The best soundbars of 2025 for improving your TV audio, tried and tested at home From Dolby Atmos surround-sound to affordable stereo devices, here's your expert guide to the best soundbars on the market.
Many soundbars come with subwoofers and/or rear speakers, but for the purposes of this test we’ve concentrated on standalone soundbars, designed to give a boost to your TV’s audio performance without forcing you to accommodate further boxes.
“Everybody wants slim TVs,” explains Paul Murray, head of e-commerce at hi-fi and home cinema retailer Sevenoaks Sound and Vision, “but the speakers inside them have had to shrink in tandem in order to still fit inside.
While most television manufacturers will happily boast about the picture quality of their latest 4K TVs , they’re generally less effusive when the subject of sound quality comes up.
Smaller, shallower speakers simply don’t sound as good as larger ones, which is why TV audio quality has got progressively worse over the years.”.
