I had a very similar situation. Put my main system in the family room, but in the living room we had a three-wide Salamander cabinet with a shelf going all the way across that had housed a sound bar (Def Tech) in our old house. In the new set up I crammed into this space Def Tech monitors and a center channel speaker. Only the subwoofer outside the cabinet. Better equipment than the sound bar, but dialog uniteligible. First of all it was the room. Old house had a small room and the sound bar worked fine. New house has cathedral ceiling, large room, lot of glass. What I did to fix it was to get sound absorbing foam from parts express, with an adhesive on one side , and put it on the sides, tops and backs of the cabinet shelf. Then fluff designed for inside speaker cabinets (loosely) in the remaining space. Put the speakers on rubber cones/feet. This helped enormously. Still, I find the sound much better directly in front of the cabinet. Not perfect, but no room for floor stands, wife’s happy, and it’s not my main system anyway.
Sound bar in a box . . . can't understand dialog.
We have a large credenza in our bedroom that houses the TV, video gear and sound bar (a modest Visio) facing the bed. It's become our favorite movie theater. Think a 4'x3'x8' box with doors on front. The "booming" caused by the interior reverb of the credenza box makes any dialog unintelligible. Tried moving it out a bit when open (a pain) as well as adjusting out lower freq.s and boosting treble. No luck.
Any suggestions on something more creative would be much appreciated!
ALERT! Wife is an interior designer so anything that does not fit inside box is not acceptable.
Any suggestions on something more creative would be much appreciated!
ALERT! Wife is an interior designer so anything that does not fit inside box is not acceptable.