TV Speaker Advice needed

Luis Caffesse

Luis Caffesse

Admin
You'll notice I didn't say "home theater advice" in the title.

Long story short - I know nearly nothing about home theater setups.
All I know is that we have a 47" Vizio TV and the audio is ... not good.
The volume is inconsistent, often not loud enough, dialogue can sound muffled and hard to understand... etc etc.

So, we're looking for a solution - and one that hopefully won't break the bank.
We definitely don't have a 'home theater' type living room. I just need something that will allow us to get some decent sound so we can enjoy the movies we watch.
I'm not really up for setting up a full surround sound setup - so something with a decent Left/Right/Center setup would be great.

I don't really know where to start - and generally when I'm in these situations I tend to wind up spending more money than I should.
So I'm coming to the collective brain trust of 'user to set me straight (and hopefully keep me from spending too much).

What should I buy?
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
 
I actually bought a Vizio soundbar at Costco ... and took it back a couple of days later.
Not sure why I thought their soundbar speaker would sound any better than their TV speaker.
I did a blind A/B test with my wife to see which one sounded better, and she picked the TV every single time.
Luckily Costco has a good return policy.

I guess that turned me off to soundbars in general - but obviously I started at the bottom of the barrel.
Given what I'm willing to spend a soundbar might be the best solution.

That Polk you linked to looks pretty good.
Hm.
 
If you have the speakers covered I'd look into an old receiver, I have an old Sony and it works great it's only 4 channel no surround but it's great. Though I do find that most programs I've been watching recently especially action movies have their volume levels set horribly, audio is very low, and action sequences and explosions are multiple decibel levels higher.
 
The audio isn't low. It just has a much, much broader range than, say, a music CD. That's why music CDs seem so much louder.
 
either way it goes from regular levels to shaking my walls, I don't mind it but living above a store I'm sure my neighbors don't appreciate it. maybe there is some restricter I'm missing but either way the sound is very badly managed either by me or them.
 
Well I'm in love with my Onkyo 7.1 setup, but that's not what you're looking for. If your TV has a speaker output you might want to consider hooking up a good computer speaker system with a subwoofer. I did that in my living room and it sounds pretty good. Flatscreen TV's have very little low end punch and a subwoofer makes a big difference.
 
mcgeedigital said:
Get a nice receiver and some Polk Audio speakers.
Click to expand...

This is what I have. I use a current gen Yamaha receiver and I like it. I do have surround, but, you don't have to run that way. You can just get a center and some polks for left and right. My left and right actually have a sub built in as well, although I do use a dedicated sub too.

With my receiver I can really tune things the way I like them.

Of course, my 126" projection screen with 1080p requires good audio :P
 
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