want to mount them higher up the walls - we currently don't have speaker cables run through the walls, so that's more work to set that up and make it look decent. The soundbar option makes keeping the cables clean a lot simpler, but if getting 5 smaller speakers is going to sound a lot better, I can go that route.

Whatever I buy might end up in our living room at the new place (with the current stuff moving to the man cave), or maybe in the bedroom. Depends on how it sounds. It'll definitely be used somewhere. I'd prefer to keep things around $300-500... less is great, but I don't want to throw my money away on something I'll just want to replace later. I'm no audiophile, but I am definitely picky enough to know when something sounds like total crap, so if I spend on the high end of that range, so be it.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Maybe something like this?
http://www.hsuresearch.com/products/vt-12.html

 

[Booty]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Maybe something like this?
http://www.hsuresearch.com/products/vt-12.html

Yeah, I looked at those off your stickied thread... definitely what I'm looking for if they're a better option than a soundbar. A little more work involved to hide the speaker wire, but do-able.

Any recommendations on decent wall-mounts for those? I don't want to use stands... our living room is small, so the goal is to keep as much off the floor as possible.

 

[sivart]

Just live with the TV (or 2 channel) sound for the few months you have your place on the market. The easiest and cheapest solution.

 

[Booty]

Originally posted by: sivart
Just live with the TV (or 2 channel) sound for the few months you have your place on the market. The easiest and cheapest solution.

Don't know if you've been paying attention to the housing market, but we're preparing for 6 months minimum market time. So we have to still live here, while having it "show-ready" at all times. No way am I going to use my TV speakers for 6+ months... plus, we want another surround set because when we move we'll have a setup in the living room as well as our future basement.

 

[sivart]

sound bars will work good as long as you have a square room that the sound can bounce off of. If one side is open, the surround will be lacking on that side.

 

[Booty]

Originally posted by: sivart
sound bars will work good as long as you have a square room that the sound can bounce off of. If one side is open, the surround will be lacking on that side.

The room is square, but there is a opening to the hallway on one side, so that would probably throw things off. Looking like my best bet is that HSU set...