Why don't new TVs sound very good?

TVs have probably changed more in the last 15 years than at any time since 1967 when colour transmissions started on BBC2. In this relatively short period of time we have seen huge improvements in almost all aspects of using a TV. These advances include the following :

• Square (4:3) shaped screens have changed to widescreen (16:9).
• Inefficient analogue signals have given way to the new digital ones.
• We had seen the introduction of HD broadcasting.
• Ceefax & Teletext have been replaced by interactive services such as BBCi
• We can now use our TVs to watch iPlayer or other on demand services instead of recording.
• TV's can now let you access Skype, twitter or Facebook as social networking gets ever popular.
• Trudging to the rental store has all but gone as we stream movies via broadband instead. 
• 32" screen sizes are now considered small. 15 years ago, 36" was as big as you could get.
• TVs in bedrooms for children was still considered a luxury instead of a standard fitting.
• Mounting a TV on the wall was a feet of structural engineering and only really happened in pubs or hotels to keep them out of reach of the public.

All these improvements have been fantastic for the consumer & made using a TV more enjoyable than ever before. There has however been been one big casualty through this period. Sound quality.

Old fashioned CRT TVs

15 years ago, TVs were huge, not by screen size, but by sheer bulk. Larger TVs could be almost 2ft (600mm) deep & often had 4-6 inches (100-150mm) of plastic frame around the edge of the screen. A lot of this bulk was unavoidable & simply dictated by the size of the Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) technology that was used to produce the picture.

The up-side for this bulk was that speakers could be placed in less conventional positions. They were often placed behind the CRT itself with ports directing the sound out of grills at the front.

We also saw TVs that had sub-woofers on top of the CRT, sometimes inside the main casing, or inside an additional clip on unit. They were out of sight when watching the TV but added valuable depth to the sound quality.

The beauty behind this was that the designers didn't have to worry too much about the audio, they could fairly easily provide a quality of sound that all but the most critical viewer would happily accept.

The early flat-panel TVs

The early generations of flat-panel TVs didn't fare too badly with their sound quality. At the start, manufacturers overcame the space limitations by placing speakers at the side of the screens, at the bottom of the screens and by placing smaller bass speakers behind the screens.

Even so, the depth of these new TVs was a revelation compared to the old CRT sets and even this Panasonic from 2006, with a depth of 6 inches (150mm) was considered slim. The manufacturers were not adding depth to the sets to incorporate these speakers. They were simply fitting the speakers in around the vast amount of boards, heat-sinks & other components that were needed for the TVs to work.

By 2005, manufacturers had started to realise that the design of the TV was becoming almost as important as the picture & sound quality. The picture below shows how much the design of a 32" LCD from Panasonic changed from one range to the next. The later TV offered much sleeker lines and far less frame around the screen. The obvious speakers on the earlier set have been replaced with hidden speakers on the newer design but are still found either side of the TV screen.

Today's flat panel TVs

The trend for TVs to become more streamlined has continued & been made easier as components have got smaller allowing  more of then to be squeezed on to each circuit board. As this trend continued and further advancements such as LED back-lighting appeared, more pressure was put on the space needed to accommodate a decent set of speakers. At this point different manufacturers approached the design of their TVs differently, some sacrificed the size of the speakers to suit the styling of the TV, others sacrificed the styling in the pursuit of better sound. Fairly quickly it became obvious that the more stylish TVs were preferred by the consumer & if required extras speakers could solve the sound problem.

The picture above gives you an idea how far the casing around a Plasma TV has shrunk between 2004 & 2012. The later TV does have speakers built in, but watching anything other than a soap opera or the news may leave you feeling disappointed. You certainly wouldn't, by choice, want to watch the Proms or an action film as there would be many aspects of the audio missing from your experience.

The images above show a top-end 32" from 2006 compared with a mid-range 32" from 2012. It's quite clear how much smaller the newer TV is. The photo in the middle shows a speaker taken from an older LCD lined up next to a new set. The new set is almost half the depth of the speaker & graphically shows the reason why newer TVs have such poor sound reproduction, there is simply no room to do it.

It's a conspiracy!

We've had quite a few people coming in to our store saying that the poor sound quality is all part of a conspiracy from the manufacturers to make us buy additional equipment so we can enjoy TV. I can see where this idea has come from a consumers perspective but highly doubt that this is the case. One of the reasons I doubt this is because the degradation of sound quality has been a slow and continual process. If Panasonic, Sony or Samsung wanted to force people to buy home-cinema systems they would simply take the speakers out completely or would have jumped from the reasonable quality found in 2004 straight to today's standards for the 2005 range. They didn't do this & have been developing speakers ever since to try and maintain as much sound quality as possible. Unfortunately they are fighting an uphill battle against styling and consumer preference.

To see our range of products that will help improve the sound quality of your TV please visit our web site www.HickmansOldTown.com

Or for our blog about improving the sound quality of your TV 
please click here!