Sonic partnership

Back in the earliest days of soundbars, they were made exclusively by audio companies – Altec Lansing, Cambridge, DefTech, Yamaha, and the outlying specialist ZVox. It was, after all, a sonic challenge to redesign a large traditional speaker box into a long thin enclosure that could fit below or under a TV.

But as time moved on, TV companies themselves saw the benefit in making their own, able to offer package deals, and to guarantee compatibility in both connections and styling between TV and bar. Today many best-sellers come from LG, Samsung and Sony, although the audio companies are hardly letting go – JBL, Klipsch, Sonos, Yamaha and many others are also vying for a slice of a healthy soundbar market.

There’s no clear divide in sonic success between the two camps. Sony knows how to make good speakers, after all. Samsung owns Arcam, JBL and Harman,