The Soundbar Problem
I have a confession to make.
Television soundbars annoy me.
Part of that irritation is absolutely rooted in the sound quality itself, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. Over the years I have sat in many living rooms where somebody proudly unveiled their expensive new soundbar as though they were about to demonstrate some breathtaking technological marvel, only for the resulting audio to sound thin, smeared, boomy, harsh, artificial, or somehow all of those things simultaneously.
Then comes the strange social moment where everybody else nods approvingly while my own internal reaction is simply: “This sounds like shit.”
Of course, I usually keep that thought to myself.
The older I get, however, the more I realise that my reaction is not really about soundbars alone. Soundbars merely became one of the clearest examples through which I began noticing a much larger cultural pattern.
Truth.
Or more specifically, the growing disconnect between lived sensory truth and collectively agreed narratives about quality.
A Strange Shift in Bragging
What interests me is not merely that people brag about these devices. Human beings have always bragged about things. There is nothing new about that. Historically, bragging often felt comparatively simple and transparent. Somebody acquired something they genuinely valued, felt proud of it, and wanted to share that excitement with others.
There was something direct about it.
These days, however, bragging often feels detached from authentic experience. It increasingly resembles a kind of social ritual in which the performance itself matters more than the underlying reality being described. Sometimes it feels as though people are expressing approval before they have even fully processed their own genuine reaction to the thing in question.
A product is culturally framed as premium. The person acquires it. The expected emotional response is then performed almost automatically.
“This is amazing.”
“This changes everything.”
“This is next level.”
I am not necessarily saying people are lying when they say these things. Many probably are genuinely satisfied. What I question is whether direct sensory evaluation still sits at the centre of that satisfaction, or whether many people increasingly inherit their definitions of quality from external scripts, branding, and social reinforcement before forming a deeper relationship with the object itself.
The soundbar became a perfect symbol of this dynamic to me.
The Moment the Illusion Breaks
Over the years, several friends who proudly discussed their own sound systems have later visited my home. Usually these conversations involved modern television soundbars or compact home cinema systems which were treated as impressive upgrades over standard television speakers.
Then we would sit down together and watch a film or listen to music through my old studio monitors.
Nothing absurdly extravagant, either. I am not talking about some impossibly expensive audiophile shrine assembled by a millionaire obsessed with acoustic perfection. I am talking about my humble old Carillon AM05 studio monitors.
And every single time, I have watched the same thing happen.
The realisation arrives almost instantly.
You can physically see it happen in somebody’s face. Their entire frame of reference shifts in real time as the music suddenly gains depth, separation, warmth, texture, spatial realism, and emotional presence. Songs they thought they knew intimately begin revealing details they had never consciously heard before. Favourite albums suddenly feel fresh again.
The reaction is often something close to stunned silence followed by some variation of “Holy fuck.”
What fascinates me about these experiences is that I never argued with them beforehand. I never mocked their soundbars, lectured them about audio quality, or attempted to prove myself superior. I simply changed the reference point and allowed direct experience to speak for itself.
Truth did the rest.
The Difference Between Sound and Simulation
This, for me, is the core of the issue.
Good speakers are not merely louder or bassier. Their purpose is to reproduce what is actually present within the recording as faithfully as possible. They aim toward truthful translation rather than exaggerated spectacle.
Many modern soundbars, meanwhile, rely heavily on simulation and psychoacoustic illusion. Artificial spatial widening, boosted bass, over-hyped treble, DSP enhancement, and showroom-focused tuning are often used to create the impression of cinematic scale rather than genuine sonic accuracy.
The goal is not necessarily truth. The goal is immediate impact.
That distinction matters enormously to me, though not because I believe ordinary people should not enjoy affordable or convenient equipment. People should enjoy whatever genuinely brings them happiness.
The problem emerges when simulation becomes so culturally normalised that people stop recognising the difference between approximation and authenticity altogether.
My Relationship With My Monitors
I should probably confess something else at this point.
I genuinely love my monitors.
Not in the shallow consumer sense where somebody becomes emotionally attached to the latest fashionable gadget before discarding it six months later for the next upgrade. I mean something much deeper than that.
These speakers have accompanied me through some of the darkest and strangest periods of my life. They have been present during loneliness, depression, creative breakthroughs, existential crises, sleepless nights, terrifying psychedelic experiences, moments of transcendence, and moments of complete emotional collapse.
Through all of that, they have never lied to me.
That probably sounds absurd to say about a pair of speakers, but I mean it sincerely.
Even after upgrading my primary studio setup, I never got rid of them. Instead, I repurposed them into secondary monitors and general-purpose listening speakers for my television setup. Their smaller size actually makes them ideal for that role while still preserving the qualities that made me fall in love with them in the first place.
At this stage, they no longer feel like mere objects.
They feel more like companions and witnesses.
The Truth in Sound
Sound is a strangely intimate medium. Visuals remain external to us, but sound enters us directly. Music becomes entangled with memory, identity, emotion, grief, nostalgia, longing, fear, joy, and transcendence. Particular speaker systems can become permanently associated with entire eras of a person’s life and entire emotional landscapes within their psyche.
Over time, my monitors stopped feeling like equipment and started feeling more like trusted translators between myself and reality.
That trust matters deeply to me.
Especially in a world increasingly saturated with branding, optimisation, simulation, algorithms, performance, and carefully manufactured appearances, I find myself valuing things that still feel anchored to something genuine.
I think that is ultimately why the soundbar issue bothers me so much. It is not simply that some of them sound bad. It is that they became symbolic of a broader cultural tendency where representation increasingly overtakes reality itself, and where the appearance of quality is often treated as interchangeable with quality in its truest sense.
Every now and then, however, somebody hears genuine clarity for the first time through a proper pair of speakers, and you get to witness something remarkable happen. Not persuasion. Not status signalling. Not marketing.
Recognition.
For a brief moment, the fog lifts, and reality speaks for itself.
And honestly, there is something profoundly beautiful about that.
🙉🔈💙