Sound Bars and analog inputs

[Narroo]

Right, so I'm thinking of buying a soundbar for my low-input lag LCD.  Sure, I rather an CRT monitor, but I live in a very small apartment and I barely have room for a flatpanel as it is.  So I got an LCD good on input lag. 

With that in mind, I'm thinking of getting a better sound setup; routing sound to a sound bar or something similar instead of through the TV.  Of course, HDMI and Optical are encoded forms of data transmission.  I'd like to invest in a soundbar, or something similar with a good analog input scheme just in case optical or HDMI is too laggy.

Of course, I know nothing about audio!  So, has anyone else here encounter the same situation?  What did you do, what do you know?  Recommendations?

Hey, even CRTs need good audio too.