Poor TV sound

[Qs Laptop]

I'd be happy if they reduced to rapid cut from scene to scene every 2 seconds.

Don't lose hope. About 10 years ago I spearheaded a campaign to get directors to quit using "shaky cam", that technique of having an unstationary, wobbly camera used in medium to tight focus shots in order to give the scene an edgy ambience. Thanks to my efforts this technique has been almost stamped out of existence with only the Coen Brothers still clinging to its use. [/sarcasm]

 

[JoeWras]

These shows with particularly poor lighting, do you stream them? Are they in 4K?

I ask because many programs on Netflix, Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video, etc. are broadcast in DolbyVision or HDR10, or HDR10+. The very nature of these formats produce a darker picture, much darker on older TV's not equipped to handle these formats. Could be your TV is either: a.) too old to process these formats properly (can't do it); b.) has less than adequate signal processing section for these formats; c.) is not properly set up for when these formats are broadcast.

Nah, I got an old very bright plasma. It may not be processing it correctly but it is more than that. I think we discussed this ad nauseum on another thread a few months ago.

It is a combination of theme, trends and especially the new digital cameras.

It doesn't help that I like shows like Dark. I mean, look, it is right there in the name!

BTW: to contrast this trend, the recent movie Don't Worry Darling came across plenty bright. It was part of the theme of the movie.

 

[audreyh1]

Now that we've solved the sound issues, our next task is to convince directors and cinematographers to brighten the lighting in scenes.

Can you please tell the BBC directors and cinematographers to quit desaturating their footage so much? It all goes flat and blue.

Our OLED TV handles blacks amazingly well. Quite remarkable.

 

[Time2]

Not sure this will help if the audio is already bad, but Firesticks will transmit via bluetooth to headphones. I suspect other streaming devices will also.

 

[Qs Laptop]

Nah, I got an old very bright plasma. It may not be processing it correctly but it is more than that.

I'd say that is likely 90% of the problem. If your TV does not have HDR or DolbyVision processing, content broadcast in these formats are going to look dark and lacking in "punch".

Can you please tell the BBC directors and cinematographers to quit desaturating their footage so much? It all goes flat and blue.

Yes, I've noticed this too. I understand that England may have drab and dreary weather but you don't have to artificially augment it with camera trickery.

Another frequent director's technique is to shoot anything in Mexico or an otherwise hot climate with an orange filter on the camera lens and cranking the brightness up a notch or two. In my experience, at least comparing to the sunlight in Minnesota weather, the sunlight in desert areas--Nevada, Arizona--seems to be whiter in hue.

Our OLED TV handles blacks amazingly well. Quite remarkable.

I'm holding out for another drop on price on the LG C2 OLED.

 

[eytonxav]

I suspect some of these overly dark shows is due to creative intent. For example, I remember reading numerous comments from videophiles (those with top notch current/calibrated TVs) complaining how dark House of the Dragons turned out. Seems many night scenes in the castles just used oil lamps and candles for light.

 

[audreyh1]

Can you please tell the BBC directors and cinematographers to quit desaturating their footage so much? It all goes flat and blue.

Our OLED TV handles blacks amazingly well. Quite remarkable.

Yes, I've noticed this too. I understand that England may have drab and dreary weather but you don't have to artificially augment it with camera trickery.

I'm holding out for another drop on price on the LG C2 OLED.

Exactly, they are trying to make things look dreary and cold, but they overdo it.

For the British shows supposedly set in Sweden or Norway they really go wild with the desaturated blue.

Ha ha - OLED price. We’ve enjoyed our 66” for many years already, and I think we’re ready to move up to the 77” which is probably the largest we can fit on our TV wall which has built in speakers.

 

[JoeWras]

BTW, I am firmly convinced that 1/2 of the popularity of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is that it is filmed to POP. Good colors and lighting. Discovery and Picard are just the opposite. They go down the dreary rabbit hole.

People are ready for some color again. Let's see it.

 

[Koolau]

I haven't looked at many soundbars, but they all strike me as too much compromise. You can't break the laws of physics, speakers need some size to produce volume at low distortion. Some electronics (and some alter the sound in bad ways - like use a lot of compression) and detail to construction can help, but in the end, you need to move some air.

-ERD50

That is an impressive array. Your sound must be awesome!

Those speakers look as if they would vibrate our whole high rise if the natural frequency were ever reached. One reason I want better speech sound is that if I turn up my sound too much, others in the building can hear it. While the concrete walls are an excellent barrier between units, few of us ever close our windows which are adjacent to each other. Loud noises leave one unit's windows and enter other's windows up, down and side ways.

When I get time, I'd like to find some wireless head phones to hopefully solve 2 problems (apartment-escaping sound and "mushy" sound from the TV.)

 

[ERD50]

That is an impressive array. Your sound must be awesome!

Those speakers look as if they would vibrate our whole high rise if the natural frequency were ever reached. ...

Oh my gosh, NO!

I am almost ashamed of those speakers. For me, that is the bare minimum needed before I would rather just turn it off and sit in silence. Cheap sound hurts my brain. Those 'towers' are just two 6.5" 'woofers' each (if you can call a 6.5" a 'woofer'!), plus an air motion transformer mid/tweeter. And the sub is a mere 10". Pretty small scale stuff. It sounds 'OK'. I have to force myself to not go into critique mode, or the flaws will bug me.

For my serious listening, I use real speakers and real amplifiers (insert Tim-the-tool-man grunt here).

... One reason I want better speech sound is that if I turn up my sound too much, others in the building can hear it. While the concrete walls are an excellent barrier between units, few of us ever close our windows which are adjacent to each other. Loud noises leave one unit's windows and enter other's windows up, down and side ways.

When I get time, I'd like to find some wireless head phones to hopefully solve 2 problems (apartment-escaping sound and "mushy" sound from the TV.)

That's why I want to experiment with putting a towel over the center speaker, then running the calibration so it boosts the center speaker volume and highs on playback.

But with open windows, I think the answer is headphones (or a chair with speakers built in - I think that was a 70's thing?).

 

[eytonxav]

Oh my gosh, NO!

I am almost ashamed of those speakers. For me, that is the bare minimum needed before I would rather just turn it off and sit in silence. Cheap sound hurts my brain. Those 'towers' are just two 6.5" 'woofers' each (if you can call a 6.5" a 'woofer'!), plus an air motion transformer mid/tweeter. And the sub is a mere 10". Pretty small scale stuff. It sounds 'OK'. I have to force myself to not go into critique mode, or the flaws will bug me.

For my serious listening, I use real speakers and real amplifiers (insert Tim-the-tool-man grunt here).

Everyones definition of the bare minimum is different:

 

[ERD50]

Everyones definition of the bare minimum is different:

Now we're talking!

-ERD50

 

[swakyaby]

When I get time, I'd like to find some wireless head phones to hopefully solve 2 problems (apartment-escaping sound and "mushy" sound from the TV.)

Sennheiser Flex 5000 wireless headphones are excellent for crystal clear dialogue

 

[Qs Laptop]

Everyones definition of the bare minimum is different:

I'm going to guess that the owner of this setup is not married. Just a guess.

 

[Retch The Grate]

I'm going to guess that the owner of this setup is not married. Just a guess.

I know a guy who does much fancier setups than that. He is no longer married (pretty sure the insane audiophile component is not responsible to be fair).

 

[Retch The Grate]

So I've actually been experimenting with NOT having a dedicated center channel speaker as my Sony TV has pretty impressive built in speakers (the entire front face is a pair of speakers basically) and can be wired as the center speaker, though being used as a center channel it can't do the sound positioning aspect anymore. I still expect to put in a Klipsch 504c eventually but it's worked ok so far, and I've been able to make out dialog generally (aside from just really bad mixes as people have outlined).

 

[skipro33]

Not sure what your budget is. Here were the contenders for me when I was looking:

Airmotiv C1+
https://emotiva.com/collections/airmotiv/products/airmotiv-c1-2

The center tweeter looks like a take-off of the Heil Air Motion Transformer from ESS speakers. My FIL used to be an engineer for them back in the day.
I still have a pair of AMT1B speakers. They look like this:

https://essspeakers.store/collections/speakers/products/amt-limited-edition-pair
Sound As Clear As Light was their slogan.

 

[ERD50]

The center tweeter looks like a take-off of the Heil Air Motion Transformer from ESS speakers. My FIL used to be an engineer for them back in the day.
I still have a pair of AMT1B speakers. They look like this:

https://essspeakers.store/collections/speakers/products/amt-limited-edition-pair
Sound As Clear As Light was their slogan.

Yes, Emotiva calls it a "folded ribbon tweeter", but I'm certain that is the Heil Air Motion Transformer technology. I suppose it's off patent by now.

And I've got AMTs in those inexpensive tower speakers I got from Parts Express.

Cool that your FIL worked with those. Back in 1975, when I bought my first stereo set up with money from some of my first 'career' paychecks, I bought a relatively inexpensive pair of speakers - they had a Heil AMT and 8" woofer. Not a known brand "Fortura". I still have them and they still sound pretty decent, and that AMT did give really clear highs. The woofers had the typical foam rot (aren't there foams that are stable?). I should have looked into re-foaming them, but I bought a replacement set from Madisound - they ran the numbers on the box dimensions, and suggested a set. They did sound a little different in low/high balance, but then I got used to that sound. I looked at the label, says the AMT is 8.3 sq inches area. I need to grab a picture of that label for posterity.

Awww, too bad, those ess speakers are sold out! Santa?

-ERD50

 

[skipro33]

Yes, Emotiva calls it a "folded ribbon tweeter", but I'm certain that is the Heil Air Motion Transformer technology. I suppose it's off patent by now.

And I've got AMTs in those inexpensive tower speakers I got from Parts Express.

Cool that your FIL worked with those. Back in 1975, when I bought my first stereo set up with money from some of my first 'career' paychecks, I bought a relatively inexpensive pair of speakers - they had a Heil AMT and 8" woofer. Not a known brand "Fortura". I still have them and they still sound pretty decent, and that AMT did give really clear highs. The woofers had the typical foam rot (aren't there foams that are stable?). I should have looked into re-foaming them, but I bought a replacement set from Madisound - they ran the numbers on the box dimensions, and suggested a set. They did sound a little different in low/high balance, but then I got used to that sound. I looked at the label, says the AMT is 8.3 sq inches area. I need to grab a picture of that label for posterity.

Awww, too bad, those ess speakers are sold out! Santa?

-ERD50

There are still 'official' places that can rebuild the cone foam while retaining the plastic-like cone itself, I think. At least I remember getting mine rebuilt a couple times. My FIL has since passed away, but in the day, he introduced me to Oscar Heil when he came to Sacramento one time.
FIL and another engineer there split off to start their own amplifier company called AB Systems. AB stood for Anderson/Bird, my FIL, George Anderson, and his copartner, Bob Bird. They went on to build AB International then sold the company and retired. I worked there for several years in the Quality Assurance department. I got to meet many recording artists who we interviewed to design amps that met their personal preferences. I was never a 'good' musician but needed to know enough to speak the language, so instead I started building bass guitars. I sold some of my designs to Tobias in the early 70's. He sold the brand off to Gibson who still markets them under the Epiphone division. The design was a 'neck-through' construction as well as an asymmetrical neck design that was thinner on the lower side than the upper. Gibson changed to the bolt-on neck and Mike Tobias moved here to California where he continued to build handmade basses.
The AB Systems and AB International amps were also used in many commercial applications such as Las Vegas venues, airport PA and intercom systems and others.

Many years later, my youngest son started to play the bass. I never told him about my background and one day he was digging in a closet and found one that I still had. When I told him I used to build them back around 1970, he was impressed. Ha! He still has that bass and if I can find a photo of it, I'll post it up. It was a beaut as I recall...

 

[eytonxav]

Many home theater buffs will also recommend that the center channel use the same speaker as the LR for better overall matching.

 

[steelyman]

My soundbar has a separate setting for center level but I’ve never needed to change it from the default. The TV speakers (Samsung) are terrible so were never used.

The thing that made the most difference was the addition of a subwoofer.

 

[ERD50]

Many home theater buffs will also recommend that the center channel use the same speaker as the LR for better overall matching.

And "many people" don't know what they are talking about. It's probably not bad advice, but it isn't really necessary either.

Do you mean same manufacturer ( a matched set of L/R/C?), or same exact speaker? That would be tough, speakers generally have a dispersion pattern with a specific horizontal or vertical pattern, and are meant to be set in a specific orientation. And normally, the center speaker is set horizontally, and the L/R vertically - that would mess with the dispersion. And generally, the center speaker is for vocals, it doesn't even need the same response as L/R, so an optimal design would probably be different for each anyhow..

My calibration routine will adjust to optimize each speaker, so differences are compensated for.

-ERD50

 

[Qs Laptop]

Many home theater buffs will also recommend that the center channel use the same speaker as the LR for better overall matching.

I think the idea of needing to match the center speaker with the left and right speakers is overrated. Most AVR's will use their room correction software routine to optimize the sound so it isn't critical to have the same brand/model line for the center speaker.

On a visual level, yes, it is nice to have three matching speakers.

As to dispersion patterns, when I bought my Chane A2.4 I told them I would be using it as a center speaker mounted horizontally and they installed the tweeter properly oriented for a horizontal speaker.

 

[Qs Laptop]

I'm holding out for another drop on price on the LG C2 OLED.

Ha ha - OLED price. We’ve enjoyed our 66” for many years already, and I think we’re ready to move up to the 77” which is probably the largest we can fit on our TV wall which has built in speakers.

Yes, the price just went UP $200!

 

[ejman]

Probably this wouldn't work for most people ( I have a very understanding wife) but I find that my Magneplanars work quite well with my TV and running the sound thru the Emotiva preamp and monoblocks results in very satisfactory sound in just simple 2 channel sound with a subwoofer hiding behind one of the Maggies