I would have him take a good look at the Yamaha stuff since they were pretty much the first who had a product like this on the market. I have a neighbor that has a set-up with a Klipsch sub and all things being equal, it sounds not bad. Obviously, the sub is critical to the equation because the speakers in the bar are just too small to handle much below 100hz. it certainly does not come anywhere near the sound quality of a full blown system with the appropriately placed speakers(regardless of the ads saying otherwise), but it is fine for his application.
The problem is with this kind of electronics, convenience doesn't necessarily come cheap.
