Simple sound solution for kitchen tv.

[busta]

My parents have just upgraded their ancient 14" phillips CRT in the kitchen for a nice 22" Sony Bravia Smart TV thingy. They are more than happy with the TV itself and will probably never use half the features it offers, but the sound from the tiny built in speakers is appalling.

5.1 surround systems are cheap but the don't need anything more than stereo, and positioning lots of speakers and an amplifier would be a pain. A sound bar would probably improve things but most of them are wider than the TV which would look odd and decent ones are pricey. The only other thing I could think of was a decent pair of active computer speakers, which would sit ok either side of the screen, but my experience with computer speakers (admittedly several years ago) is that they look and feel cheap, with performance to match.

So requirements are:

Budget up to £80.
Plug and play (no separate controls/remote to do volume etc).
No separate amplifiers, subwoofers etc.

What options and alternatives can you recommend?

[OldSkoolRS]

It's a bit of an unmentioned secret (at least by the sales people) that flat screen TVs of any size don't tend to sound very good. Trouble is if you don't want something with a separate subwoofer (and I fully understand why) then it's hard to get much more bass from tiny wall mounted speakers than you'll already get from those inside the TV. I have an old 2 channel Acoustic Energy Aego system for the bedroom TV/PC but of course this includes the sub (which contains the amp). IIRC it cost me around £80, but won't work without the sub, I tried the sattellite speakers on their own with another amp and they sounded tinny.

Funny that the only TV in our house that doesn't have a separate amp and speakers is also the kitchen one, which is a 32" Sony similar to what your parents have. I just played around with the sound settings to make it bearable and just accept that if I want to listen to something decent I go in another room.

[randlemarcus]

Go with the PC speakers idea, but look for good ones, perhaps on the Bay. The Harman Kardon stuff always sounded quite good.

[busta]

I've just ordered som Creative T10 computer speakers- they have some good reviews and where only £33. If my parents don't like them I'm sure i can find another use for them somewhere.

OldSkoolRS said:

It's a bit of an unmentioned secret (at least by the sales people) that flat screen TVs of any size don't tend to sound very good. Trouble is if you don't want something with a separate subwoofer (and I fully understand why) then it's hard to get much more bass from tiny wall mounted speakers than you'll already get from those inside the TV.

Funny that the only TV in our house that doesn't have a separate amp and speakers is also the kitchen one, which is a 32" Sony similar to what your parents have. I just played around with the sound settings to make it bearable and just accept that if I want to listen to something decent I go in another room.

I know exactly what you mean. The funny thing is my parents had no issue with the sound from the ancient phillips 14" crt that has just been replaced. I have tried every sound setting on the new TV and it's not just a lack of bass- the whole sound image is edgy and horrible to listen to, worse even than a laptop.


A slight distraction from my original post, but when looking for speaker reviews I found several videos on youtube supposedly showing the sound quality of various speakers. Is it me or is that an 'epic fail'?

[OldSkoolRS]

I guess an 'epic fail' would be to demo speakers over your phone, but a laptop isn't going to be much better either. Can't beat going and actually listening, but these days with the web for reviews and YouTube, it seems to be an old fashioned idea actually listening to speakers before you buy them.