TV Sound Is Definitely Substandard

[Lucky Luke]

confused a little , is the old TV now nolonger in the location and you are not able to plug into a mains socket , switch on and plug an aerial lead into the TV.

Etaf, since I first replied to what you said, I now see how dense I must be. It would be relatively easy to plug in (even if the lead must trail round the front of the stand). I intend to do what you said when I can conveniently do so. It may be a day or two, because of domestic circumstances/routines etc. I shall let you know how things turn out, eventually.

 

[Lucid]

Lucid, it has cured the problem, in that it no longer sounds as if it is spitting bullets (not even if I lie on the floor, and listen). I don't think the sound of the new TV set is all that good (it sounds a bit tinny), but I suppose you get what you pay for, eh? However, it is not as annoying as the old set's sound was, and I accept it.

Your previous Samsung was 15 years old. That means it predates the current LED backlighting tech, so it used what in effect are small cool-running florescent tubes as a light source. That made the telly was much thicker than today's models, and being thicker means there was more space to fit larger speakers.

I bet your new telly is much thinner. In being thinner there's less space for speakers. Less space = smaller speakers = less bass output = thinner sound.

Over the decades as screen size and screen tech has improved, the sound from TVs has gone backward at an equal rate. CRT TVs had great speakers. Plasma screens and early (thick) LCD TVs had acceptable speakers. LED TVs and some OLED TVs have the worst sound.

The answer for many is to add a sound bar. The cheap ones at <£80 take us back to what you had in the old Samsung TV. Higher quality ones £120-£200 improve on that. When you get over £200 you'll be getting up to the sound from plasma screens.

For just TV dialogue use then the £75 LG SK1D is fine. It would certainly help where someone has limited hearing. You'll also need an optical cable to carry sound from the TV to the sound bar. If you're looking for something decent with music then you'll need to spend more. The Yamaha SR-C20A is compact and yet produces reasonable bass without the need for an external subwoofer (bass speaker box). I suspect though that at £200-£230 it's way over what you'll likely to spend.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I don't think the sound of the new TV set is all that good (it sounds a bit tinny), but I suppose you get what you pay for, eh?

Usually, but not always. I bought a large screen Samsung plasma around 12 years ago, it cost a fortune, but the sound I would compare to the sound of a tiny pocket transistor radio. I ended up buying an early Sony sound bar to use with it. By contrast, our latest 3x LG's LED sets have perfectly usable sound built in, using the very tiniest of speakers facing back - I was anticipating having to buy some sort of adaptor to be able to use the soundbar with it, but there was no point.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Thanks for the considered reply, sxturbo. I suppose it's not worth the trouble of enquiring of a local firm, then. (I didn't want to ring a local firm with my query, without first sounding out this forum, because I feared that they might go through the motions of fixing it, just to get the business, while knowing (possibly) that it was not going to be any different. Besides, it would have been a lot of trouble for me, to have them come along, connect it up (that would not be convenient), and listen to it. Ha ha! — to me, buying a television set is a big deal (we are well into our eighties), so I had the idea of trying to saving my old set.

The technology is advancing so quickly and TV's are now so very cheap, they are simply not worth the cost of having one repaired, besides there is nothing much inside a modern TV that can be repaired - best they can usually do is swap the single PCB or screen for a replacement.

 

[Lucid]

That would likely be attributed to it being a much newer TV, and the speaker sound does improve slightly with each generation.

A 15 year old set would be appalling by today's standards of TV especially as it has been quite a talked about subject in recent years with many people complaining at the lack of decent sound quality in flat screen TV's, which has made manufacturers try much harder in recent times.

That said manufacturers have a limited desire to improve the sound a great deal as many of the manufacturers want to push their add on sound equipment, especially as they have basically lost revenue from auxiliary items like set top boxes and dvd/Blu-ray players. So they will only make standard TV speakers that just about pass for the cost of the TV.


A TV that's 15 years old I would be surprised if you could get replacement parts for it.

Your only option would be to replace the internal speaker/speakers, but this may well not cure the sound issues with it.

I hear what you're saying. My view though is different.

Samsung is a decent brand, even 15 years ago, so we're not looking at bottom-of-the-barrel performance for their TVs. It was also the era of CCFL backlights and the thicker sets that went with them. Thicker sets = bigger speakers and more room for bass reflex cavities to boost bass performance. Contrast that with today's wafer-thin TVs. Speaker tech may well have improved marginally, but not enough to counter the reduction in space for the drivers and room for bass reinforcement.

Some might argue that TVs are cheaper today so there's a bigger proportion of money available to spend on speakers. I'd answer that by saying that the reduction in prices affects all components, and that includes the audio elements. It would be wishful thinking that manufacturers are somewhat altruistic in their design choices. They're not. They're driven by cost and the need to maintain market share. [I realise that wasn't a point you raised. I'm simply pre-empting the point should it be raised.]

Look at the prevalence of sound bars in today's TV and audio market. They're also responsible for the slow death of the all-in-one surround system and the budget 5.1 AV home cinema system. That tells you that TV buyers are ticked off enough with poor TV audio to spend extra on top of the TV purchase price to make something useable.

It's my view that the sound problem experienced by @Lucky Luke is likely to be from a split driver diaphragm or other driver issue because the TV audio has been played louder than average to compensate for some hearing loss for one of the family members. That or maybe the audio amp in the TV is on the fritz. Either way, I agree that fixing the TV sound would involve some kind of internal repair. I suspect though that grabbing a used sound bar for £20-£30 from the local classifieds would work out 3x-4x cheaper and give a better final result to boot.

 

[Lucky Luke]

confused a little , is the old TV now nolonger in the location and you are not able to plug into a mains socket , switch on and plug an aerial lead into the TV.

Etaf, I already replied to this posting of yours, but since I replied, I have done what you suggested and looked at the menu of the old TV set. When I did so, I found that there were about half a dozen options with regard to sound. One of these options (I don't remember what the others were) was SPEECH. Since our difficulty is in deciphering what speakers on the screen are saying, I chose that one, and closed the menu. (There is also an equaliser etc., but I don't understand that, so I left it untouched.) Anyway, the change I made has totally cured the problem! The voices are crystal clear now, on all the seven channels that I tested. It's a good thing that I listened to what you said, because it was done very reluctantly, as I was convinced that the set was finished. I don't think, though, that the settings have been changed previously by accident as you suggested, as, for regular use, we use a replacement remote that has very limited functions (just changing channels and volume). This is used to save the original remote for re-tuning etc., as some of its buttons were getting hard to connect when pressed.

So, my wife and I are now quite happy with the old TV set! I'm very grateful to you for pushing me to look at the settings. I am not very knowledgeable where A.V. is concerned — to me, a TV was something that one just plugs in, and plays!

One thing that I noticed, when I started to reconnect the VCR recorder to the old TVne of the pins of the scart cable is bent right down. It's officially a 21-pin, but I count only 20 pins, including the bent one. When looking for a replacement scart cable on the Web, I enlarged the images, and can count only 20 pins on those 21-pin cables, too. Can you offer any explanation for this, also why one of the pins at one end should be flattened in the way that it is? Thank you.

I shall take this opportunity to thank all the other correspondents that have commented, provided information and tried to be helpful. I am very grateful to you all!
With kind regards to all,
L.L.

 

[ETAF]

you are very welcome , glad its now resolved

One thing that I noticed, when I started to reconnect the VCR recorder to the old TVne of the pins of the scart cable is bent right down. It's officially a 21-pin, but I count only 20 pins, including the bent one. When looking for a replacement scart cable on the Web, I enlarged the images, and can count only 20 pins on those 21-pin cables, too. Can you offer any explanation for this, also why one of the pins at one end should be flattened in the way that it is? Thank you.

I will have to have a look at an old scart lead, if i have one in the garage, looking on the web, its 20 pins and then the shell itself counta as 21 , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCART
BUT I have never really counted or looked into.

I know the cables are often different, some Scart being on RGB and NOT using ALL the pins, they often mention if FULLY Wired.

I have bent scart lead pins and VGA computer screen pins before , very easy to do, and i usually use a pair of long nose pliers to straighten up.

 

[ETAF]

pulled out an old scart , and YES mine has just 20 PINS , not 21 , the shield/case around the plug is classed as the 21st pin