I've got a Yamaha 7.1 model. Fairly expensive. It is certainly better than the TV speakers but the surround experience is really not the same as having speakers mounted beside or behind you. A wall mounting bracket is optional. For me an important feature was HDMI switching, the Yamaha has four HDMI inputs.
I have seen these and they are the bomb! With this mount you can easily adjust it to help hide wires. Also don't have to worry about getting the bracket perfect on the wall.
We recently did this and we regret it. Exactly as "bigjohnok" said. We had an Onkyo receiver with Polk speakers.
What we are about to try is this.
We are going to hook our receiver back up with the center, sub, and front speakers. It seems the sound we get from this would be better than a soundbar even though it will not be 5.1 or 7.1.
I just got my dad the Sony 770 for Christmas. It has 3 HDMI inputs, video pass-through, and handles lossless audio. He's almost 80. Doesn't want surround sound, just a soundbar for better audio.