Audio Are my TV speakers going bad with age? Is Soundbar only option?

raksrules

raksrules

Pilgrim
I have a Sony Bravia KLV-46Z550A 46 Inch LCD Tv I got back in January 2010. This was based on a thread I opened back then on TE itself. The TV itself is working very well and no issues with picture. But seems the sound is going bad now. There is too much bass even after adjusting settings. Also, volume seems to be so low that I have to constantly keep volume between 80 and 100 (max is 100).

Is installing a sound bar only option for me to get better sound? If yes, then what options, suggest some decent (but not expensive) soundbar.

Edit: Here is link for specifications of TV, seems no optical out.

 
Is everyone going to chase me with pitchforks if I say grab a bt dac with iem/headphone of your choice rather than bothering with speakers and room acoustic treatment?
 
mr824 said:
Is everyone going to chase me with pitchforks if I say grab a bt dac with iem/headphone of your choice rather than bothering with speakers and room acoustic treatment?
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TV is in living room as cannot do that. It needs to be something all can simultaneously use.
 
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altair21 said:
dont have any particular recommendations, but dont buy a soundbar without a sub-woofer, you'll hate it
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But I feel more comfortable with a well rounded soundbar without a woofer as I felt the woofer (while I had one) to be drowning out the dialogues while watching movies.
I use a Bose Solo 5.. while its not the cheapest, is quite good for Netflix and movies in general.
 
aok said:
But I feel more comfortable with a well rounded soundbar without a woofer as I felt the woofer (while I had one) to be drowning out the dialogues while watching movies.
I use a Bose Solo 5.. while its not the cheapest, is quite good for Netflix and movies in general.
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well that depends on preferences of course, for me personally, when I tried soundbars, the sound was way too flat for my taste
 
Ok so i just checked the back of my tv and it does indeed have optical out. This means i can get a soundbar now with optical in.

But if i do that, does it mean i will end up with using another remote to control the volume or I can use the TV remote itself to do the same?
 
raksrules said:
Ok so i just checked the back of my tv and it does indeed have optical out. This means i can get a soundbar now with optical in.

But if i do that, does it mean i will end up with using another remote to control the volume or I can use the TV remote itself to do the same?
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You will need to use a separate remote if you are currently using TV remote. If you are using something like Tata sky, you can change the sound mode to PCM and use it to control the volume and channels just using the Tata Sky remote.
 
codwapeace said:
You will need to use a separate remote if you are currently using TV remote. If you are using something like Tata sky, you can change the sound mode to PCM and use it to control the volume and channels just using the Tata Sky remote.
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I have fire stick 4k + apple TV on 2 of the hdmi ports. Using the volume keys on their respective remotes, I am able to change volume.

So you think this means it will work with soundbar too?
 
raksrules said:
I have fire stick 4k + apple TV on 2 of the hdmi ports. Using the volume keys on their respective remotes, I am able to change volume.

So you think this means it will work with soundbar too?
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Yes but you will need to connect the soundbar using headphone output on your TV not optical to make your life as simple as possible. Your TV seems to have HDMI CEC (Bravia Sync) but not ARC (audio return channel) using HDMI. If you wish to connect via Optical, Apple TV does have an option to control the volume internally, i.e., the volume of apple TV itself changes. Fire stick doesn't have such a feature, so you have to directly change the TV/soundbar volume. You can program the firestick remote to do that directly and same with apple TV. You should be able to do that if you buy a popular brand's soundbar. Apple TV remote can be programmed to control any IR remote control irrespective of the brand. The same is not true for fire stick. It can only select what Amazon thinks it should support.

Moreover, I think if you have space for it, bookshelf speakers (powered) will sound much better than a soundbar and can be connected to the headphone output of your TV and the volume control will be exactly the same as today.

I know what I have written might be quite confusing, because there are just too many considerations.
 
codwapeace said:
Yes but you will need to connect the soundbar using headphone output on your TV not optical to make your life as simple as possible. Your TV seems to have HDMI CEC (Bravia Sync) but not ARC (audio return channel) using HDMI. If you wish to connect via Optical, Apple TV does have an option to control the volume internally, i.e., the volume of apple TV itself changes. Fire stick doesn't have such a feature, so you have to directly change the TV/soundbar volume. You can program the firestick remote to do that directly and same with apple TV. You should be able to do that if you buy a popular brand's soundbar. Apple TV remote can be programmed to control any IR remote control irrespective of the brand. The same is not true for fire stick. It can only select what Amazon thinks it should support.

Moreover, I think if you have space for it, bookshelf speakers (powered) will sound much better than a soundbar and can be connected to the headphone output of your TV and the volume control will be exactly the same as today.

I know what I have written might be quite confusing, because there are just too many considerations.
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Thanks. I did understand, about 70% of it. I want to ask if quality of sound output will differ optical vs headphone jack to aoundbar / bookshelf speakers? I understand you are saying that if I use bookshelf speakers, in terms of controlling volume of TV, nothing changes and I can continue using my apple tv / firestick 4K remotes to do so. But then if I have a soundbar which has 3.5mm in (optical in too but say I don't use it), it will also control the volume of my sound output using existing remote right?

Btw my firestick remote is not original and after-market one since my earlier one broke. You mentioned I can make my firestick remote learn the soundbar remote (at least for volume), if yes then how?

I believe HDMI CEC is what you are referring to wherein I can control volume of my TV or turn off my tv using firestick remote right?
Also, I have observed that say my HDMI1 is having firestick attached and HDMI2 has apple tv and I am right now in HDMI2 apple tv and I press button on firestick remote, input switched from apple tv to firestick.
But if I am in firestick mode and press button on apple tv, it does not switch to HDMI2 to apple tv, not sure why.
@codwapeace

EDIT: I am looking at the TV's manual and it says this...

To connect the equipment that is compatible with control for HDMI

Connect the compatible equipment and the TV with an HDMI cable. When connecting an audio system, be sure to also connect the DIGITAL AUDIO OUT (OPTICAL) jack of the TV and the audio system using an optical audio cable
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raksrules said:
Thanks. I did understand, about 70% of it. I want to ask if quality of sound output will differ optical vs headphone jack to aoundbar / bookshelf speakers? I understand you are saying that if I use bookshelf speakers, in terms of controlling volume of TV, nothing changes and I can continue using my apple tv / firestick 4K remotes to do so. But then if I have a soundbar which has 3.5mm in (optical in too but say I don't use it), it will also control the volume of my sound output using existing remote right?

Btw my firestick remote is not original and after-market one since my earlier one broke. You mentioned I can make my firestick remote learn the soundbar remote (at least for volume), if yes then how?

I believe HDMI CEC is what you are referring to wherein I can control volume of my TV or turn off my tv using firestick remote right?
Also, I have observed that say my HDMI1 is having firestick attached and HDMI2 has apple tv and I am right now in HDMI2 apple tv and I press button on firestick remote, input switched from apple tv to firestick.
But if I am in firestick mode and press button on apple tv, it does not switch to HDMI2 to apple tv, not sure why.
@codwapeace

EDIT: I am looking at the TV's manual and it says this...
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It might be possible to do the HDMI control to change volume of soundbar connected via optical. I am not sure as I have never used it this way. But someone on this thread seems to be doing exactly that:
https://www.reddit.com/r/bravia/comments/rcluv5/comment/hnwl1j3

Answer to your previous questions follows here:
Q. But then if I have a soundbar which has 3.5mm in (optical in too but say I don't use it), it will also control the volume of my sound output using existing remote right?
A: Yes

Q. You mentioned I can make my firestick remote learn the soundbar remote (at least for volume), if yes then how?
A. Via settings in firestick using original remote. No idea about aftermarket remote.

Q. . I want to ask if quality of sound output will differ optical vs headphone jack to aoundbar / bookshelf speakers?
A. Yes, optical is usually better quality than headphone output because very cheap DACs are used in TVs for such outputs. Your soundbar, AV receiver would have better DACs.

Q. But if I am in firestick mode and press button on apple tv, it does not switch to HDMI2 to apple tv, not sure why.
A. It works for me only when I press the home button on apple TV remote, not any other buttons.
 
Ok so yesterday night, we were watching Masterchef Australia using MX Player Pro player while the stream is coming from my Raspberry Pi which has jellyfin server. I had to keep sound on 98-99 to hear loud and (sort of clear). We were sitting like 15 feet away.

When next episode came, I found that the file on jellyfin was corrupted so I started JioHotstar to watch that episode and here, the voice seemed far more clear and I kept sound between 70-75.

Now I am wondering what is going on. The Jellyfin file had 5.1 audio, is it something to do with it? I am not sure if jiohotstar file has 5.1 audio or not. My TV does seem to have option to make multi channel audio to 2 channel. It is under a "surround sound" option which when turned off does that (it seems). Manual says...

Converts and reproduces multi-ch audio to 2ch audio. In the case of other audio formats, the original audio is reproduced
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raksrules said:
Ok so yesterday night, we were watching Masterchef Australia using MX Player Pro player while the stream is coming from my Raspberry Pi which has jellyfin server. I had to keep sound on 98-99 to hear loud and (sort of clear). We were sitting like 15 feet away.

When next episode came, I found that the file on jellyfin was corrupted so I started JioHotstar to watch that episode and here, the voice seemed far more clear and I kept sound between 70-75.

Now I am wondering what is going on. The Jellyfin file had 5.1 audio, is it something to do with it? I am not sure if jiohotstar file has 5.1 audio or not.
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your Pi probably cant handle encoding 5.1 properly, and JioHotstar downlevels streams to 2.0, which your tv can play natively, hence the difference, Jellyfin on Pi is mostly only suitable for direct play, if any kind of encoding is involved, I doubt it'll be able to handle that properly but I have no experience with Pi in general
 
altair21 said:
your Pi probably cant handle encoding 5.1 properly, and JioHotstar downlevels streams to 2.0, which your tv can play natively, hence the difference, Jellyfin on Pi is mostly only suitable for direct play, if any kind of encoding is involved, I doubt it'll be able to handle that properly but I have no experience with Pi in general
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I have only directly play enabled, no transcoding is happening. May be I should try by downloading a video with actual 2.0 audio and see how it behaves.
I may even try to use VLC player and its uPnP feature to stream same file directly from Pi and see how it works.
 
raksrules said:
I have only directly play enabled, no transcoding is happening. May be I should try by downloading a video with actual 2.0 audio and see how it behaves.
I may even try to use VLC player and its uPnP feature to stream same file directly from Pi and see how it works.
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have you explicitly disabled transcoding in Jellyfin? can you send your settings screenshot for your jellyfin user? for e.g. this is mine

1749015413320.png
 
Nothing to do with your TV unfortunately
Mixing is poor in most content now a days. Moreover, Dolby audio is unusually quieter than PCM in most cases.
 
aok said:
I felt the woofer (while I had one) to be drowning out the dialogues while watching movies.
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Agreed! Sometimes the dialogues are so important and that the background effects and music literally kills those voices. In fact for such dialogue centric movie I usually turn off all ear-candies like dolby and surround,
 
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