I recently purchased, second hand off a friend , a 32" Sony Bravia LCD TV. It sits on a 24" wide 3 tier glass stand on a tiled floor.
Reading What HiFi reviews every decent SB is at least 100 cm wide. The max size that would fit is 80cm. Can anyone please suggest an alternative please.....I do not want wires from a surround sound system running all around my room. Budget £300 ish.
Maybe there is a more compact soundbar out there...possibly a Bose but not particularly good value for money?
|
>>>.....I do not want wires from a surround sound system running all around my room
Ditto on this PC in a domestic situation so I have a 5:1 system set up with both the front and rear speakers placed together all receiving a front signal. The centre speaker is like a mini 30cm long sound bar and the sub sits neatly out of sight. No wires visible.
|
This is a Bose model:
tinyurl.com/kty93yb
A Google might reveal an even better price than £279.
|
We have a 32 inch Bravia and a soundbar which is exactly the same width.
I think it's a Sharps and I bought it at Richer Sounds in Stockport. I'll check it out tomorrow and report back. IIRC it was about £120.
Probobbly a bit costlier now !
|
Thanks for all your replies... It is much appreciated.
Next year is a milestone bday and I have decided to start spending my hard earned. More than usual I should say! My outgoings exceed my incomings but that is what savings are for. I know too many old folk who are fixated with their savings and I do not intend to join their ranks.
|
Good plan, you can't take it with you, the kids and government don't need it, and a care home company won't get it.
Enjoy it while you can.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Tue 12 Aug 14 at 22:44
|
|
Yup...good scheme LL. That's just what me and the ole girl are doing. hence the newish caravan...our 45th anniversary pressie to ourselves
|
I've retained my audio gear and got my 32" flat screen CRT, TV being fed by my PVR. The PVR has an audio output into my amp.
Could you feed the TV O/P directly into an amp?
|
>> Could you feed the TV O/P directly into an amp?
>>
That is what I have done, a £5 optical audio cable works for me.
|
|
I did that too, but had to use a digital to analogue converter between the two. That worked fine, but lip sync was noticeably awry.
|
>>Next year is a milestone bday and I have decided to start spending my hard earned.>>
Someone after my own heart. Money is merely a means to an end and if you can afford it, buy it!! You never know when you will depart this planet, so best make the most of the time you are on it.
|
>> You never know when you will depart this planet
Or how much time you will eventually be spending in a care home. Paying for somewhere decent is I think the main reason for saving for later life.
|
Knew someone who looked after himself until the age of 100, before he spent the last three years of his life in a care home. Fit as a fiddle and as sharp as a needle.
The few people I know in care homes are, in the main, bored out of their skulls no matter how "decent" the establishment.
|
I know quite a few people in care homes and would hate it... Spending hours sitting in the day lounge watching the goggle box waiting for the grim reaper to pay a visit. My father and grandfather lived to a combined age of less than 100, although my mum still lives independently aged 86, as does my 96yo aunt. Personally I would rather go of a heart attack , half way down the final black run of the day, skiing back to Vaujany after a week of fresh powder.
On a lighter note, I have dug out from my loft a pair of AE 100 speakers, max power handling 75watts, and a Teac CR-H100 CD/Tuner/Amp 60watt. Maybe my techie friend will tell me what bits I need to connect them to my Sony Bravia TV ( the speakers and amp will fit on the TV stand shelves) and maybe I could then buy a wireless subwoofer for more sound depth.
That might well work or am I deluding myself? A little knowledge of these things is dangerous for a Luddite such as myself!
|
>>I know quite a few people in care homes and would hate it...>>
One of my neighbours is now living in a nearby care home (she's coming up to 90) and I've asked her why she didn't go in the lounge and enjoy the company of other residents, along with the entertainment.
She retorted that it was full of old people, most of them asleep...:-)
|
One of my greatest fears about growing old would be being unable to be physically active. Everything I enjoy doing requires at least a modicum of fitness and the thought of enforced inactivity fills me with dread. I've never been able to "sit still" and am always doing two or three things at once, sitting watching TV for more than an hour is virtually impossible for me as I have the attention span of a retarded goldfish and get bored very easily.
I'm thinking of taking up smoking again but doing it properly this time to mitigate against the possibility of living to an age when I can't actually do things but instead only ruefully observe them.
|
|
TV has an earphone socket? Get an ear to phono lead, connect socket to a vacant input on the amp - aux or video is good. Not very high tech or pretty, but I have been using this set up for 18 months or so with no problems. Sounds pretty good to me anyway.
|
To connect to your Teac you will need a cheap DAC which will cost you less than £15.00 from either E Bay or Amazon , you then need an optical cable which goes from the Sony to the DAC.
Interconnect from DAC to Teac ( 2 phono to 2 phono ) again you dont need to spend a fortune.
The complete package should be under £25.
I have the same set up, but a more expensive DAC running into the Hi Fi. Regarding previous post i have no problems with lip synch.
You would be surprised how good TV can sound when run through a decent amp and speakers.
|
>>You would be surprised how good TV can sound when run through a decent amp and speakers. >>
In fact it's been the case for almost 40 years. TV broadcasts used to have FM sound (Nicam was introduced in 1990), but the television sets themselves, apart from a small number, only offered small, almost tinny speakers.
Those of us who fed the audio through a hi-fi system enjoyed the full benefits of what was being transmitted sound wise. I do recall though having a Grundig TV in the mid-1980s that had a stereo 30 watts per channel speaker system and the sound was outstanding. It was also easy to feed an audio signal through it from other sources.
|
In some ways Nicam was a backward step for many, as to get stereo speakers into the TV set meant using smaller drivers. The best-sounding TV I've had was my early-90s Ferguson ex-renter, bought for £60 from Radio Rentals: hefty wooden cabinet and biggish, mono speaker drivers. The only socket on the back was a coaxial for the aerial.
Years later, tired of black bars on widescreen programmes, we bought a 16x9 set with stereo speakers. All-plastic cabinet and much smaller speakers, despite being bigger overall. Sounded awful - and was bulky and ugly too. Strange now to think how much of our living space we used to set aside for these things.
|
I would be happy to lash out time effort and money on improving TV audio, if there was any output worth listening to.
Ironically as the ability to ramp up TV sound to hifi levels becomes cheaper and easier, so the availability of good stuff to listen to falls through the floor.
To that you need to add the BBC producing drama with deliberately inaudible dialogue. Sure - add a sound bar with more bass and you have louder bassier inaudible dialogue.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 14 Aug 14 at 07:45
|
>>> if there was any output worth listening to
Agreed.
Our LG TV has a decent picture but very limited outputs. The only audio out is a 3.5mm headphone socket of only just acceptable quality. We run that through the (offset) hi-fi for stuff like Glastonbury and the odd music documentary. Otherwise don't see the need to amplify normal output.
PVR and DVD machine both have phono out and the sound from those run through the hifi, particularly with music DVDs, is very impressive.
|
>> The best-sounding TV I've had was my early-90s Ferguson ex-renter, bought for £60 from Radio Rentals: hefty wooden cabinet and biggish, mono speaker drivers>>
The Grundig TV I've mentioned had a superb wooden cabinet which housed large speakers on each side of the screen able to handle up to 30 watts each - you could connect other audio equipment to it to gain make further use of the speakers.
Another wooden TV set I had was a (black and white) 17in Decca with elegant troubadour doors. The TV stations tuning knob also incorporated FM radio...:-)
|
Alternatives to small SoundBar? - Fenlander
