Soundbars
A soundbar is a simple and elegant solution for dramatically improving your television’s audio. This single, slim speaker provides a wider, clearer, and more powerful soundstage than the tiny speakers built into modern TVs. Many current models also include a wireless subwoofer for deep bass and can even create immersive, three-dimensional sound with technologies like Dolby Atmos. This directory lists the brands that specialize in these popular and convenient TV audio upgrades.
Hi-Fi brands in the category
Summary information and image
Direct links to official websites
Artcoustic
Artcoustic makes shallow loudspeakers whose appearance can be changed as readily as the artwork in a room. Kim Donvig and Patricia Ljungberg founded the Danish brand in 1998, combining an interest in pro-audio performance with Scandinavian interior design. On-wall models can be specified in RAL or NCS colours and fitted with interchangeable magnetic screens, including printed artwork. Behind that visual flexibility is a system-oriented range: SL speakers for domestic installations, Spitfire cinema models, soundbars, ceiling speakers and subwoofers. Different cabinet sizes and driver arrays let an installer build anything from a discreet stereo system to a dedicated cinema without abandoning the same visual language.
Audio Pro
Audio Pro was building compact powered speakers long before wireless multiroom audio became a consumer category. The Swedish company started in 1978 with active speakers and subwoofers developed around engineer Karl-Erik Ståhl’s ACE-Bass technology, which uses amplifier control to obtain deeper, cleaner bass from a small enclosure. The B2.50 subwoofer and A4.14 active speaker established that technical direction. Today’s A, C and Drumfire families translate the same small-box, powered-speaker idea into Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and multiroom products, while models such as C20 also connect televisions and analogue sources. Scandinavian form, direct operation and unusually ambitious bass for the cabinet size remain more useful identifiers than generic smart-speaker features. The previous 1970 foundation date was incorrect.
Bang & Olufsen
Bang & Olufsen has spent a century treating sound, mechanics and furniture-scale design as one discipline. Engineers Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen founded the Danish company in 1925 at the Olufsen family estate, Quistrup. From early radios and the mains-powered Eliminator to Beomaster systems and active Beolab loudspeakers, B&O repeatedly integrated technology that other manufacturers left in separate boxes. Beolab 90 represents the engineering extreme with multiple amplified drivers, beam-width control and room compensation; Beosound speakers, Beovision televisions, soundbars and Beoplay headphones carry the approach into everyday rooms and portable use. Aluminium machining, acoustic textiles, motorised movement and long software support are used as parts of the experience rather than surface decoration. The strongest B&O products are identifiable before music plays, yet their form is built around active acoustic and interaction engineering.
Bluesound
Bluesound brought high-resolution multi-room audio into a compact product family without reducing the system to background listening. Lenbrook launched the Canadian brand in 2013 around BluOS, a network platform that joins local libraries, internet radio and numerous streaming services in one app-controlled ecosystem. NODE streamers add BluOS to an existing hi-fi system; POWERNODE models include speaker amplification; VAULT combines playback with CD ripping and internal storage; PULSE wireless speakers and soundbars extend the platform through the home. Products communicate over the network, can be grouped by room and support lossless high-resolution playback up to 24-bit/192 kHz where the source and model allow. Bluesound’s advantage is the relationship between mature control software and purpose-built audio hardware, backed by Lenbrook’s longer experience with NAD and PSB rather than a stand-alone wireless speaker app.
Bose
Bose built its reputation by using acoustic research and signal processing to solve practical listening problems at consumer scale. Dr Amar G. Bose founded the Massachusetts company in 1964 after studying why technically competent loudspeakers often failed to reproduce the experience of live music. The 901 Direct/Reflecting speaker became its early landmark, deliberately using room reflections as part of the presentation. Later work produced Wave music systems, compact home-theatre speakers and, after research beginning in 1978, active noise reduction for aviation and the QuietComfort consumer headphone family. Today’s range includes headphones, earbuds, Bluetooth speakers, soundbars and home audio, alongside automotive and professional systems. Bose’s strength is not traditional high-end component minimalism; it is the integration of acoustics, electronics, psychoacoustics and industrial design into products that make complex technology easy to use.
Bowers & Wilkins
Bowers & Wilkins develops loudspeakers from the driver, enclosure and measurement system outward rather than assembling standard parts into a cabinet. John Bowers established the speaker company in Worthing in 1966 after operating an electronics shop with Roy Wilkins. The P1 funded early measurement equipment, and the later 801 became an influential studio monitor adopted by Abbey Road. Matrix bracing, tapered Nautilus tubes, diamond-dome tweeters, Continuum midrange cones, Aerofoil bass cones and Biomimetic Suspension mark successive stages of its research. The 800 Series Diamond D5 is the current flagship family, with 700 and 600 Series models covering more accessible stereo and home-cinema systems. Bowers & Wilkins also makes headphones, wireless speakers and soundbars. The brand is now part of Sound United within Harman, while its high-end loudspeaker development and 800 Series production remain centred in Worthing.
Canton
Canton is a family-owned German loudspeaker company with enough scale to develop drivers, cabinets, electronics and measurement facilities under one programme. Hubert Milbers, Otfried Sandig, Wolfgang Seikritt and Günther Seitz founded it in Weilrod in 1972. The early LE 250 compact speaker was followed by one of the company’s recurring themes: achieving substantial bandwidth and output in forms suited to real living spaces. Today’s catalogue extends from GLE and Townus through Vento to the Reference and Reference Alpha lines, with centre speakers, subwoofers and installation models for complete cinema systems. The Smart series adds active wireless stereo and surround configurations, while soundbars cover television systems. Aluminium-ceramic and later ceramic-tungsten diaphragms, waveguides, cabinet simulations and measurements in Canton’s own anechoic chamber support the range. Reference models and selected production remain closely tied to the Weilrod facility.
DALI
DALI — Danish Audiophile Loudspeaker Industries — was founded by Peter Lyngdorf in 1983 to build loudspeakers that reproduce music honestly across a wide listening area. The company opened its factory in Nørager in 1986, creating the vertically integrated development and production base that still shapes the brand. Several technologies make a DALI speaker easy to identify technically: low-mass wood-fibre cones, wide-dispersion driver geometry, soft-dome or hybrid dome-and-ribbon tweeter modules, and in upper ranges the company’s low-loss SMC magnetic material. These choices are intended to reduce distortion and preserve consistent tonal balance when the listener is not locked to one narrow seat. DALI applies the same principles across compact, floorstanding, on-wall, active and custom-installation models, from accessible OBERON and OPTICON families through RUBIKORE and EPICON to the KORE flagship. The breadth of the catalogue is important, but the stronger story is continuity: driver materials, magnet systems and dispersion behaviour developed for statement products are progressively adapted for speakers intended for ordinary living rooms.
Dayton Audio
Dayton Audio is the house audio brand associated with Ohio-based Parts Express, serving builders, installers and value-conscious listeners with components that are normally sourced from many separate suppliers. Its catalogue spans individual tweeters, midrange and woofer drivers, passive radiators, subwoofer plate amplifiers, class-D amplifier boards, DSP modules, finished subwoofers, compact speakers and complete kits. Reference and Signature drivers provide measured parameters for original loudspeaker designs, while Ultimax subwoofers prioritise long excursion and power handling. Just as important is the supporting tool chain: the DATS measurement system helps builders determine driver impedance and Thiele-Small parameters, and project documentation makes the parts usable rather than merely inexpensive. Dayton also collaborates with independent designers on kits and supplies OEM or custom-installation solutions through Parts Express. Its distinctive strength is breadth with technical accessibility — drivers, electronics, measurement and practical documentation within one ecosystem — making it especially useful to DIY loudspeaker builders who want compatible parts and test tools from one source.
Definitive Technology
Definitive Technology is the American loudspeaker brand founded in 1990 by Sandy Gross, Don Givogue and Ed Blais, initially around a tower that combined bipolar radiation with its own powered subwoofer. That pairing remains central to the company’s identity. Front- and rear-facing driver arrays create a broader, more enveloping field than a conventional forward-radiating box, while active bass sections allow deep low-frequency output from a relatively narrow cabinet and reduce the burden on an external amplifier. The current Dymension family develops this formula with bipolar towers, integrated powered woofers and optional height modules for immersive home cinema; Mythos applies Definitive’s acoustic approach in slimmer wall-friendly enclosures. Matching centres, surrounds, subwoofers and architectural speakers allow complete multichannel systems rather than isolated stereo models. Although the company has passed through several corporate owners since its 2004 acquisition, the more useful story for users is product continuity: spacious bipolar presentation, substantial built-in bass and visually restrained cabinets designed to make one system effective for both films and music.
Denon
Denon’s history begins in 1910, when American entrepreneur Frederick Whitney Horn established the Japan Recorders Corporation, the antecedent of today’s Japanese audio brand, to manufacture records and gramophones. The company subsequently linked recording and playback in ways few consumer manufacturers can claim: it built Japan’s first professional disc recorder, released the country’s first commercial LP records, developed the broadcast-standard DL-103 moving-coil cartridge in 1963 and introduced an eight-channel PCM digital recorder in 1972. That combination of analogue, digital and broadcast experience still appears in a broad catalogue. AVR and AVC home-cinema receivers integrate amplification, decoding, room correction and HEOS network audio; PMA amplifiers and DCD disc players serve stereo systems; turntables, cartridges, headphones and soundbars cover other parts of the chain. The DL-103 remains in production decades after its broadcast origins, while modern receivers adopt current HDMI and immersive-audio standards. Denon’s strength is not merely age or product count, but a continuous ability to translate professional recording and format changes into durable home-audio products.
Devialet
Devialet is a Paris audio-engineering company whose identity rests on packing proprietary amplification, signal processing and acoustic control into unusually compact products. Founded in 2007 by engineer Pierre-Emmanuel Calmel with Quentin Sannié and Emmanuel Nardin, it commercialised Calmel’s ADH architecture, in which a Class A stage controls the signal while Class D supplies most of the power. The original D-Premier evolved into the Expert and Astra amplifier platforms, while the Phantom family translated the same systems approach into active wireless loudspeakers with opposed woofers and extreme excursion. Devialet’s other distinctive technologies include SAM, which tailors amplifier output to a measured passive loudspeaker, and the pressure-controlled bass architecture used in Phantom. The range has expanded to Mania portable speakers, Dione soundbars and Gemini earphones, but the common thread remains tight integration of analogue circuitry, switching power, DSP, mechanics and industrial design. Devialet is therefore best understood not simply as a luxury speaker brand, but as a technology-led manufacturer that develops the complete signal-to-sound chain.
Elac
ELAC is a German audio company founded in Kiel on 1 September 1926 by Dr Heinrich Hecht, Dr Wilhelm Rudolph and Gerhard Schmidt. Its near-century history is unusually broad: the company began in electroacoustics and sonar, became a major post-war maker of turntables and cartridges, and shifted its centre of gravity to loudspeakers in the 1980s. Modern ELAC is therefore more than the affordable speakers often associated with designer Andrew Jones. The Debut and Uni-Fi families use carefully engineered cone drivers and, in Uni-Fi, concentric midrange/tweeter geometry to bring controlled directivity and coherent imaging to accessible systems. Carina, Vela and higher ranges draw on the folded JET tweeter, while active subwoofers and electronics complete stereo and cinema installations. Turntables keep the brand’s analogue history visible rather than treating it as a retro licensing exercise. ELAC’s lasting advantage is range backed by real transducer engineering: it can translate its knowledge of motors, diaphragms, wave launch and cabinet behaviour from compact entry models to elaborate floorstanders, while the 1926 date describes the actual company lineage rather than a recently revived name.
Hisense
Hisense is a Chinese display and consumer-electronics group whose origins go back to the Qingdao No. 2 Radio Factory, established in 1969. It is not primarily a specialist hi-fi manufacturer, but it matters to modern audio-video systems because it develops the screen, operating platform and increasingly the sound system around them. Hisense is best known for televisions using ULED and Mini-LED technologies, Laser TV ultra-short-throw projection systems and the VIDAA smart-TV platform. Its audio catalogue includes soundbars, subwoofers and wireless surround packages designed to integrate with those displays, with selected models supporting formats such as Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. The brand’s advantage is system-level scale: picture processing, projection, smart software, HDMI connectivity and multichannel audio can be designed for one living-room ecosystem. For an audio database, Hisense is therefore most relevant at the intersection of television, cinema sound and accessible integrated AV.
James Loudspeaker
James Loudspeaker designs high-performance speakers for rooms in which conventional boxes are visually or physically unacceptable. Founded in California in 1999 and now part of Sonance, the company specialises in architectural, custom and outdoor systems built around rigid aluminium enclosures, purpose-designed drivers and unusually flexible fabrication. Its Small Aperture models place the visible opening at lighting-fixture scale while locating the enclosure behind the wall or ceiling. PowerPipe subwoofers move low-frequency output through a remote port when the cabinet must be hidden, and the high-output Mavericks range addresses dedicated cinemas. James also makes on-wall, in-wall, landscape, marine and soundbar solutions, including custom widths, colours and finishes for a particular screen or interior. Technologies such as quad-tweeter arrays and the EMB low-frequency platform serve installation problems rather than acting as generic badges. The brand’s strongest advantage is therefore not one signature speaker: it is the ability to engineer an acoustically serious system around architectural constraints, then manufacture the enclosure and finish to suit the project.
JBL
JBL is one of the few audio brands with equally deep roots in cinema, recording studios, touring sound and domestic loudspeakers. Engineer James Bullough Lansing founded James B. Lansing Sound in Los Angeles in 1946, and the early D130 driver introduced a four-inch flat-wire voice coil that helped establish the company’s reputation for high efficiency and power handling. JBL later became a studio reference through 4300-series monitors and translated that visual and acoustic language into the L100 for the home. Its professional division now covers cinema systems, installed sound, stage monitors and large-format arrays, while consumer products range from portable Bluetooth speakers and headphones to Classic and Synthesis systems. Compression drivers, horns and controlled-directivity waveguides recur across many categories because JBL designs for predictable output beyond a single listening seat. The company has belonged to Harman since 1969; Harman has been owned by Samsung since 2017. Scale is part of JBL’s know-how: transducer engineering developed for venues and studios can inform car, home and portable products without erasing the differences between them.
Klipsch
Klipsch is an American loudspeaker company founded by engineer Paul W. Klipsch in Hope, Arkansas, in 1946. His central solution was horn loading: coupling a driver to a shaped acoustic horn raises efficiency and controls dispersion, allowing high output and wide dynamics from comparatively little amplifier power. The corner-loaded Klipschorn put that idea into a domestic loudspeaker and remains in production, joined in the Heritage range by La Scala, Cornwall, Heresy and Forte. Modern Reference Premiere models use Tractrix-based horns in more conventional towers, monitors and centre channels, while the company also makes subwoofers, soundbars, architectural speakers and powered stereo systems. The designs vary widely, but high sensitivity and controlled directivity remain the recognisable technical thread. Klipsch now operates within Premium Audio Company, owned by Gentex, yet Heritage models are still assembled in Hope. Few audio brands can point to both an original flagship still being made and a current mass-market range built around the same underlying acoustic principle.
Krix
Krix is an Australian loudspeaker company with an unusually direct link between home audio and the commercial cinema. Scott Krix began building loudspeakers in Adelaide in 1974 and installed his first cinema system in 1980; today the company designs and manufactures speakers for dedicated theatres, living rooms and professional auditoriums at its South Australian facility. Cinema experience is central to the brand’s know-how: controlled directivity, high sensitivity, generous headroom and consistent coverage across a seating area. Krix develops its own constant-directivity horns, uses finite-element analysis and extensive acoustic measurement, and builds cabinets in-house with model-specific bracing. For home cinema, the modular Series MX systems place screen, surround and subwoofer channels behind an acoustically transparent screen or within a baffle wall, bringing commercial-cinema architecture into private rooms. Series SX and architectural models address flexible installations, while Esoterix loudspeakers show the same engineering discipline in two-channel hi-fi. The result is a brand whose strength is not a house sound slogan, but predictable dynamics and coverage at real cinema levels.
Lenco
Lenco is a heritage turntable name with Swiss origins and a modern Dutch consumer-audio business. Fritz Laeng, Marie Laeng-Stucki and technician Bruno Grütter established Lenco in Burgdorf, Switzerland, in 1946; the company produced its first record player in 1949 and later became famous for robust idler-drive decks such as the L75, introduced in 1967. The original Swiss manufacturer failed in the late 1970s, and the trademark subsequently passed through several owners. Today Lenco is based in the Netherlands and has belonged to the Dutch Commaxx Group since 2015. For that reason, 2015 describes the current ownership chapter, not the birth of the brand. The contemporary catalogue is deliberately broad and accessible: manual and automatic turntables, direct-drive DJ models, record players with built-in speakers, radios, portable audio and related accessories. USB recording, Bluetooth and integrated phono stages appear where they make vinyl easier to use in present-day systems. Modern Lenco does not claim to reproduce the engineering organisation behind every classic Swiss deck; its value is keeping a historically important name active through affordable products while the surviving L75 and related models retain a separate enthusiast following.
LG
LG Electronics is a South Korean consumer-technology company whose relevance to audio and video lies in complete home-entertainment ecosystems rather than traditional separate-component hi-fi. The electronics business began as GoldStar in 1958 under founder Koo In-hwoi; the group’s 1947 origin belongs to Lucky Chemical, while the LG name was adopted in 1995. That makes 1958 the meaningful starting point for the electronics manufacturer. LG is a major developer of OLED televisions and display processing, with current ranges combining self-emissive panels, gaming features, webOS and AI-assisted picture and sound optimisation. Its audio portfolio includes Dolby Atmos soundbars, wireless rear-channel and subwoofer packages, xboom portable and party speakers, earbuds and integrated television audio. Selected earlier premium products were developed or tuned with Meridian Audio, but this collaboration should not be treated as the definition of every present model. LG’s strength is integration: HDMI eARC, wireless surround, streaming applications and television control are designed to work as one accessible system. It belongs in an AV directory primarily for displays, soundbars and connected home cinema, not as a specialist two-channel amplifier brand.
Loewe
Loewe is a German premium home-entertainment manufacturer founded in Berlin in 1923 by brothers Siegmund and David Ludwig Loewe. Radio engineering came first, but television quickly became central: at the 1931 Berlin Radio Show, Manfred von Ardenne demonstrated an electronic television system using components and support connected with Loewe’s laboratory. The company later moved its headquarters and production to Kronach, where it continues to assemble selected televisions. Modern Loewe concentrates on design-led OLED displays such as the bild and Stellar families, supported by integrated sound systems, external soundbars and matching floor stands or wall solutions. The klang range covers soundbars, subwoofers, wireless speakers and headphones, while more accessible We. by Loewe products broaden the portfolio. Aluminium, stone-like or concrete finishes and concealed cable management are used to make the television part of the room rather than a generic black panel. Loewe has passed through insolvencies and ownership changes, so its present organisation should not be described as uninterrupted corporate continuity. What remains continuous is the brand’s combination of German industrial design, display integration and unusually serious built-in audio.
Martin Logan
MartinLogan is the American loudspeaker specialist that made the curved electrostatic panel practical for full-range domestic systems. Gayle Martin Sanders and Ron Logan Sutherland developed their first production model, the Monolith, in 1983 after several years of experiments. Its hybrid architecture paired a transparent electrostatic membrane with a dynamic bass driver, solving one of the central limitations of earlier electrostatic designs while preserving their speed and low moving mass. The brand’s large electrostatic models use Curvilinear Line Source panels to control dispersion, MicroPerf stators to increase radiating area and AirFrame structures that hold the panel rigidly without a conventional box. Powered bass sections in selected models add Anthem Room Correction and controlled-force woofer arrangements. MartinLogan also applies its Folded Motion and Folded Motion XT tweeters to the more conventional Motion range, and offers subwoofers, architectural speakers and home-theatre solutions. The important distinction is that MartinLogan is not simply a maker of unusual-looking panels: its know-how lies in integrating electrostatic midrange and treble with dynamic bass, useful room behavior and manageable domestic proportions.