If you’re buying a new TV getting the audio right is an essential part of the decision-making process. While most TVs do not get the sound right, a simple way to remedy the situation is to invest in one of the best soundbars under $500 from this list.
A good soundbar can bring visuals to life and help you watch your favorite movies and shows the way they were meant to be right from the comfort of your living room. Some soundbars in our list also come with subwoofers to help add even more depth to the audio.
But before we get to our list of the best soundbars under $500, we recommend checking out some of our other posts as well.
- Check out these top-rated soundbars that you can buy.
- Here are some excellent soundbars for TVs with subwoofers
- Why leave the humble PC? Up the ante with the best PC soundbar
1. Polk Audio Signa S2
The Polk Audio Signa S2 is among the best entry-level soundbars out there. No matter if you want to watch the latest movies, and shows or listen to some music, this soundbar will be good enough, and that too without asking you to break the bank for it.
But its price tag also ensures there are some compromises that you’d have to make. Under less than $200, the Polk Audio Signa 2 is a simple device that is not trying to do too much. It offers a pretty basic and dare we say pretty bland design.
Plus, it also doesn’t give you access to many features. However, its 5 powerful full-range drivers spread across the soundbar and the subwoofer ensure the audio is crisp and rich. The support for Polk’s exclusive Voice Adjust Technology and Dolby Digital Decoding further make this a good soundbar to consider.
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2. Sony HT-S400
The Sony HT-S400 is a powerful soundbar that retails at a rather affordable price point. It is a 2.1-channel front surround sound soundbar that comes with X-Balanced speakers for delivering clear and rich sound.
While it’s good for music, this soundbar is particularly great for hooking up to a TV to enhance dialogue clarity during movies. The sound bar also pairs high-quality Dolby Digital audio with S-Force PRO Front Surround to emulate cinema-style surround sound.
It also delivers rather clean and deep bass through its powerful wireless subwoofer with a large 160mm speaker unit. Combined with the 2-channel soundbar, the system can produce 330W of total power output for bringing music, shows, and movies to life.
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3. Bose TV Speaker
The Bose TV Speaker is a compact soundbar designed with simplicity in mind. Although it can handle music, it is essentially a small soundbar that clarifies speech and is a simple and easy fix to enhance your TV’s audio for movies.
It comes with two wide and natural-sounding angled full-range drivers for delivering a realistic, spatial audio experience for overall better TV sound from a small soundbar. This Bluetooth-ready soundbar also comes with some special features.
For example, it comes with an Enhanced Dialogue feature which is designed to specifically focus on clarifying and elevating vocals and pronunciation. There’s also built-in Dolby decoding which further helps enhance this soundbar’s audio capabilities.
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4. Samsung HW-Q60C
The Samsung HW-Q60C promises to up your audio experience by bringing realistic 3D sound to your living room. For this, it makes use of Samsung’s Q-Symphony audio technology and pairs it with its 3.1 channel speakers.
Apart from this, the soundbar also brings with it Dolby Atmos support for bringing multi-dimensional audio which not only enhances the home cinema experience but also makes watching TV shows and playing games a lot more enjoyable.
Amongst its standout features is Adaptive Sound Lite which helps you enjoy your favorite video content by dynamically optimizing audio by enhancing voice clarity. According to the team at rtings, the Samsung HW-Q60C “is good for mixed usage. It’s a simple bar with a good sound suitable for many different types of audio content.”
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5. LG S90QY
The LG S90QY soundbar is a powerful performer that comes with LG’s unique up-firing center channel speakers. This adds an extra layer of surround channel and improves voice clarity for a more well-rounded, room-filling sound.
This one is an all-in-one soundbar with a separate subwoofer. The soundbar here uses psychoacoustics to send 3D audio which is then bounced off the ceiling and side walls for an enveloping sound experience.
The soundbar and the subwoofer can create a total of 570W of power which is distributed in a 5.1.3 channel setup. According to rtings, this is a “versatile 5.1.3 setup with lots of sound enhancement features.”
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6. JBL Bar 500
The JBL Bar 500 is a powerful soundbar and subwoofer system that can create plenty of sound and thump to bring movies and shows to your living room. With 590 watts of total system output power, the JBL Bar 500 is capable of transforming your movies, music, and games into immersive sound experiences.
It also comes with Dolby Atmos and MultiBeam Surround Sound which helps improve the theater-quality 3D surround sound effect. Much of its performance is down to the fact that it comes with a 10-inch wireless subwoofer.
It also comes with features such as PureVoice Dialogue Enhancement which uses JBL’s in-house algorithms to optimize voice clarity to ensure much greater clarity during movies. While it’s the most expensive product on the list, it does have plenty of reviews on Amazon backing it.
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Soundbar for Big Sound
If you’re planning to invest in one of the options from this list of best soundbars under $500, know that you’ll be investing in big audio upgrades for your home cinema setup. So depending on your budget, choose from the options above and elevate your home cinema experience.
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Last updated on 12 February, 2024
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