Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: Varche on 25 August 2016, 18:57:19
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Finally given up on my Philips CRT purchased in 1995 for about £800. Bought a second Samsung smart TV. 48 inch j5500
Sound could be better on dialogue for the MIL. Old tv had a pair of external speakers we positioned either side of her chair but they are just a pair of bare wires each.
Any suggestions on something to improve the sound ? If it is near her head then wireless would be good and mains powered. Something i could also use outside to stream music to from an ipad would be handy.
Any suggestions welcomed!
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Headphones? Lots of sound quality for little cash outlay and nothing to disturb anyone else in the room.
Ron.
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Depends what your after really, if you want something to improve any modern Flat Screen, pretty much all of them have rubbish sound due to tiny speaker space.
For a simple (2.1) sound improvement I can highly recommend these for around the £50 mark - Maxell-MXSB-252BT
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Maxell-MXSB-252BT-Bluetooth-Soundbar-With-Touch-Sensor-Buttons-70W-2-1-Channel-/291824202936?hash=item43f213f4b8:g:znIAAOSwRgJXg-qD
They're a sound Base so you stand you tv on top of them, for the money they do a really good job, nice clean sound, Sub Base built in, with SRS and Base boost for the Movies, the 3 other things I like about them is, they're well built, dont have any flashing LED on the front which can add as an distraction (all the LED's go out after a few seconds from pressing the remote), and a really plus point is they offer HDMI switching built in the unit as they have 4 HDMI Ports for AV expansion, as well as Line in, Headphones, Optical, and Bluetooth.
If you want a bit more urmph, they do a Higher Power version Maxell MXSP-SB3000, which can be picked for around the £100+ mark.
Make sure you get the Bluetooth versions as some of the earlier ones which are still for sale had no Bluetooth function otherwise performed the same.
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Thanks zirk . I have been looking at sound bars/bases for our other tv too.
Do what you recommend improve dialogue too? I also find some dialogue is drowned out by background music, sound effects.
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Sound bars are a cheap and easy fix, if you want better then you`re looking at a proper AV amp with 5.1 and above sound but this adds more boxes under the tv stand, which some people don`t want.
Samsung smart TV`s have terrible sound, it`s just about ok for tv but films and radio need better ;)
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Optical to sound bar is best option, then just spend as much as you are willing on said sound bar :y
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Thanks zirk . I have been looking at sound bars/bases for our other tv too.
Do what you recommend improve dialogue too? I also find some dialogue is drowned out by background music, sound effects.
Take you mean speech (mainly Movies related) where the speech goes quiet or is drowned out by, as you say music or sound effects, turn the volume up and next minute its all too loud, the main reason is this is due to the original surround sound track (say 5.1) not getting mixed down properly for 2.1 listening, bloodly annoying late at night, this is why a 5.1 surround system has a center / middle speaker, the diologe or main speech comes from the center and the souround sound is distinctively spaced away near the walls.
Not much you can do about that with some remixing of the channels with additional equipment or go down the full 5.1 / 9.1 sound system.
The Maxell does have an SRS, which effectively pulls the the 2 steroe source's away from the middle, which can help for speech, but I not going to say its a 100% cure for it.
If you do want a 5.1 system but dont want the hassle of speakers and wires around the room, have a look at the Yamaha Sound bars, in particular the older versions, there a Sound bar you hang on the wall (Higher the better), they are noise calibrated with a reference microphone, and them bounce the channels around the room all from a single Bar, sounds wierd but they really do work well.
Ive used one of these before, Yamaha YSP800 and Loewe (made by Harman Kardon) do a couple of good ones, but they are bloody expensive new, but can be picked up secondhand for a bargain if you wait or hunt around, you will probably need an additional decent Sub Box for these as well to balance the sound.