A sound bar is an array of speakers set into a long bar which sits below or above your TV (some are wall-mountable).

Sound bars trick your ears into believing that sound is coming from all around you, eliminating the need for annoying speakers and cables. The speakers are angled so that the sound will bounce off the walls of the room and create a virtual “surround sound” environment.

Obviously the effect won’t be as good as what you’d get from a real home-theatre system – and our home-theatre test showed this. However, the sound’s much better than from a TV by itself.

The Top Brand award recognises brands that perform consistently well across product testing, reliability and customer satisfaction.

We have awarded the Top Brand award to Bose for sound bars, home theatre systems, wireless speakers and headphones. Bose sound products tested very well and returned exceptional owner satisfaction, leading the way on both these measures in all three categories.

One brand, Sonos, achieved 100% reliability. Unsurprisingly, it also managed the highest number of “very satisfied” owners of any brand (92%) with the same proportion very likely to buy the brand again.

• Above-average: Sonos
• Average: Yamaha, Sony, LG, Onkyo, Philips, Samsung, Panasonic, Pioneer, Bose

Total number surveyed: 988

After Sonos, Yamaha and Bose products had the most very satisfied owners (82% and 79%), whereas fewer Philips and Panasonic owners were very satisfied (29% and 51%) despite the products having similar reliability. This is also reflected in the likelihood of buying the brand again, with 84% of Yamaha owners very likely but just 53% of Panasonic owners and 42% of Philips owners.

For more on brand reliability, see our survey.