This $28 Wedge Can Solve Your Soundbar's Weak Audio

Vibrant living room with pink-and-white 'tree' wallpaper with a mirror and pink curtains. In the room, a sofa, two armchairs, a wooden coffee table, two side tables with lamps, and a patterned rug are pictured. — (Image credit: Susan Jamieson)

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Your soundbar is designed to project soundwaves directly towards you – but only if it is positioned at ear level. As TV stands and sofas vary in height, the premium audio experience you paid for can go to waste, and you'll be missing out on extra details and clear audio during movies.

This can easily be solved with a $27.99 wedge stand at Amazon, which can angle that advanced audio towards your ears.

This way, you're hearing every detail that your best soundbar is projecting. From footsteps as characters are approaching, to the hushed tones within each person's voice – don't let high-fidelity audio go to waste.

The Discreet Wedge Stands That Send Every Soundwave to Your Ears

Angle up or down

Monoprice Tilted Wedge Stands

By simply tilting your soundbar, soundwaves can be projected directly to your ears. This can improve dialogue clarity, louden quieter sound effects, enrich music, and tighten action sequence impacts.

Sound waves travel in a straight line. That's somewhat of a simplification, but it's useful when understanding how soundbars deliver audio to your ears, and how important it is to position them at ear level.

If not, audio can feel somewhat detached from what is happening on the screen. Dialogue can feel muffled, music can sound inauthentic, and sound effects can miss precious details.

And if your soundbar has up-firing speakers, as many of the leading models such as the Sonos Arc Ultra and the Bose Smart Ultra do, you're actively dampening your surround sound experience, as soundwaves are not properly able to reflect off the ceiling towards your ears to create an expansive soundstage.

But positioning your soundbar at ear level is not always possible, unless you are prepared to invest in a new TV stand or a new sofa, which can quickly ramp up your cost, alongside the initial outlay of high-price soundbar.

Instead, these simple wedge stands at Amazon can angle your soundbar so that the audio is sent straight to where you sit. Whether your soundbar is positioned too low or too high, these mounts can optimize the angle, sending the soundwaves in the right direction for the full, fine-tuned sound that your soundbar is designed to deliver.

This will bring that movie-theater experience straight into your home.

More to Shop

Wedge stands are an effective, inexpensive upgrade that will ensure that precious audio details aren't going to waste, by projecting soundwaves directly to where you sit.

But there are other affordable fixes that can improve your soundbar further. Sound quality is a delicate process that can take a tremendous amount of fine-tuning, but with these affordable fixes, you can vastly improve yours.

All prices were correct at the time of publication.

Perfect positioning

USX MOUNT Universal Soundbar Mount

If you're able to drill holes in your property, a wall mount is the most effective way to position your soundbar at ear level.

Tighter sounds

Sound Addicted Isolation Pads

A soundbar sat atop a wooden or glass TV stand can cause vibrations in your furniture, muddying the sound while potentially creating a 'rattle' effect. Isolation pads decouple the soundbar from the surface, tightening the bass and effects for a refined sound.

For your subwoofer

Pyle Speaker Isolation Pads for Subwoofer

If you use an external subwoofer alongside your soundbar, leaving it on the floor can dampen impacts, rattle furniture, and disturb neighbors. An isolation pad helps the soundwaves stay in the room, without audio being lost to the floor.

Absorb floor reflections

Ruggable Calabria Coral Multicolor Rug

Many soundwaves, particularly the low-end, bounce off the floor before reaching your ears, and if your living room has hardwood or tile floors, this can impact dialogue clarity. A rug placed between your soundbar and sofa makes voices sound clearer.

Masterfully fine-tuned

Bose Smart Ultra

If you're considering upgrading your sound setup, the Bose Smart Ultra delivers a delicate, masterfully fine-tuned audio quality, where every subtle detail is heard.

Read more in my full Bose Smart Ultra review.

The best

Samsung HW-Q990F

If you're looking for the best of the best, the Samsung HW-Q990F delivers it all: Clear dialogue, true surround sound, tight impacts, and subtle details.

Read more in my five-star Samsung HW-Q990F review.

Next, learn how to highlight a soundbar to make it a design moment in your living room.

Dan is the former Home Tech Editor for Homes & Gardens, where they covered cleaning, sound, smart home, and air treatment across the Solved section. Before joining Homes & Gardens, Dan worked across a range of home, garden, tech, and lifestyle titles, including Top Ten Reviews, BBC Science Focus, YourHomeStyle, and Gardens Illustrated. They have spent more than 400 hours testing and reviewing vacuums, soundbars, and air purifiers. Dan holds a BA in Philosophy and an MA in Magazine Journalism. Outside of work, you'll usually find them at gigs and art galleries, cycling somewhere scenic, or cooking up something good in the kitchen.