RHT-S10 Wins Money Magazine’s Soundbar Shootout

While some audiophiles will disagree, I absolutely love soundbar-style home theater systems. They are perfect for small environments like an apartment, have numerous I/O options and can pass as a HDMI switcher. Soundbar systems are also much more attractive in appearance than the average 5.1/7.1 home theater since they require less wires. A soundbar will rarely outperform an equivalent system with dedicated speakers for each channel, however. I use the Sony HT-CT100 myself, and find it very functional and satisfying for Blu-ray or HD movies on cable. The RHT-S10 is a much more expensive version of the HT-CT100, and Money Magazine compared it to a few other soundbars (Samsung HT-X810, Yamaha YSP-900, Soundmatters SLIMstage40, and the Philips HTS8100) on the market.

Their “tests” were conducted by audio engineer Jessica Thompson – whose job involves mastering and archiving sound tracks with depth, clarity and frequency spectrum in mind – was asked to listen as we played action flicks and TV shows, as well as rock CDs. The RHT-S10 scored a B+, which was the highest score given. Jessica Thompson had this to say about the experience, “The RHT-S10 delivered “more dimension” than the rest. A powerful internal woofer hit bone-rattling lows. And Thompson heard some noise from behind – not a lot, but more than from the other models. This one doesn’t allow you much customization – say, sending more sound to one speaker – but nontechies may prefer the automatic setup. Overall, it was the most similar to 5.1 sound.”