one step forward one step back.... (bad flat panel TV sound).

[JohnRoberts]

In my recent post christmas shopping spree... I picked up a new 43" inch TV for way way less than I paid for my old 27" years ago.  For the first time in recent memory I can see the score and shot clock during basketball games from across the room, but I can't get over the crappy sound (sounds like it's coming from an orange juice through a string).

They claim 8W amps inside, but I am reluctant to take it apart and grab external speaker feeds, they're probably heavily equalized and not very usable. I maxed out the internal bass boost that helps a little but still sucks.

Time to come up with a low impact amp.... I can't see turning on my big dog amp every day just for TV. I have plenty of speakers laying around.  I might flesh out an idea I have for a class Ab output stage design (using my 3 device long tail pair***), at least to use  this winter.  In the summer I can just reduce the class A bias.

JR

**** hypothetical amplifier is technically class AB, but output devices never cut off below a defined class A current, so crossover transition occurs in a low level stage before the output devices. This class A current can be set arbitrarily high which is why I use big A and small b in class Ab. Note: I have seen japanese patents doing similar trick, but not using my 3-transistor circuit approach. IIRC they used steering diodes but I haven't looked at the patents for decades.

PS: I have a computer speaker rig with 4 speakers and amps and a sub, that I may repurpose for the TV. I moved my old TV over to my computer desk so I can use the speakers in for web listening.

 

[sahib]

Strangely enough I spent hours trying to find a solution to the "extremely" bad sound of our flat screen TV, considering that it is Philips. I almost never watch it but my wife asked me to come up with something during Christmas to watch a few things. So after fiddling with it for some time I thought, bugger that, and went out and got a small Sound Bar only to find out that the only signal out from the TV is the headphone jack which was equally useless.

 

[ruffrecords]

I am amazed a the poor TV sound quality that Joe Public seems to find acceptable. I remember back in the 60s when I was at secondary school, we had a school TV that was used to show BBC programmes for schools. I was already interested in sound and tape recording. It was a huge wooden monochrome valve based thing, about five feet high, two feet wide and two deep. The best thing  about it was it had a 10 inch speaker fitted in the bottom half of the enclosure. The sound was very good indeed with q nice extended bass response. Not heard anything as good since.

Cheers

Ian

 

[PRR]

This one I have not figured out.

We are on Tim-Warner Cable, digital. The set-top box we got in 2009 finally crapped-out so bad T-W agreed to give us a new one. Apparently connected through the same interfaces to the same mediocre-sound TV. But the sound is worse. No treble! I don't even hear treble much anymore, but this was obvious in the first hour (after the installer left).

I *think* the sound from box to TV is on analog wire. How much loss can I get in 6 feet of cable? I should get back there and see if there is a HDUMMI thingie which maybe bypasses more of the T-W cheap box's audio.

 

[Andy Peters]

I'm not sure how you can get anything to sound remotely good when the display enclosure is slightly over an inch thick, and it has to be audible across the room (who sits right in front of a 47" TV!).

My solution was a $300 pair of KRK powered studio monitors.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I'm not sure how you can get anything to sound remotely good when the display enclosure is slightly over an inch thick, and it has to be audible across the room (who sits right in front of a 47" TV!).

My solution was a $300 pair of KRK powered studio monitors.

I happen to have a pair of studio monitors sitting unused, but don't have a handy amp. I don't want to turn on my 2x250w for every day TV... If i need to I can roll one easily enough.

The TV claims to have 8W amps inside that would be loud enough for TV... No speaker jacks so no protection, probably EQ, and who knows what else.

I just thought it was remarkable how bad it sounds... I'd just give it audio output jacks instead of pretending that is acceptable sound.

JR

 

[Matt Nolan]

Remarkable indeed. Especially given that many blind tests in TV research have shown that the exact same picture quality is rated as worse if the accompanying sound quality is worse.

 

[Harpo]

...I'd just give it audio output jacks instead of pretending that is acceptable sound.

an off the shelf scart audio adapter might do it for cheaper than you can build it by yourself ...

 

[ubxf]

For me the bigger problem is sync, these days it is common for the audio to be out of sync. It seems like different brands have different delay between picture and sound

 

[Gus]

What I did was buy a new nice two channel receiver that has digital in and hook that up to nice speakers.  I listen to TV with the TV speakers for things that don't matter and switch on the amp for movies etc.  Issue with this is the TV can not control the volume at the digital out so you need an another remote control for the reciever.

I was thinking of tapping into the TV to run  external speaker jacks from the amps then I read about the possible interactions of some of the digital chip amps and speakers.  http://www.trevormarshall.com/class-d-tutorial/ so not knowing what was inside the TV I decided not to even try. 

Has a web site reviewed the amps in TVs?

RS sold a D/A converter with coax and optical inputs

 

[sodderboy]

Buy a transistor receiver at the local thrift store or grab one off the curb on trash day.  People toss their Technics receivers for those silly 5.1 systems.
Mike

 

[Andy Peters]

What I did was buy a new nice two channel receiver that has digital in and hook that up to nice speakers.  I listen to TV with the TV speakers for things that don't matter and switch on the amp for movies etc.  Issue with this is the TV can not control the volume at the digital out so you need an another remote control for the receiver.

That odd lack of volume control for the TV's digital out is annoying. My guess is that they assume you'll connect the digital out to a receiver which has its own volume control and remote. And then it's one more remote.

And this lack of volume control on the digital out is a real problem if you connect the TV to powered studio monitors, like I did! That's why I built my little IR remote volume control box. I use the Apple IR gumstick remote to control volume. (A Monoprice DAC is between the TV's TOSLINK output and the volume-control box.)

-a

 

[Gus]

Older thread http://groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=58541.msg744438;topicseen#msg744438

 

[Andy Peters]

Older thread http://groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=58541.msg744438;topicseen#msg744438

Yah, but relevant here

 

[JohnRoberts]

My crap TV sound is sorted for now...  ;D ;D  I had a 4channel with sub, computer (?) speaker system that was barely being used... Now that I've moved my old TV monitor to my computer desk I can use the speakers in it for computer sound service... I just moved the 4ch system with sub over to the TV and  finally the 4ch system is getting a workout...  8)

I can leave the 4 ch system turned off and use the built in speakers for daytime business news then turn on the full range speakers for entertainment. 

Now I have a similar step up in both visual and sound quality.... (next is to pay the extra $10 a month for HD feed or not?)

It is interesting to hear how much normal TV programming excites the sub...

JR

 

[Gene Pink]

It is interesting to hear how much normal TV programming excites the sub...

How big is your living room?
;-)

I been sitting on this rig since active use in the '90s, it just sounds too damn "classic '80s sweet" to break up. You'll appreciate the amps....

If it doesn't eventually find a new home, it may well end up in MY living room.

Gene

 

[leswatts]

My Sammie HDTV has analog out. I flipped the switch yesterday to route it to the old 3000W sound system (32 cubic feet of speaker cab) to watch "Live at Abbey Road". I didn't play it loud, I just wanted to hear all the vintage mics they were actually using...not props.

Sounded ok. Too compressed. Big bass Boost. Peculiarly a mono mix. Lots of c12, U47, SM7, and Coles 4038.

I can do Dolby surround too but never have even set it up.

Les

 

[JohnRoberts]

It is interesting to hear how much normal TV programming excites the sub...

How big is your living room?
;-)

I been sitting on this rig since active use in the '90s, it just sounds too damn "classic '80s sweet" to break up. You'll appreciate the amps....

If it doesn't eventually find a new home, it may well end up in MY living room.

Gene

Here's a picture of my personal amp that is one of the few that actually weighs more than your old school CS800. I built a 4x250W amp into an old western electric chassis back in the '70s. I also have one piece of a huge AMR (Peavey) studio sub ( PRM-1  2'x3' with 14"(?) driver), to go along with my AMR 308 studio monitors.  But not hooked up these days.

I could literally fit your system into my living room  but choose not to. Sorry still your problem.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

My Sammie HDTV has analog out. I flipped the switch yesterday to route it to the old 3000W sound system (32 cubic feet of speaker cab) to watch "Live at Abbey Road". I didn't play it loud, I just wanted to hear all the vintage mics they were actually using...not props.

Sounded ok. Too compressed. Big bass Boost. Peculiarly a mono mix. Lots of c12, U47, SM7, and Coles 4038.

Now that I have decent speakers connected to my TV, the commercials are even more irritating and I can hear flaws (or bad choices) in the sound mix from some programs. While satellite radio sounds damn good.

I can do Dolby surround too but never have even set it up.

Les

Back in the late 70s/early 80s I sold a surround sound decoder kit. Basically a L-R + delay... You can see it sitting on top of the amp in the picture I just posted. I haven't turned it on for several years.

JR

PS: I tried to use the built-in TV speakers for just listening to the business news channel today, but I can't bear how bad they sound, even in the background.

 

[mattiasNYC]

Now that I have decent speakers connected to my TV, the commercials are even more irritating and I can hear flaws (or bad choices) in the sound mix from some programs. While satellite radio sounds damn good.

I can do Dolby surround too but never have even set it up.

Les

Back in the late 70s/early 80s I sold a surround sound decoder kit. Basically a L-R + delay... You can see it sitting on top of the amp in the picture I just posted. I haven't turned it on for several years.

JR

PS: I tried to use the built-in TV speakers for just listening to the business news channel today, but I can't bear how bad they sound, even in the background.

Yeah, it's an interesting thing, the difference between listening to a good playback system and a bad one. Working almost exclusively in post production I can absolutely see how it's very annoying to have a good playback system that doesn't mask all the problems in production/post-production.

It's not without irony that as costs have dropped for better gear, generally speaking, so has costs for production, leaving us with what could be a zero net improvement. I can't tell you how many times I'm forced to make frustrating decisions between leaving issue #1 or #12 untreated because there isn't enough money to deal with it. Some producers/directors will be sensitive to mouth noises like smacks, and others are sensitive to rough edits. Some hate background noise and some hate mismatched tonality ("EQ"). Between all of those there's always one that suffers. Kills me when I have to take over a show for another engineer and it's riddled with clicks and smacks because there was no time to address it, but the director doesn't care. Or when you have a show filled with awful edits simply because they wanted to get the characters/people to say certain things, but they're super-sensitive to tonality etc.....

You're right; one step forward, one step back, on a lot of levels.

Personally, I watch all content on my workstation, so I'm used to hearing all the flaws.