I think your right here. The rise of the sound bar as installed below many TVs, I believe is a direct response to the preponderance of modern LCD/LED TVs to have as small a footprint as possible - the lack of depth leads to the installation of smaller speakers of perhaps lesser quality because there is no cabinet within which to place larger fuller range speakers.

People who choose to make use of a sound bar are using it to enhance/replace the speaker array that the TV came equipped with.

Although thr rise of sound bars may have come from supplementing the television, I do not think you are correct in your final sentence.

People who use a sound bar do so because it checks as many audio needs as necessary within a simple setup. For myself and many others, its use as a quality bluetooth sound system is just as important.

Are modern phased array sound bars capable of bouncing sound off walls to emulate surround sound? I understand that Apple's Homepods for example have quite sophisticated algorithms for sound.

It's not quite the same, but third number of Dolby Atmos systems denotes the number of ceiling facing speakers to bounce audio:

https://professional.dolby.com/categories/soundbars/

Sound bars can also offer a budget priced mobile speaker solution. If installed correctly and with the correct adapters it’s rather trivial to grab the sound bar off of the TV stand and bring it out to some other area and connect your phone to it for decent quality listening. Returning it to its normal resting place is nearly as trivial.

That was definitely the case for me. My TV had "meh" speakers built in, so we bought a sound bar to mount underneath of it.

Surround sound was never seriously considered, the sound at (and the subwoofer that came with it) are more than adequate.

How can they be competitors if they do totally different things? You can't watch TV with only a sound bar, but you can do the opposite

> You can't watch TV with only a sound bar, but you can do the opposite

You can watch the soundbar with only a TV?

The soundbar exists only as an audible wavelength up until a TV casts it forth into the spectrum of visible light.

Some TVs have good built-in speakers. Most don't, but if you look for them you can find them.

TVs don't compete with sound bars, but sound bars certainly compete with TVs.

Not the GP, but I think the comment is akin to 'inertia is the competitor of everything.'