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Need acceptable, cheap TV sound

Posted by R. Totale (A) on June 20, 2007 at 13:23:08

I hope you guys won't find this to be heresy, but I've never cared much about TV sound. Until this week I've been watching a 20-something inch Sony CRT, and listening in stereo to a set of Cambridge Soundworks powered sub/sat speakers I had lying around, which I fed from the TV using its volume control. It was good enough for me.

My gal likes movies a lot, though, and she came into a small amount of dough and we went and bought a 61" Samsung DLP. Nice picture! But now I've got a $2000 TV with $20 sound. I thought "Simple enough, I'll just hook the speakers back up for now". BUT - as far as I can see reading the book the volume control on the set (and therefore the remote, and the Tivo remote) only works on the internal speakers. If you mute them, the audio-out jacks on the TV revert to full volume and you're expected to control the volume with your AV receiver. This is a drag for me, as I don't have an AV receiver, or in fact any receiver with a wireless remote. And even if I did, as far as I can tell that means either I have another remote to find in the dark just for volume, or I go program some universal remote which will handle both the input switching tasks at the TV and the volume at the reciever at the same time, losing all the custom functions built into the TV and Tivo remotes (or attempt to program them in, making the original paid-for and properly designed remotes redundant). This strikes me as a very stupid design.

Still, I've got to do something soon or I'm gonna go nuts with the telephone quality sound coming out of the TV. I know in the olden days there used to be add-on surround-sound processors, which would take in a stereo input and feed it back out under volume control, balanced with low-power amplifiers built in to drive surround channels. I could make something like that work, using it in stereo for now and maybe adding some surround speakers at some point if I felt like playing with it. Or I could use passive speakers (I've got some around that are good enough) for the front channels if a better choice of equipment would involve built-in amps for all channels. Space considerations are not going to allow for a subwoofer or center channel speaker, and I'd ideally like the device itself to be no wider than a series2 Tivo (ie about 17" wide max or less). Plus it's gotta be cheap cheap cheap - either new or easily available used, but ideally under $100 - I'd maybe go to $150 if I had to but that's the absolute top. I don't care about extra features or audiophile quality sound, I just need something functional. Any suggestions?

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