Wednesday, October 2, 2013

3 Ways to Improve Audio Dialog on Your TV

You just bought that cast new 50 inch accompaniment of the art LED TV. The account is absurd and it includes all the newest Smart TV features. You get it home, bung it in and go through all the set up in the manual. You about-face it on to watch one of your admired shows or movies. The account looks wonderful, but the complete is awful. The audio is broken and the chat is about absurd to accomplish out. After bribery with all the congenital audio settings you assuredly accord up and either yield it aback or adjudge to reside with it.
There are alternatives, some bargain and some not so cheap, which I will altercate in a bit but first, let's yield a attending at the basis could could cause of the problem.
Why is TV Audio so bad
There are 4 capital affidavit for bad audio superior on today's TVs. Most of these accept to do with what makes these TVs adorable in the aboriginal place. One of the marvels of today's LED TVs is how attenuate and ablaze weight they are. Can you brainstorm blind a 50in CRT TV on the wall? However, the thinness of the TV armament some aloft compromises in the superior and architecture of the apostle subsystem.
Small Speakers
First, the speakers are abundant abate in today's TVs than in the earlier CRT TVs. The elements are about ellipsoidal (1inch x 3inches) with actual baby displacements. Complete is fabricated by affective a apostle aspect aback and alternating (pushing the air). This is alleged displacement. Displacement is abnormally important for breeding the low frequencies. The added displacement a apostle has, the lower the abundance it can generate. A macho articulation has a axiological abundance amid 85 Hz and 180 Hz, while a changeable articulation has a axiological abundance amid 165 Hz and 255 Hz. Because of the concrete admeasurement of the speakers and their bound displacement, the accustomed abundance acknowledgment of a TV apostle cuts off about about 200 Hz. Thus, you are not audition or about audition the articulation axiological frequency. What you do apprehend are the accord (multiples of the axiological frequency) which are lower in amplitude and adulteration away; and the alone acumen you apprehend any chat at all is because of these harmonics. If your ear hears these harmonics, your academician believes it aswell hears the axiological admitting at a lower volume. Which is why the chat sounds muted.
Speaker Placement
Not alone are avant-garde TV's thin, but they aswell accept actual attenuate bezels (the account anatomy about the affectation allocation of the TV). Because the bezels are so thin, there is no allowance to abode the speakers, so the speakers are either placed in the aback of the TV, or they are placed adverse bottomward forth the array ambit of the TV. This directs the complete abroad from the eyewitness and either bounces it off the bank or off the TV stand. During these bounces, the frequencies can abolish themselves, reinforce themselves or collaborate in means that could could cause the audio to be distorted. In the old days, the TV architecture had an continued bezel beneath the account tube area about the speakers were placed. The speakers were placed so they faced the viewer, appropriately aspersing the reflections (bounces) giving abundant clearer audio.
Low Ability Drivers
Because of apostle size, cost, and ability amusement considerations, the achievement ability of the speakers in today's TVs is about amid 5Watts to 10Watts per approach (stereo channel). How loud this is will depend aloft the apostle efficiency, and how far abroad the eyewitness is. The recommended examination ambit for a 50in HDTV is about 8-10 feet. Considering the archetypal TV apostle and the recommended examination distance, the best loudness would be about agnate to a loud radio in an boilerplate room. However, that is with the speakers pointing at you. With the speakers pointing down or abroad from you, the loudness would be beneath and the audio in the TV would arise to you to be underpowered.
Bad Audio Algorithms
The TV manufacturers try to abode some of these issues by application adult audio processors to atone for the deficiencies in their apostle designs. The algorithms accomplished by these processors are acclimated to accommodate bass accessory or basic beleaguer complete and even articulation bandage enhancement. However, the algorithms that are getting acclimated are far from optimal. The algorithms getting acclimated do not atone for changes in the antecedent material, so that things may complete abundant on one TV approach or show, but complete abhorrent on another. The algorithms are changeless if they charge to be activating so they can acknowledge to changes in the antecedent content. Some of the algorithms are just disconnected together. Rather than searching at the accomplished audio experience, anniversary algorithm is optimized for it's own performance. Optimizing the apparatus of a subsystem rarely leads to the accessory of the absolute system. For example, if you optimize for bass enhancement, you wind up compromising the beleaguer complete algorithm and conversely, if you optimize the beleaguer complete algorithm, you will accommodation the bass. Unless these algorithms are acquainted so that the absolute aftereffect is optimized, the audio will not improve. Thus, in the end, unless appropriately acquainted (which rarely happens) these algorithms do little to break the problem.
What solutions are available?
There are several solutions accessible alignment from chargeless to expensive. Anniversary has capricious degrees of affect on the problem.
The Chargeless Solution
The chargeless band-aid is to acclimatize the audio settings in your TV. Go into the bureaucracy card on your TV and baddest the audio ambience panel. Again about-face off as abounding of the settings as possible. For example, about-face off beleaguer sound, about-face off bass enhancement, about-face off Dolby, etc. If there are bass and acute controls, accomplish abiding anniversary is set absolutely the aforementioned about about 50% but you could go as top as 100% each. About-face off any affair that says akin complete and night approach or bartering mode. If the TV has any affectionate of an equalizer, set it for flat. This gets your TV into a baseline setting. If the chat is still not to your liking, again affairs are none of the added settings will advice it. If it improves, again you can go aback into the settings and acclimatize the bass and treble. Turning on the added furnishings will not do annihilation for the dialog, so you should leave them off.
The Complete Bar
If none of this works and you accept bottomward or aback adverse speakers, again the next band-aid will amount you money. It is a complete bar. A complete bar is absolutely what the name says, a bar with assorted speakers to the larboard and right. The bar gets it audio from the TV through a array of connections. The speakers are about of bigger superior than a archetypal TV apostle and the bar has it's own ability accumulation and centralized amplifier so that it can get louder than your accustomed TV. Best of all, the speakers are advanced mounted; acicular anon at you.
There is abundant array in complete bars, some with subwoofers, some without. Some that are multichannel and some that are not. The best blast for the buck, however, are either the 2 approach (2.0) or 2 approach with subwoofer (2.1) complete bars. Multichannel complete confined absolutely do not accord you the aforementioned after-effects as a abounding multichannel home amphitheater system. The acumen is that in a multichannel home theater, you abode the speakers about you so that you get the abounding faculty of complete placement. A multichannel complete bar, however, still has all the speakers in foreground of you, so that while you get all the channels, you lose the faculty of placement. One affair to accede is that actual few broadcasts are multichannel. They are predominately 2 channel. So if your primary use of the TV is broadcast, again a multichannel arrangement will not do abundant good.
The 2 approach or 2.1 approach complete confined all appear with assorted software algorithms that accredit enhancements (bass enhancement, apish beleaguer sound, etc). If you are primarily absorbed in dialog, again in the complete bar set up panels, attenuate all of these for the aforementioned affidavit I mentioned aloft for your TV. The candy audio, while bigger than in a TV, can still be muddy. Once you accept adequate dialog, again you can accomplish adjustments with the added settings if you so desire.
Using a subwoofer can be adequate and bad. Proper use of the subwoofer gives added affluence to the audio. Your ear expects to apprehend these frequencies and if they are not there or are muted, it about feels like there is a aperture that needs bushing in. Be cautious, however. The subwoofer about has it's own amplifier and aggregate ascendancy so that you can acclimatize it alone from the capital speakers. You charge to accumulate the subwoofer aggregate down adequately low (remember it is just filler). If the sub-woofer aggregate is set too top it will boss the added frequencies and will complete horrible. If you wish to be agape out of your armchair with that appropriate aftereffect explosion, again be able to lose the dialog. Acclimatize the aggregate in baby accomplish until you accomplish the adapted effects.
The Home Theater
There is a third advantage to advance the audio on your TV, but it is about added big-ticket and involves abundant added setup. That advantage is the home amphitheater system. Because of it's complication and expense, I will not burrow into that altercation here.
Conclusion
The audio from today's TVs is abominable because of the use of baby underpowered speakers, their adjustment (away from the listener), and the use of sub-optimal audio algorithms. To advance the superior (especially of the dialog), the customer can acclimatize the TV itself; removing any audio appropriate effects, buy a complete bar (also removing any audio appropriate effects), or buy a home amphitheater system. The complete bar represents the best cost/performance/complexity tradeoff for the consumer.

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