Speakers in LCD TVs: Are 5 watt speakers adequate?

Now that several companies are offering large discounts off the retail price
for LCD TVs (up to 20%), I thought it might be a good time to buy. I have
been comparing Samsung, Panasonic and Sony 26 and 27 inch LCD TVs. A friend
suggested that I should aim to get 2 x 10 watt speakers, giving 20 watts in
total. However, several of the TVs in this size have only 2 x 5 watt
speakers, giving 10 watts in total.

Now I know that if you want really good sound you should hook up your TV to
a decent external stereo system. However, I wondered whether it's worth
paying a bit more to get 2 x 10 watt speakers which are on, for example, the
Sony and Panasonic TVs?

The Samsung 26 and 27 inch TVs have 2 x 5 watt speakers, but their LCD
panels seem to have better specs than Panasonic or Sony, in that the
contrast on the Samsung is advertised as 3000:1, whereas the Sony and the
Panasonic have 1200:1. I'm a bit disappointed that Panasonic LCD TVs don't
have a PC input, but Sony and Samsung do have this.

I think that overall, my choice would have been for a Samsung if it had 2 x
10 watt speakers, so because I am not feeding the sound into a stereo
system, would you notice much difference in sound between 10 watts overall
and 20 watts overall? Thanks for your comments.

Phil

 

I don't use the pseakers in my TVs at all and haven't for at least 8 years.

The sound comes through the stereo from the stereo VCR and the TV is
just a monitor.

I wouldn't care if the TV had no speakers at all.

 

Good luck with the Samsung. I know it's not a plasma but after seeing the
amazing specs of 50" Samsung Plasma TV and seeing the awful picture that it
actually produces - you'll need luck and plenty of it.
Most of the problem is in the faces of people, you'd damn near think it was
only displaying 16 colours instead of the claimed Billions of colours from
Samsung.
As for the speakers that should be the last thing to worry about. These
days they're very well designed, the Samsung does offer real good surround
sound. We did have it connected to a stereo like his previous TV. When
selecting the surround sound options it was pointless having it going
through the stereo.

E. Scrooge

 

Listen to both. 10Watts is only 3dB above 5 watts and barely perceptible,
speaker efficiency counts for more. Power ratings can be quoted in so many
ways that they can be misleading if not deceptive. An efficient and
honestly rated 5W loudspeaker can easily outperform an optimistically
rated 10 Watter

 

It depends on too many other factors. 2x10 watts can sound louder and
clearer than 2x20 watts if the speakers in the first set are better quality.

Forget the specs. Sit/stand in front of each set at your intended viewing
distance. Turn the sound down low and see how well you can follow the
dialog. Turn it up as loud as you would want to use it and see if it is
still clear and undistorted. Pick the set that performs the best.

 

There is more to it then the made up wattage figure they give you, go
and listen to them in a shop and see how they go. I know what the
panasonic 32 that the flatmates have is ok, no bass at all tho as one
would expect.

 

Thanks a lot for the advice given in your replies to date. A salesperson
told me that Samsung and Sony LCD panels were made in the same factory in
Korea and that Samsung were ahead of Sony in the development of LCD TVs.
Apparently Sony has yet to match the latest TV panels that are used in
Samsung sets? Perhaps Scrooge, LCD TVs are not directly comparable with
plasmas and there may be fewer quality control issues with a 26" inch LCD
screen?

I have often bought Panasonic products, but I'm surprised that their latest
LCD TVs do not have a PC input. I guess that if you do have PC input (15 pin
D-sub) on your LCD TV, this would provide a reasonable picture from your
computer? I'm not sure whether you can use the HDMI input on your TV set to
connect with a computer?

It's also a good time to buy a projector, both the HDMI offerings of Sony
and Panasonic are selling for $2800 (down from $3500), but I guess you need
a darkish room for best results.

Phil

 

Not really any guarentee of any sort.

One I tried would only accept 4:3 resolutions and then scale it to fit
the panel roughtly , with still about an inch of black around the edge.
Using powerstrip to make a mode at the native res and in 50 or 60hz made
the tv lock on poorly and still not get pixel accurate conversion. There
was major underscan with it and it was not correctable.

Another, (a panasonic) makes everything look like its running in less
then 16 bit colours, everything is solarised looking so badly that its
unusable for anything other then looking at text.

hdmi is luck if it will accept pc modes or if you have to make a 720p
mode and hope for the best as far as overscan goes.

 

This is why I don't use the speakers in my LCD on my PC or the speakers in
my living room CRT TV set. Small speakers are really bad. If you have a
stereo, just hook up the tv to that. If you don't, then go buy a system.
You will thank yourself in the long run. The built in stuff in the LCD's
is generally a very small speaker. This is so the LCD is thin and small.
Think Laptop speakers in a TV. Ok maybe not that bad, but you get the
idea...

 

A good idea is to take a DVD round (a good recent movie, not one from the
1950s) and compare how it looks.
Sales people are a mixed bunch. First thing you should notice is black
letterboxes on widescreen TVs. In most cases there's nothing wrong with TV,
they just shouldn't be there. The dickhead that setup the DVD player to
them in each was too lazy to ajust the TV type in the damn menu, by default
most players are set for 4:3 TV types. The menu setting needs to be changed
to 16:9 TV types.
LCD quality is changing for the better.

The room doesn't end up that dark with a good projector. Light comes back
off the screen in some cases. Pink Floyd Pulse is magic on a large screen.
Difference with my Epson Projector while down on a resoultion to 800x600 -
not actually a big deal. The big deal with it is that it displays 4:3 shows
etc on the full 100 inch screen. A 3 grand projector shows a much smaller
4:3 show in it's widescreen mode with the shorter height and the black out
sides. Widescreen movies are still shown the same size as a 3 grand
widescreen projector would.
The darker the room the better, but once the movie starts the light from the
movie projected give some light to the room.
Movies look a damn sight better through the Epson than they do on the 5
grand plus Samsung 50" Plasma.
real HDMI will be better on resolutions of 1280x1080 and higher. Outfits
are advertising 42" TVs with a resolution of 852x480 or something as being
high definition ready. They'll probably connect and show a picture but
that's about all.

Panels may be similar on some TVs but the electronics inside are bound to be
different.

E. Scrooge

 

I've yet to see an LCD TV that comes close in size to an LCD monitor. I
have a hole that is just big enough for a 26" widescreen LCD television,
but I can't put a television in there because they are all surrounded by
more than an inch of plastic, and in most cases several inches of
'speakers', which are probably tiny as you note, with a large panel to
make them look larger. My CRT is certainly like that. The entire side is
textured to look like a speaker, but the holes only go through in a
small part of it.

On the subject of speakers, there is no reason small speakers cannot
sound good. I have some very nice Altec Lansing speakers for my PC that
at around $30 (Retail at around $70), delivers much better sound than
many LCD televisions do, and take up a fraction of the space the
television has for them.

The Other Guy

 

You also need to watch out for various zoom modes. A lot of televisions
support a mode where the centre of the image is stretched very little,
and the edges are stretched more. Look for text on the screen or
movement... if it seems to go from large to small to large, it is
probably in this mode. Can't do a fair comparison when it is like that.

To add to Scrooge's comment, there may be black bars if the movie is
wider than 16:9, even on a widescreen television.

There is a very nice $5,000+ Pioneer plasma I'd like to compare that
with. Nicest screen I've seen in a long time.

Given there are only a small number of LCD panel manufacturers, this
happens quite regularly. There is a good chance that two televisions
right next to each other from different manufacturers contain exactly
the same panel. There often is a huge difference in picture quality
between them despite this. Look at gradients and noise cancellation,
both of which are problematic on LCD televisions.

The Other Guy

 

Just use an DVI to HDMI cable, and you've got yourself a PC input
(assuming your PC has DVI). They are essentially the same thing with a
different connector.

The Other Guy

 

Provided, I think, that the DVI end is DVI-D or DVI-I, not DVI-A.

 

Just set the TV to automatrically accurately display the correct incoming
format.

Put up with the black bands where they are necessary to display the corrwect
aspect ration, cos to do otherwise is inept. Salemen may tell you
otherwise.

geoff

 

Older moves that are 235:1 are in letterbox on the widescreen TVs, but
movies like King Kong which are 235:1 play full screen on widescreen TVs
because of the Anamorphic widescreen feature that more recent movies have.

E. Scrooge

 

A movie that is 2.35:1 will show with black bars on a widscreen TV. If
you take DVD as a typical example, an anamorphically enhanced 2.35:1
video will still have black bars encoded as part of the image.

The Other Guy