i bought a sony soundbar, regretting it, it seems like a huge speaker that other than making the sound louder, did nothing more

May I ask which Sony soundbar you got?

If you could do it over again, which one would you have gone for?

Thinking of a Yamaha soundbar.

ct-260, it sound awesome if u have high quality input, but how frequent u have good media with that kind of quality :/
and it doesn't distribute the sound and subwoofer nicely, tried many positioning but not much improvement, mainly use it for video gaming btw

That's because, if you did a bit of research: the CT260 is notorious for subwoofer lag.

The sub does not blend well with the soundbar simply because of the lag, you can minimize it by putting them side by side but even then, it doesn't help due to its poor implementation on its wireless frequency.
Many other soundbars employ their own frequency to work with the sub (not the standard 2.4ghz/5ghz wave), Sony doesn't... for whatever freaking reason.

i was thinking of those 5ch surround system, but they always come with a player and i have no clue of how to connect the speaker to the tv without the player so the sound come directly from the tv not the player itself, heard that it can be done but i'm noob in this field

how about Pioneer SP-SB23SW?
http://referencehometheater.com/review/pio...p-sb23w-review/
http://www.senq.com.my/hear-what-youve-bee...speaker-system/

Had a brief listen many months ago, it actually sounds good. Warm, bassy, with a fairly good soundstage. I would like the sub to be tighter in its presentation as the bass lacks texture and can indeed bleed into the low-mids quite often however.
It's a very barebones soundbar, sound quality first and everything else second.

The problem with the SB23SW is its functionality. It's really thick and that means you either need to be hanging your TV or have it on a pedestal, because the soundbar WILL obstruct vision to ANY TV under 60". Also, because it has no display, it means you have to go by memory to set up your functions. Not a big deal if you're tech savvy enough, but the majority of people who would buy a soundbar wants simplicity and this here could be a deal breaker. Not knowing what you press and screwing everything up, is an issue for many, many people.

Lack of HDMI ports (which other competitors at the SB23W price range offers) is a downpoint too. Pioneer could easily fit in 2 HDMI ports with a switch with the depth it has on the soundbar, I have no idea why they didn't. It wouldn't have hindered sound quality anyways.
Then there's the price, don't know why SenQ is selling it for RM1.7k but a soundbar like this isn't worth more than 1.2k.

good observations. The Senq price is RCP, so maybe other places could offer better pricing. Like you said, it's if SQ comes first, but I think the latest Philips Fidelio is also quite competitive...

It's available at Harvey Norman now, RM3000 however (which is overpriced).

I do not own it anymore, but I have tested it enough and I truly think that the HTL9100 is the best soundbar on the market now without paying even more for a Yamaha or JBL which doesn't even sound as good as the HTL9100.

On its own in 2.1 mode, it's just scintillating in how much detail the soundbar has in the mids (perhaps best of any soundbar so far), yet the soundstage is sufficient enough to rival even some high-end 2.1 speakers. The mid-treble is a little bit on the neutral side, but on the absolute highs there is enough energy in the HTL9100 without sounding harsh.
The sub then is obviously not going to even rival any mid-end sub you can get individually in a custom 2.1 setup, but at the very least the mid-bass hits with plenty of impact for its size and rarely bleeds into the mids. I do want more sub-bass for the rumbling factor and wouldn't mind for the sub to be a little bit tighter too.

Okay then, the main feature of the HTL9100... detach the sides and it becomes a 5.1 setup, though it's more like 4.1. There is no center speaker in the HTL9100, but the soundstage is wide enough to present the phantom center speaker not to lack too much detail. The detachable speakers may sound gimmicky, but boy does it sound pretty darn decent.
It obviously will not compare even to a modest entry level setup like the Pioneer Andrew Jones SP series of speakers. It does however rival something like a Sony N9100 HTIB, just with less volume.

There's enough detail in the rear speakers, without sounding muted and thin and 5.1 is always a welcome in movies, especially when it isn't half-assed like in many entry-level HTIBs today. The detached speakers has a battery life rated at 10 hours, but I think mine died out in under 5-7 hours though keep in mind I was playing at a relatively high volume (around 70%).

So then, is the HTL9100 worth RM3000? Not really, if sound quality is of the utmost importance to you. You can get a Pioneer HTP-AJ523 for just slightly more and that would handedly beat the HTL9100 with no answers from the latter. But if you need simplicity and you are planning to have a system in a rather small living room or even a bedroom, there's really not much else better than a HTL9100 other than going for a custom 2.1 setup.

If the HTL9100 is half the price of what it is selling now, it'd be an instant no-brainer for most moderate consumers I believe.

Looking forward to Sony's CT330 and CT770. Will be released this month and if it can keep it under the RM1.5k range, it would be interesting (although honestly they aren't worth more than RM1k to be honest).

have you heard the sony st3 and st7 before? Wonder if sony themselves aren't happy with it. Since they only came out late last year right? and there's a replacement already.

ST and CT series are 2 different line-ups. So the the upcoming CT330 and CT770 won't be replacing the ST series.
I doubt Malaysia will get both the 330 and 770 though, most probably the CT330 will only be coming in to replace the very old CT260. I'm hope I'm wrong of course.

I've heard the ST7 before. Didn't like it. It's got a pretty wide soundstage (rivaling the Philips HT9100), but the mids are too recessed for my liking. There's very little grunt, bass doesn't match well to bring out the impact in action movies. It's just dull sounding, neither wanting to be a dark nor bright, the ST7 is sort of like a soundbar with an identity crisis. Sony tried to make it a soundbar which does everything well, but unfortunately while it sounds decent, the price says a different thing.

Also having "7.1" directly from the soundbar is just meaningless. The similarly priced Philips HTL9100 with its detachable speakers and offering only 4.1 sounds so much more immersive with better positional cues.
For RM3k, I truly expected a lot more than this. RM3k is bloody hell a lot to spend on a soundbar and it's made worse when a custom 2.1 setup with an entry-level AVR would just mop the entire floor off the ST7 with no sweat, I see no reason to own one.

Haven't heard the ST3, so can't say anything about that.

Most HTIBs these days has at least an optical input on its Blu-ray player. Many even has HDMI inputs.
It is as straight forward as it can be, don't know why it's confusing. TV > Blu Ray player > speakers. That's it.