Reading about TCL’s tie-up with Bang & Olufsen got me thinking about audio, often overlooked or just passed over when we talk about the features of modern TVs. The audio quality of flat-screen TVs can be pretty frustrating for viewers. One of the biggest issues is that these TVs have become so thin that there’s hardly any room for decent speakers.
It’s great that we have moved on from bulky cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions to sleek flat screens, but our new sleek devices use tiny, cheap speakers that just don’t deliver good sound. This means you often get weak bass, so those low-frequency sounds and big movie effects don’t have the punch they should.
Another annoying problem is that dialogue can be hard to make out. The design of these TVs often makes it tough to hear what people are saying, which is a real pain when you’re trying to follow a show or movie. This can be especially challenging in noisy rooms or for people who have hearing difficulties.
TCL is addressing the problem, as are all makers of flat screens, but suggesting soundbars and external speakers, preferably wireless, but isn’t that just a bit of bulk moved a few feet away? You can’t get away from the fact that to create audio you need to have a way of moving air and of doing it with such pinpoint accuracy that it manipulates the pressure on a listener’s ear accurately enough to create the desired effect. Sound engineering is a very unique and complex discipline, and it’s highly subjective for the listener.
Ideally, the audio setup for a user has to be just as personalized as the visual setup meaning that how audio is adjusted and calibrated around a TV watching experience should be directly associated with the viewers position in the room and the ambient acoustics. There are probably a few people who can really make that work, given the means to adjust the settings and equalization of their audio, but it’s not something that everyone has the aural sensitivity to do right.
Aurtal Sensitivity
Aural sensitivity is the ability to hear sounds across a wide range of frequencies and intensities, which varies significantly among individuals. There are minimum levels of sound intensity that a person can perceive at specific frequencies. Humans typically have heightened sensitivity to sounds between 2,000 and 5,000 Hz, a range crucial for understanding speech. However, the range of human hearing typically spans from about 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, although the ability to hear sounds at the extreme ends of this range diminishes with age and exposure to loud noises.
It’s probably worth considering that TV buyers, particularly those buying premium TVs are in older demgoraphics, and as people age, they often experience a reduction in sensitivity.
There are two other things to consider when it comes to aural sensitivity, dynamic range and temporal resolution. Dynamic range refers to the spectrum between the faintest sounds detectable and the loudest sounds that can be tolerated without discomfort. This range usually extends from 0 dB, the threshold of hearing, to about 120-130 dB, the threshold of pain. Again, that pain threshold is subjective and it may be apparent to anyone who has teenagers; what parents perceive as intolerably loud, their kids feel is just right.
Temporal resolution is about how a person is able to perceive and distinguish sounds occurring in rapid succession. This ability is essential for the comprehension of speech and music, as it enables the brain to process the intricate timing of sounds and syllables.
Then, there is the ability to discern the direction from which a sound is coming from. It all comes from the brain and how it analyzes the differences in timing and intensity of sounds as they reach each ear.
Personalized factors such as these highlight the subjective nature of how we perceive sound, as two people can hear and process the same sound in vastly different ways.
Speaker Design
Maybe the right idea is to just shove audio reproduction, speakers, sound output into a whole different box of goods and devices. I mean, it is hard to try and work up the right display technology and then have to think about how to control the direction of sound coming out of a TV.
You want the speakers to deliver sound at the right volume while keeping it clear and free from distortion. This means paying special attention to bass reproduction because low-frequency sounds can be tricky but are crucial for high-quality audio. It’s also important to keep the sound clean and natural, especially for music and dialogue, to make the listening experience more lifelike and enjoyable.
Interference can be a major annoyance, so designing speakers to minimize distraction is essential. This might involve optimizing how sound zones are separated and tweaking the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) so that unwanted noise is kept to a minimum. Speakers should also be adaptable to different environments and user scenarios, adjusting the audio output dynamically to suit the room’s acoustics and what the listener is doing.
Speech: clarity is key. It can be really annoying trying to listen to dialogue these days. TV makers should want to make their speakers prioritize making dialogue easily understandable, especially in environments where there might be background noise. Features that adjust the SNR for speech are a must.
For users, having customizable audio profiles is a great feature. These profiles can be tailored to different activities like resting, watching movies, or gathering information, and users should be able to easily switch between them. Make sure the speaker’s interface is intuitive, too, so users can quickly adjust settings and sound zones to their liking.
Not Perfect, Not Conclusive Audio
But, there’s more to do it then the science of delivering audio. There are practical issues that are not going away, everyone knows about, and yet, don’t seem to be as important as they should be.
Let’s start with syncing audio from the TV to a soundbar, and it could be any wireless or wired external speaker system. The issue is one of lag, the sound doesn’t sync with the audio, the lips are moving but the voice is catching up. This is not a problem that is specific to any manufacturer or device. It is a part of the process of living with thinner TVs that don’t deliver the audio quality that we used to get from those cavernous CRTs.
A few months ago, Michael John Wood at RTings.com explored AV-sync issues commonly experienced with soundbars and how different connection methods impact these issues. He found that connecting a source device directly to a soundbar’s HDMI-In port, rather than through an HDMI audio return channel (ARC), significantly reduces AV-sync error. This is because soundbars typically have higher audio latency than the video latency of displays, causing audio to lag behind video. By sending the AV signal through the soundbar first, audio decoding begins earlier, minimizing latency. The updated testing methodology that RTings adopted as a result introduced direct measurements of audio latency and examines the effects of various audio formats, revealing that compressed formats like Dolby Digital increase latency due to additional processing requirements.
For most people, Bluetooth is going to be more convenient. You don’t want to have a beautifully framed, hung flat screen on your wall and a bunch of wires that you have to hide. Problem is definitely not going to go away with wireless connectivity if a wired connection is still subject to its own problems.
Yet, there is an interesting take here: while these audio lag problems impact viewing, but can be deal-breakers for low lag applications like gaming, music output doesn’t suffer the same fate. So, why are TVs, or TV operating systems not as tuned into the opportunity for music? You could say it is because the medium is visual, but there seems to be a real chance to do something with these setups to create an equal focus for pure audio playback.
TV does have an audio problem. It doesn’t really know exactly what to do with it, and doesn’t seem to have a real strategy beyond making accessories out of soundbars and wireless speakers. Maybe it doesn’t matter to consumers. It matters to me. I want the best display. I play games. Now I have to consider the extra cost and management of the audio, too? It seems like, the more TVs become larger, flatter, and brighter, the more pressure there is on the user to figure out how to make it work just the way it should for them. Do TV makers really think that a TV exists solely for the benefit of one person in a household? Because that’s the implication of having so much personalization that means only one person is seeing and hearing things they way they should be seen and heard.
