When you have a gaming team, you are not always with headphones because you do not always play in communication with teammates, so having other types of sound systems is quite common. Given a choice, should you buy a sound bar or regular speakers ? In this article we are going to tell you how you will have the best gaming experience in terms of sound.
Unless you are an audiophile, it is normal to have a couple of cheap stereo speakers for the PC, but from now on we tell you that these, although they may be “enough”, will never give you the best experience in games or movies. Ideally a properly positioned 5.1 or 7.1 speaker system would be ideal, but in many cases this is not physically possible, so in this article we are going to see if it would be better to buy a 2.1 speaker system or a sound bar.
2.1 speakers vs soundbar: advantages and disadvantages
Of course, as you will see, we have ruled out 2.0 speakers because without a subwoofer to represent bass, the gaming experience will never be complete. That said, it is worth mentioning that there are many users who are reluctant to use sound bars, especially due to the potential positional sound that is “more evident” when we can place a pair of speakers with their subwoofer wherever we want; However, the reality is quite different and we will explain why.
Space, orientation and location
Without going into details, let’s assume that you opt for a good quality 2.1 speaker system. Its main advantage will be versatility, since you will be able to place the three components wherever you want, and also you will be able to properly orient them towards where you are going to be sitting, and this is essential for a good audio experience.
This advantage can also be a disadvantage, since obviously you will have to have the speakers on the table, and preferably this includes the subwoofer; As this is not always possible, the subwoofer can be placed under the table, for example, although it is not ideal. In short, they take up more space than a sound bar that you can simply place under the monitor.
Cabling
On the other hand, there is no doubt that the more components the system has, the more cables you will have. A 2.1 speaker system such as the Sound BlasterX Kratos S5 shown in the image above (whose subwoofer is under the table) has two speakers and the aforementioned subwoofer, which means that you have a total of four cables to connect the system (one per component plus the power supply). If we compare this with a 2.1 sound bar such as a Razer Leviathan , the number of cables is reduced to 2 (optical audio + power cable), 3 actually if we count the cable that connects the bar with the subwoofer.
Sound quality
Here obviously the thing depends on many factors, including of course the quality of the equipment: it is not the same to compare a cheap 2.1 speaker system of unknown brand with a sound bar of a renowned brand, such as AVerMedia or Creative.
In any case, the separate speakers give us the advantage of being able to place them oriented more appropriately than the sound bar, and they can also be larger and therefore deliver more power than a sound bar, which are limited in size. However, many sound bars emulate the positioning that we can have with speakers despite being placed right in front of the user, and this is precisely another advantage, because as they will always be positioned in the same place, they can be designed precisely for it.
Proof of this is that many sound bars already integrate a whole set of 5.0 speakers inside the bar itself (then to have the 5.1 they take the subwoofer apart), and this we have seen even in small bluetooth speakers such as the famous Sound ROAR blaster, capable of integrating an entire 5.1 system with a passive subwoofer into a speaker that only takes up one book, and with surprising power.
Sound bar or speakers, what is better for gaming?
The best gaming experience we will always have with headphones, but if we want to do without them and we must choose between a speaker system or a sound bar, we will have the best experience with the speakers without any doubt, since they are the ones that They will be able to deliver real sound and well focused. We do not want to detract from the sound bars, which many of them have excellent performance and are fantastic even for gaming, but if we look for the best, then they lose out with respect to the speakers.
It is true that sound bars give us other advantages, such as space, location or wiring, but due to their space limitations they cannot compete in terms of gaming experience with good quality speakers.
