Yamaha SR-C20A
If you want a single soundbar that can improve your TV sound and deliver excellent music quality – plus put a rocket up your gaming audio – Yamaha’s SR-C20A is the way to go. Compact enough to sit beneath most TVs, the anonymous design is no bad thing.
That fabric wrapper hides 100 Watts of amplification, with a 7.5cm sub and a pair of 4.6cm full-rage drivers doing more than enough to fill sizeable rooms – backed up by a pair of passive radiators for extra wallop. Whether you’re sending audio through the HDMI ARC socket, one of the two digital optical inputs, the 3.5mm analogue port or via Bluetooth, it all comes together beautifully.
Bass is detailed, controlled and filled with variation, while treble has proper bite and attack. In between, vocals fill the midrange with information. It’s dynamic, composed – as long as you don’t get carried away with the volume – and just as capable of handling tricky rhythms as it is delivering the shock and awe of a modern game soundtrack.
Sonos Ray
Squeezing multi-room smarts into a compact bar, the Ray is a tempting home cinema accessory for owners of other Sonos speakers. Bearing the usual hallmarks and styling cues of Sonos kit, the Ray’s premium build belies its relatively accessible price tag.
Networking is via Wi-Fi or Ethernet, but there’s no HDMI here: the Ray relies on optical for talking to your telly. This is simple enough, but can cause issues when trying to control the bar with your TV remote. Setup is through the Sonos app, which includes using your smartphone’s mic to automatically adjust acoustic output to suit your viewing room.
Four amps, two tweeters and two mid-woofers work together with a bass reflex system to fill most spaces with forward-firing sound. Quality is predictably superb, trumping some bigger bars and coping well with busy scenes. That said, there’s no Dolby Atmos, and you’ll want something beefier if your living room is larger than average.
Voice assistant support requires a separate smart speaker, while music streaming means making use of the Sonos app or AirPlay 2: annoyingly, there’s no Bluetooth option. Still, effective sound modes – including Speech Enhancement – and clever connectivity make this a smart choice for Sonos owners.
