RAISING THE BAR

Elevate your home cinema sound with this trio of convenient soundbar packages

As TV sets get thinner, the space for proper drive units that can deliver a high-level audio performance decreases. Manufacturers are constantly developing new ways to enhance their TVs' built-in speaker capabilities, but it's generally best to let the screen handle visuals and delegate audio responsibilities elsewhere. And this is where a soundbar or a full home cinema surround system comes in.

For a truly immersive home cinema experience, the latter is the best way to go - but a full home cinema package of speakers plus AV amplifier can be both costly and space-consuming.

A relatively compact soundbar that sits under your telly is preferable for many. But, what if you could have a soundbar plus surrounds and a sub for relatively little outlay, in a way that doesn't take up anywhere near as much space? Soundbar-plus-subwoofer packages have been commonplace for a while, and the products we are testing here could be used in such a configuration.

But here we are testing them in the full soundbar surrounds-and-subwoofer configuration, that will hopefully provide the most immersive sound in the most compact set-up.

Yamaha's True X, JBL's Bar 1300 and Samsung's flagship Q990D are our pick of such systems, and each will certainly deliver on immersive movie night audio, with a comparatively compact footprint. Over the next few pages we will dig into the particulars of each, so you can decide which one is right for you. We have rigorously tested each of these systems using our go-to test movies to really put them through their paces sonically. At the end of the day, we want you to enjoy the best movie sound possible - and we're sure you will find something here to suit.

Yamaha True X

An enjoyable, energetic sound from a small package - £1099