How are these things in comparison to a surround sound set-up?
Late, but I’ll assume you still want an answer. I bought a full set of wharf dale diamond 8s years ago and they served me well ever since. 2x8.4s, 2x8.1s, 1x8 center and 1x sub with a few different receivers over the years. They sounded amazing. I’ve annoyed countless neighbours over the years.
But I’m old now and don’t want the giant speakers taking up the room so wanted to get something more discrete. Opted for a Bose soundtouch 300 and let me tell you, the sound is amazing. Forget the fact it’s amazing for a bar, it’s just amazing. Sound fills the room with ease and has a nice punchy bass to it. I later added in the surrounds and the sub, and holy fecking shit. All these tiny speakers, and they sound better than my old set up with out taking up any of the space.
I’ve been to test out more than a few set ups and most of the sound bars I’d say need a sub to give a bit of weight to the sound, but they do the job very well for what they are. The one that stood out the most for the sound it gave next to its size was the sonos beam. It’s really really small for a sound bar, but the sound and bass off of it are exceptional. The only issue is that it appears to need to a Dolby digital signal to get that sound, as its pro logic is pretty naff. And no dts support, or hdmi in. Arc only.
Tl;dr yes, some of them more than hold their own against separates. But you’ll be paying 400 plus to get that good sound, and a lot more to expand with surrounds and subs.