While watching a movie, you would surely want the best quality visuals and a high-resolution output that delivers a sharp image quality. But, the better sound quality helps to create the immersiveness and helps you to enjoy the content completely. In most cases, you will not be noticing whether the content is in Full HD or 4K if the audio quality is immersive enough.
But, that seems to be a little bit of an issue with current generation TVs. While almost every single TV from premium brands has a top-notch LED or QLED display, the default audio system seems to be lagging behind in quality. This is because the internal sound speakers on a TV are smaller than a generic home theatre or a soundbar. As the TVs are getting more and more flat every day, the internal speaker drivers are also getting more compact.
If you have also noticed the same problem with your newly purchased TV, you have arrived at the right place. Here, we will talk about numerous ways that can help you upgrade the sound quality of your TV.
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Ways to improve TV Sound System
As you may know, there is absolutely no way we can replace the internal speaker units on TV. Still, it does not mean that the sound output coming from your TV cannot be upgraded. You can try multiple methods provided below to make sure you get the ideal sound quality and be able to listen to all of the smaller details that are intended by the creators.
1. Add a pair of external speakers to your TV
The only way you can escape the limitations of small speakers installed on new generation TVs is by adding a set of external speakers to your setup. You can find decent studio reference monitors or even surround sound systems in an affordable budget range. In case you do not want to go for a premium home theatre or soundbars, this is your best bet to get quality audio from your system.
2. Ensure proper placement of your speakers
The speakers perform the best if they are placed correctly in the room. In most cases, the audio system seems to be imbalanced just because the left and right stereo units are placed in reverse. Even if the units are placed correctly, they should be placed at an identical distance from the TV and must be at an equal distance from the user. To make sure, you can check the different positions and play the sound test to ensure the sound seems to come from the dead center of your TV.
3. Add an Home theater for excellent sound
If you take a look at any home theater whether it is a 5.1 or a 7.1 unit, you will find it paired with a powerful subwoofer. The subwoofer delivers the bass which was previously coming out of the main speakers. The bass from the main speakers makes the sound muddy and unintelligible. After installing a subwoofer, your main speakers will provide crystal clear mid and high ends with the subwoofer taking care of the low end.
4. Invest in a decent soundbar
Soundbars are the second best thing that you can get for your TV after home theatre system. There are also instances where you can find the soundbar providing better sound quality than the home theatre under a certain budget range. The soundbars consist of more drivers that are better in quality and also larger in size as compared to the internal sound speakers. Naturally, the soundbar will be miles better in terms of quality.
Connect Your TV to Headphones
Upgrading your TV speakers refers to adding new audio units to your TV or routing the audio completely through a better sound system as compared to your internal speaker units. For this, you can simply use the Bluetooth compatibility of your TV and pair your wireless speaker system or even your Bluetooth powered headphones to get satisfying audio quality.
5. Understand and tweak the audio settings of the TV
In case you are not planning to get any external sound unit for your TV at the moment, you should try to adjust the sound quality of your TV by tweaking the system parameters. In most TVs, you will find various sound options and some premium options also feature an equalizer in the TV that you can fine-tune according to your preference. You should try this out before you buy a new speaker unit because you might not need one after tweaking these settings.
Why Does the Dialogue on My TV Sound so Bad?
Dialogues are the most important part of the content in almost every genre. The dialogues portray the storyline as well as the emotion of the actor that makes a movie beautiful In case you are not getting proper dialogue delivery from your TV, it can be because of one of the following reasons:
- There is a lot of background noise in the content which is muffling the voices.
- Your internal TV speakers are not capable of separating the bass from vocals.
- The location of your or your furniture TV is somehow blocking the speakers.
- In the case of online content streaming, the video source has low-quality audio.
Solving these problems is not an easy task as you can find a workaround for most of the problems mentioned above. Although, you can solve all of the problems mentioned above by simply adding a decent speaker system to your living room. But before that, you should try out the surround sound mode on your TV and make sure it’s turned on.
How to Adjust Your TV Sound Settings
This is the part that will be somewhat different for almost all users. The user interface of every TV is slightly different. You will find different OS installed on different brands of TVs that might name the settings differently. Still, you should be able to change the settings given below on almost every smart TV.
Adjust Your TV Sound Mode
The sound mode is a very common sound setting and it has been available on televisions for a very long time. Even when the TVs were not smart, they had different sound modes available that you can change according to the content you’re watching. These sound modes are pre-tuned according to various content such as sports, music, movie, general, etc. You should select the relative sound mode according to the content you are watching for the best experience.
How to Compress Your TV Volume
The sound compression might be a relatively new feature for you, but it certainly affects the sound quality by a huge margin. In most cases, the sound control is called “AGC” or “Automatic Gain Control”. When this mode is turned on, you will find the sound to be extra loud as it increases the dynamic range between the low, mid, and high ends of the sound. Turning this setting off will surely make the sound clearer yet a little bit quieter.
Tune Equailzer in Your TV
The EQ or equalizer might not be available in every smart TV out there as only those brands who focus on music and related electrical appliances provide a software EQ in their TVs. In the equalizer, you will find range adjustment settings for every single audio parameter. Managing these ranges perfectly according to your room and TV placement will surely give you the best sound output.
How to Upgrade Your TV Speakers
Connect Your TV to Your Hi-Fi Speakers
In case you already own a HiFi stereo speaker unit, you can directly connect that to your TV and get high-quality sound right away. Most of the old gen Hi-Fi speakers do not support Bluetooth connectivity so you will have to connect these speakers via cable. You can either use the direct speaker cable connection if your TV has RCA ports. In case your TV only has an optical cable port, you will have to purchase a proper converter.
Connect Your TV to A Soundbar System
The soundbar is your best to get the crisp quality sound output without wasting much time on the setup. The soundbars are specially designed for TVs and come pre-calibrated regarding the audio modes and frequency range. The soundbar can be installed directly under your TV and used with the TV either by wired connection or wireless Bluetooth pairing. Most soundbars also support HDMI connection so that you will not have to buy any extra cable apart from the HDMI cable.
Conclusion
Upgrading the sound quality of a TV is a very easy task and all you will need is a little bit of time and patience. First of all, you will have to evaluate the problems in your current audio setup and take the steps regarding the issue. If you are only facing basic issues like muffled audio output or ambiguous vocals, you can try out different sound modes before switching the sound system.
Although, we will recommend you to go with a decent quality soundbar right after you buy a new TV. The soundbar is future proof and runs on much lower power input than a home theatre. Also, the soundbars can be used for even medium and large-sized rooms without facing any problem.
