Kind of reminds me of the beats headphones phenomenon. People had these earbuds that lacked any bass response, so they went with headphones that overdid it just to feel it. Sound bars indeed have features like better separation than tinier TV speakers but still crumble apart in comparison to even very modest bookshelf speakers you can run actual speaker wire into. Let alone a sub or a proper surround setup. Likewise with Beats and other headphones, they crumble put against the humble studio monitors like mdrv6/mdr7506 that have great separation and more faithful response to the intents of the record producer (who might very well have been using those exact headphones themselves).