Top 10 Best Passive Soundbars for 2024 – Our Top Picks

In the next lines, you will find a concrete analysis and a careful examination of the technical specifications of the passive soundbars which are certain to improve the sound quality of your TV.

Read carefully and before buying a soundbar choose carefully, taking into account the fundamental characteristics that make up this product.

Right here we had listed out the best quality passive soundbars that are present below.

Buyer Guide to Choose the Best Passive Soundbar

What Is a Soundbar

The soundbar is nothing more than an elongated speaker with several speakers inside. Its audio quality is conquering all those who have long loved 5.1 and 7.1 home theater systems, thanks to its small size and sound that gives the impression of coming from multiple directions.

As you know, the producers of Smart TV have focused heavily on aesthetics and video quality, leaving out the importance of audio.

How many times have you happened to see a movie on a latest-generation TV and discover that the integrated audio left something to be desired?

Well, all this is surpassed by the soundbar which is not only complementary to the TV, thanks to its unobtrusive design, but highly improves its audio performance.

How the Soundbar Works

But how does a single speaker simulate the effects produced by systems that have several speakers, and also separate from each other? What is the magic that allows soundbars to show off a convincing directional effect for the sound produced?

Obviously there is no magic behind the soundbars, but only a wise design and engineering work which allows us to deceive our ear and make us believe that a sound is coming from a specific point in space, and not from the bottom of our TV.

Many audiophiles are not entirely convinced of the quality of the soundbars, and in fact, the final results will not be comparable to those of a real multi-channel system, but it must also be said that not everyone is willing to put a complete system in your living room. And the soundbar may in fact be the best solution to have good sound quality.

But how does the soundbar work? Inside the only speaker in front of you, there are multiple speakers (usually up to seven) positioned in such a way as to generate a sound that simulates the surround effect.

In order to achieve this result, the soundbar aims to deceive man’s ear and brain by also exploiting the ability of sounds to bounce against obstacles encountered during their journey.

For example, think of an optical illusion, when our eye is led to see things that do not really exist. Here, the same happens with soundbars even if in this case we are talking about auditory illusions, and not of sight.

With the speakers of the soundbar oriented in a certain way and with a favorable environment.

Thanks to the different built-in speakers, the soundbars send different sound streams into the room, one for each channel, pointing them in different positions so that when the wall bounces they reach the listener from the right direction.

For example, if the sound flow sent is that relating to the left surround channel, the soundbar sends the sound towards the wall to the left of the listener, so that on its rebound the same will come from its left.

Difference Between Active and Passive Soundbar

Before indicating which are the best soundbars, you must know that if you want to buy a soundbar suitable for your needs, it is good that you know all the features of this product. First of all, a distinction must be made between active and passive soundbars.

Active soundbars have all the electronic components integrated into the product (speakers, amplifier, processor, and so on). They are easy to install and are currently the most popular on the market.

Passive soundbars are those most loved by audiophiles as they have to be connected to one or more external amplifiers to function.

Channels and Subwoofers

Another important feature is the number of channels. The more numerous and more integrated speakers you will have available. It starts from basic 2-channel soundbar models up to models with 7 or even 10.

Some soundbars also have an integrated subwoofer with low-frequency sounds but are much more voluminous than the soundbars sold together with external subwoofers (also called sound decks or sound plates).

The Connectivity of The Soundbars

Soundbars are born as products capable of interacting with other devices such as TV and mobile devices. That’s why it is important that these products have the most common connections, such as USB port, 3.5 mm jack, Coaxial, NFC, Ethernet, HDMI switch, WLAN, and Bluetooth.

The latter elements (HDMI, WLAN, and Bluetooth) if present, identify the so-called wireless soundbar, useful to be connected to other speakers or mobile devices without annoying cables.

Wireless soundbars have a lot more marketable than those that are not. The wireless connection, via Bluetooth, is preferable as it allows you to connect to smartphones, tablets, and more to also play music at a high quality.

You can also connect the soundbars to other Wifi speakers you have at home and create a real music room. If, on the other hand, you are a music lover and you like listening to music from the soundbar, you just need to buy one with Bluetooth or NFC technology.

The average soundbar must have a power of 300W if instead, you need more powerful audio, I recommend soundbar with a power greater than 600W.

Soundbar Active

The active soundbar is those soundbars that have all the electronic components integrated into the speaker. Speakers, amplifiers, and signal processors are all already present in the original equipment, and all you have to do is connect the product to the TV to make it work at full capacity.

You won’t have to buy anything else, just the soundbar, although in some cases you’d better complete the sound with a subwoofer. I will explain better what are the advantages of the subwoofer, which is however already present when purchased in combination with the soundbar on some models.

The benefits of an active soundbar are obviously linked to the simplicity of configuration, the clean appearance determined by the presence of only one visible product (two with the subwoofer), the availability of a large number of products of all types and of all price ranges. active soundbars are also the most popular and popular ones.

Connections

When choosing the soundbar you will need to pay attention to the connections available on the model you would like to buy. Some models offer vast possibilities in this sense, with input and output ports of all types: the most common connections are HDMI, RCA, TOSLink (digital optical), USB, but there are also others.

If you want to connect the soundbar to a Blu-Ray player, a set-top box, and a game console at the same time, the ideal would be that your soundbar had at least 3 HDMI inputs available.

If you also want to take advantage of Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio audio encodings, it is always via HDMI that you have to connect the soundbar, with the old TOSLink that cannot support these new formats.

RCA cables (analog, white and red, to be clear) can be useful for connecting the soundbar to a stereo system or an old TV, while if you want to listen to the music of your smartphone with the soundbar you must consider buying a model which supports Bluetooth connection.

The models that in addition to Bluetooth also support NFC allow you to pair smartphones and tablets with the soundbar by simply bringing the devices close to each other

Power

In the technical specifications of the soundbars, including those that we will analyze together, you will find a value called Watt RMS (Watt Root Mean Square).

Which indicates the power that the speakers can deliver without generating distortions in the sound. The higher this value, the higher the soundbar’s sound output.