Soundbars....any good?

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lastminute

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My Sony flatscreen tv sound has a problem reaching my sadly declining hearing...I have problems hearing the speech levels during films etc.
apart from wearing earphones, wouild a soundbox be worth the money and effort...
..any advice gratefully accepted...and please speak clearly!!!

Thankyou!

Gerry
 
MY FRIEND HAS ONE THAT SOUNDED VERY GOOD TO ME CONSIDERING ITS SIZE, WHY NOT GO TO RICHER SOUNDS AND LISTEN TO SOME IN THEIR DEMO ROOM?
 
phil.p":1t35jdmj said:
Have you a hifi? If so just connect your t.v. to it.

+1 to that - most modern TVs will have a pair of phono connections to take the sound to the auxiliary input of your stereo. Even with just a pair of bookshelf speakers it makes ours sound much better than the slim built-in rear-facing speakers.
 
To be honest, Gerry, are you sure it's not the abysmal diction by many actors these days? That or a lousy sound engineer.

And the Oscar nomination for Mumbler of the Year goes to............
 
DIY Stew":15bx4rgd said:
I wear hearing aids, my hearing is gone, I always use the sub-titles.

Stew

luckily my hearing is ok-ish, but i often have difficulties hearing the full word said, so i always have subs on!

adidat
 
They can be ok. In particular the Yamaha ones can be good, but most of the good stuff isn't cheap. Their connectivity is generally a lot more limited than a proper AV receiver, and some of them rely on picking up your TV renoir signal rathe than having their own dedicated control (the latter is better). If it were my money, I'd connect into a dedicated receiver and speakers, or use other existing hifi. I would only recommend a sound bar on space constraint grounds.

Particularly with films, an option might be to see if your DVD/blu ray player has an option to reduce the dynamic range. Dynamic range is the difference in volume between quiet and loud scenes. Films have a much wider dynamic range (more information in the sound track), but for quieter listening and those of hard hearing it's not always desired.
 
If your hearing aid has a "T" position, AND you have an audio amp of some sort connected to the telly (such as a surround sound system), you can pretty easily make an induction coil ("loop") out of mains flex, to go on the floor under the sofa, so you can beam the sound straight into your hearing aid.

I set this up for a friend and she's delighted with it, as husband and wife can both now listen to the telly at a mutually comfortable level and nobody need know the system is there. It's invisible under the sofa, with just one speaker-style cable going to it (routed round to the back so it's not obvious).

There are commercial versions of these, but I believe they're expensive. You need a small audio transformer (known as an "100V line transformer" in the trade), and a small plastic box to put it in (with a chocolate-block connector too, for the wiring-up) but they're all easily obtained, either from eBay, RS Components or Farnell/CPC (or Maplins if you have a bottomless wallet).

I can't honestly remember how I made J.'s one now, but I'm sure she'll let me look at it if you want the details. Doing it really tidily, with a plug-in cable (so it was easy to move about for hoovering), was something eye-stretching like about £35-40 in bits, tops. A really cheap amp will do the job, too* - it doesn't need to be posh, as there isn't much power used.

HTH,

E.

*It has to work properly though - something cast-off is fine, as long as it's not faulty.
 
Gerry,

Do you have hearing aids fitted? If so hopefully these should be programmed to match your hearing losses. Would an inductive loop attached to your TV output be a good option to explore.

Edit:

Eric is clearly thinking along the same lines. I agree that it is easily done with a few readily available bits and bobs
 
I have a Panasonic soundbar and remote sub. Really good, apart from music on cd's. I use the old HiFi for that purpose.
 
I have a Yamaha sound bar, can't fault it.

Having had an old Toshiba TV for about 15 years when the Sony Flatscreen arrived i couldn't believe how bad the sound was.

Didn't want wires and speakers all over the place so after checking some reviews I bought a Yamaha sound bar cost £200ish 15 months ago, as I said I think they are great but I'm not fussy about music or surround sound just wanted to lose the tinny noise I got from the Sony LCD.
 
Depends on your budget, but a set of active speakers could be a viable alternative down at the cheaper end of the market; I have a few pairs attached to various TVs around the house ranging from <£50 and they're surprisingly good. Of course, you still have to tuck the cables away, but unless your TV is going to sit right on top of a soundbar, you'll have to do some of that anyway...

HTH Pete
 
RogerS":1kat97si said:
To be honest, Gerry, are you sure it's not the abysmal diction by many actors these days? That or a lousy sound engineer.

And the Oscar nomination for Mumbler of the Year goes to............

Roger I think you have a very good point. My wife and I have noticed recently that the diction of some female actors particularly American is very poor. My son said I was going deaf so I recorded a selection and then asked him what was said, he had to admit it was not me. Poor sound recording could also be an issue. What I do find strange is that there is no quality check on pre recorded programmes before they are transmitted.
 
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