Online I'm looking at new TVs, which have gotten very complex in the past decade, and there's scant mention of ability to drive external speakers. You know, run speaker wire from the TV direct to a pair of small unpowered speakers. Old school, simple, fits my needs. In general, is such audio output available on at least some currently sold TVs? In digging through online user manual PDFs, I've yet to find one TV that still offers such output.
tv audio out to speakers
- Thread starter GrayHare
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Disappointed
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Most do not offer this feature anymore but they do sell sound bar. Depends on the brand, you may even find sound bar made specifically for your tv.
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treeofpain
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You can use the unpowered audio out from the TV and send to a regular set of computer powered speakers. The nicer models with a sub sound good and are less than $100, compared to the $200-300 soundbars.
Well, that would avoid a receiver, but it won't be powered on and off at the same time as the TV. And that means certain household members won't know how to turn it on while others will erratically turn it off.
zinger1457
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Take a look/listen at some of the TV's available, you may not need an external speaker. I have a Sony LCD TV that has a decent soundbar like speaker built into it. Not surround sound but sounds very good, I rarely listen to the TV audio through my receiver and external speakers.
I think many television manufacturers are deliberately reducing their investment in high quality speaker systems because so many of their customers are opting for external options. We moved a television from our bedroom (where we watched it primarily in the morning, and primarily just for news and weather) into the living room (a huge great room, with volume ceilings). The performance of the speakers was grossly inadequate for the larger space and for the type of programming we started watching on the television. We solved the problem easily with a high quality sound bar:
Sony HTXT1 2.1-Channel TV Base Speaker with Built-in Subwoofer (B00IWQREOE) | Amazon price tracker / tracking, Amazon price history charts, Amazon price watches, Amazon price drop alerts | camelcamelcamel.com
As you can see from the graph, it has come done a great deal in price (we paid $30 more for it). If you follow your way through to Amazon, you'll see that it is very highly rated. If its connections are compatible with the outputs of your television, I think it may be a perfect solution.
Sony HTXT1 2.1-Channel TV Base Speaker with Built-in Subwoofer (B00IWQREOE) | Amazon price tracker / tracking, Amazon price history charts, Amazon price watches, Amazon price drop alerts | camelcamelcamel.com
As you can see from the graph, it has come done a great deal in price (we paid $30 more for it). If you follow your way through to Amazon, you'll see that it is very highly rated. If its connections are compatible with the outputs of your television, I think it may be a perfect solution.
eytonxav
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When we recently got a 4K for our family room, I didn't have a 4k receiver with compatible HDMI connections. So for sound, I ran an optical cable from my TV to the old receiver which powers a 3.1 speaker setup. The cable box, ethernet, and DVD connect directly to the TV. Still much better than a soundbar and I already had the receiver and speakers.
Mulligan
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I do that with my bedroom tv. Does me quite well. Living room TV which is used often I just use the speaker from TV. Downstairs TV is wired through stereo.
I wonder if older people have a hard time hearing words through tv speakers. My parents can hear normal conversion between us fine at normal speaking levels...But when the TV is on and that is often, they have the house rattling from maxing volume out to hear. I made them buy a $200 sound bar but that hasnt seemed to help the need to rattle their house still. I dont get it...Some frequency must be missing in their ears. I dread them coming down to visit only because they need their Fox news and it is loud enough for my neighbors to practically hear it.
txtig
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There are a number of universal remote controls on the market that will turn both the TV and sound bar on and off with a single button. Once it is programmed, it knows to adjust the volume on the sound bar instead of the TV (keep the TV sound muted or turned all the way down). Takes a little programming, but nothing too difficult if you take your time and follow the instructions. They can also be programmed to control streaming boxes (Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, etc.), DVD players and just about anything else you can think of that would hook up to a TV. I use a couple different models of Harmony remotes (on different TV's) and have been very pleased. Non-techie DW has no problem operating everything.
Music Lover
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I haven't listened to the TV speakers in 30 years. I've always run the sound through a receiver that goes to a good set of tower speakers.
Lucantes
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I have always thought that it was the fact that normally in a movie or TV show there is a lot of other competing background noise (soundtrack etc.), which is sometimes quite loud compared to the actual voice levels whereas in normal life speaking situations in the same room there isn't as much background noise?
Maybe?
I know there have been several shows/movies that I have recently watched and the audio level of the actual voices was horrible compared to the audio levels of the background sounds etc. and I find that very irritating.
txtig
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+1. I've got 4 TV's. Two hooked up to sound bars (with wireless Bluetooth subwoofers) and two hooked up to 5.1 surround systems. Couldn't stand the thought of having to listen to these tiny speakers installed in today's TV's. Just don't ask me why DW and I need 4 TV's for the two of us.
+2
All my audio/video devices go into HDMI inputs in the back of a surround sound receiver. There's a single HDMI output feeding video to the TV, which effectively acts as a "dumb" monitor. Sound goes from the receiver to my 5.1 tower speakers. Our bedroom TVs have either a soundbar or an old desktop PC sound system.
Big_Hitter
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I installed one of these Saturday for my kitchen TV that I got for $115 shipped (FRUGAL) off ebay
LG LAS454B Sound Bar with Wireless Subwoofer - Walmart.com
connects via optical cable and sounds absolutely terrific, bluetoof music sounds great too
LG LAS454B Sound Bar with Wireless Subwoofer - Walmart.com
connects via optical cable and sounds absolutely terrific, bluetoof music sounds great too
Both my wife and myself often had a hard time understanding dialog using the TV speakers but found that routing the sound thru good quality amplifier and speakers completely solved that problem.
ERD50
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If you just want basic stereo out, and have the speakers, just get one of these min-amplifiers to connect through the headphone jack. They sip such a teensy bit of power when not driven, I just leave them on all the time.
Have this connected to some old 'minimus' Radio Shack speakers to the kitchen TV - plenty loud to boost the the sound.
Lepai LP-2020A+ Tripath Class-T Hi-Fi Audio Mini Amplifier with Power Supply
Higher power, and bigger bucks - have one of these hooked up to my older home stereo speakers and a TV in a spare bedroom - it cranks out pretty well:
Dayton Audio DTA-120 Class T Mini Amplifier 60 WPC
A cheap, powered 'computer speaker' with the separate sub-woofer will give you more bass, but they usually scrimp on the mid-tweeters, which is what you want for the voice, if that is your main concern.
-ERD50
RonBoyd
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Here are a couple of articles that might be useful to this conversation:
Are There Soundbars I Can Use With My Receiver and TV? | Sound & Vision
Top Picks Soundbars and Home Theater in a Box | Sound & Vision
Are There Soundbars I Can Use With My Receiver and TV? | Sound & Vision
Top Picks Soundbars and Home Theater in a Box | Sound & Vision
pb4uski
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My Vizio has a couple audio out ports but it is 8 years old. While we just use the tv speakers, we do use one of the audio out ports to power cordless headphones that we use at night since the living room is adjacent to the master bedroom and DW is a light sleeper and I am a night owl.
Our problem is not with the speakers, though we use some of our older computer speakers, which work out well.... The problem is the with the sound at the source. Our hearing tests out fine, so it's not creeping deafness.
Thus... a short rant about sound from the TV:
1. Biggest complaint is the nouveaux style of acting in many TV shows, where the actors tend to whisper and speak in low tones. Whatever are they thinking?
2. The second worst aggravation, probably comes from movie theater sounds that amplify introduction and action scenes beyond normal comfort levels. So bad that we have installed a sound leveling device.
3. Uneven commercial sounds. Despite the ruling by the FCC restricting overly loud commercials, little has been done to control this annoyance. (On another day, I'll report on my complaint to the FCC... Unbelievable response.)
4. Since we watch many British shows and sometimes miss the inflections, we now use closed captioning in addition to speakers. The annoyance comes from the oddity that different shows have different ways of presenting the captioning. While the best captioning comes from bottom of the screen lettering on black background, some producers insist on overlaying the captions on the face of the person speaking. Other closed captioning is worthless, using poor speech recognition programs that lag the video, and lose large parts of the conversation, while using huge lettering...so not just for the deaf, but for the blind. IMHO, CC needs standards.
That said, closed captioning has enhance our viewing experience. It is now second nature to turn CC on most movies, and almost always on Netflix and Amazon. No longer a distraction, and we find we can talk together without shushing each other.
..end of rant...
Thus... a short rant about sound from the TV:
1. Biggest complaint is the nouveaux style of acting in many TV shows, where the actors tend to whisper and speak in low tones. Whatever are they thinking?
2. The second worst aggravation, probably comes from movie theater sounds that amplify introduction and action scenes beyond normal comfort levels. So bad that we have installed a sound leveling device.
3. Uneven commercial sounds. Despite the ruling by the FCC restricting overly loud commercials, little has been done to control this annoyance. (On another day, I'll report on my complaint to the FCC... Unbelievable response.)
4. Since we watch many British shows and sometimes miss the inflections, we now use closed captioning in addition to speakers. The annoyance comes from the oddity that different shows have different ways of presenting the captioning. While the best captioning comes from bottom of the screen lettering on black background, some producers insist on overlaying the captions on the face of the person speaking. Other closed captioning is worthless, using poor speech recognition programs that lag the video, and lose large parts of the conversation, while using huge lettering...so not just for the deaf, but for the blind. IMHO, CC needs standards.
That said, closed captioning has enhance our viewing experience. It is now second nature to turn CC on most movies, and almost always on Netflix and Amazon. No longer a distraction, and we find we can talk together without shushing each other.
..end of rant...
Music Lover
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Many TV's have a built-in volume leveler, sometimes referred to as "night volume" or "auto volume" which also does this.
Those who have a surround system can also lower the volume of the main speakers and/or raise the volume of the centre channel (which carries mostly talking) to better balance the voices with the action scenes.
They are probably thinking that advertisers are only paying the big bucks for viewers 18 to 49 years old.
Probably an explanation about how what we're seeing today is compliance with the FCC ruling, and that folks who thought that a ruling would somehow get the people who pay upfront for television programs (advertisers) to stop getting real value from their investment would only prompt them to be more innovative with regard to how to do so.
Blame the actors, writers and directors for that one: They have provisions in their contracts for presentation of credits that closed captioning is not permitted to abridge. In the vast majority of cases, closed captioning placed above the midline ends after the Directed by credit has been presented.
Live programming CC is horrible, but mainly because it is insanely difficult work. I haven't had any significant examples of "worthless" closed captions for prime time, prerecorded programming.
CC is passed along on broadcast television as metadata, not presented graphics. The presented graphics is a product of your playback device, and often is configurable within your playback device. We have ours set for medium size, translucent black background, cyan text.
Of course, there are standards for when CC needs to be provided, and how to structure and transmit the metadata. What you mean, I suppose, is that CC needs quality standards. That would be difficult, for the reasons outlined above; ... because the criteria and the evaluation of the criteria would be subjective; ... and because what is good versus bad may not only vary but also be swapped left-to-right and right-to-left, from evaluator to evaluator. For example, most of us over-50 folks watching television with CC on don't care to have CC littered with the subtle background sounds like "(door creaks)" because it makes following the dialog that much more difficult, but legally deaf folks like my spouse need such clues.
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Dawg52
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Bumping up an old thread. I'm trying to hook up my older JVC receiver to a new Samsung TV but the red/white RCA cable that connects directly to both simply does not work. This worked years ago on an older TV and different receiver, but I'm guessing the newer TV is not compatible under this setup. So.....would or should one of the below mini-amplifiers hooked from the headphone jack of the receiver do the job? Specifically does the receiver power/wattage push the sound or will the sound to the speakers be pushed by the mini-amplifier? I have older JBL bookshelf type speakers and they sound great when pushed by the receiver. But if using one of these amps provides a lesser sound, I really don't care to proceed.
As you can tell, I don't know what I'm doing. I actually bought a Samsung sound bar and the darn sub woofer won't pair to the sound bar. Spent several hours fooling with that and on the phone with Samsung. They concluded the unit is defective. Born loser here.......
Shipping it back for refund.
As you can tell, I don't know what I'm doing. I actually bought a Samsung sound bar and the darn sub woofer won't pair to the sound bar. Spent several hours fooling with that and on the phone with Samsung. They concluded the unit is defective. Born loser here.......
Shipping it back for refund.ERD50
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I think you should first understand why the connection you had on the older TV does not work with the new TV.
1) Is the receiver actually working and switched to the red/white RCA cable (which input are the cables on, and which input is the receiver set to?)? Test this with another source, or just leave the cable end loose (TV end), turn the volume all the way down, then turn up the volume as you tap your finger on the center pin of each red/white cable tip. You should hear a buzz/hum as you do that. If no noise, you need to figure out why.
2) Is the TV actually putting out audio on the connectors you plugged the cable into? Those might be inputs? They might be video out, rather than audio? There might be a setting on the TV menu to enable the audio output. Is the TV volume turned up?
Alternately, you might try hooking the receiver to the headphone jack on the TV (that's what I do, as my TV only has digital audio output, and the headphone jack is the only analog output).
You wouldn't normally hook an external amp to the headphone jack of a receiver that is connected to the TV, although I guess you could do that if the receiver amplifier is shot.
-ERD50
