parents cant hear the tv (1 Viewer)

[BradleyS.]

We just bought a new hitachi 57" widescrren tv a couple months ago and my parents claim that they can't hear it very good. I dont think their hearing is that bad and they can hear the other tv's just fine. What do you suggest I do to the sound settings until I get my speakers setup?

 

[Bryan X]

ummmm, turn up the volume?

 

[BradleyS.]

we turn the volume up to like 35 and they say it still sounds muffled. Good thing im getting klipsch speakers( they should definitely be able to hear those)

 

[Jay McC]

Check the A/V hookups on the back of the TV. The reason i say this is because a friend of my wife had called me with the same problem. Video was there but audio stunk when she tried to watch a VCR tape. Turned out she had the video OUTPUT from her VCR plugged into the video OUTPUT on the back of the TV. Reconnected her VCR to a video INPUT and problem solved.

Don't know why she was still able to get video and a little audio with both outputs connected to each other, but thats what it was.

Hope that helps.

 

[Steve Berger]

As people age some have trouble hearing certain frequency ranges. Some TVs have built-in audio decoders (surround , Dolby , SRS , etc) while these are great for music they can make voices hard to distinguish for some people. You might want to turn off any audio modifiers and see if that helps. You should also check for bass and treble controls to see if they can help.

 

[Bryan X]

Yeah, definately check the bass/treble. I moved a Sony TV into my unfinished basement and the sound was horrible. I could hardly tell what anyone was saying, everything was so muffled. I would turn it up thinking it just wasn't loud enough, but that didn't help.

So I reduced the bass and turned up the treble and now it sounds fine. Apparently the accoustics of the unfinished basement were magnifying the bass and making the sounds muffled and hard to hear/understand.

 

[BradleyS.]

I tried you advice on the treble and bass and also did a little tinkering in the menu section and found a "Loudness" feature that really improved the sound. I think it is alot better than before, but maybe this is a good way to hurry up the speaker purchases . Thanks for your help!

 

[David Norman]

I take it they are currently using the internal TV speakers and not an external receiver/speaker. It sounds like the center channel sound is being sent or thinks it's being sent somewhere other than the TV speaker.

Is there a TV speaker on/off switch on the audio menu or rear panel? If there is no receiver attached, can the external audio output be turned off or disabled.

Are there some DSP settings on the Audio menu that are turned on where part of the audio is being shunted away from the speakers or that it's being processed? If so make sure the DSP is off or switched to Regular stereo and check the bass/treble and balance. Many sets have a built in equalizer with presets that can give bizarre outputs if they are turned on.

What is the source -- Cable, OTA, VCR, DVD, SAT and if there's more than one input do they all sound bad?

It sounds like you haven't heard the speakers yourself yet. Did you hear it when the set was first set up? If it sounded OK then and it's bad now, I'd bet the DSP has been turned on somehow in the audio.

An external receiver/speaker will probably sound 10X better anyway, but if they can hear the other sets I can't imagine a hearing issue is the problem and the built in speakers should still be at least passable soundwise.

If everything else is OK, check a similar set at a Store and see if sounds the same or different and if the audio menu setting and/or hardware switches are the same. The speakers or audio board could be bad of course.

 

[jeff peterson]

I have my center speaker on top of my Toshiba RPTV. On some movies; eg, Lord of the Rings (where they all seem to whisper); I thought it was hard to understand the dialogue. It sounded muffled to me. I do have 48 year old ears that I'm sure are damaged from loud rock n roll in my younger years.

I recently read a tip to isolate the center from the RPTV to prevent it from sympathetic vibrations from the center speaker. Kind of acting as a big speaker enclosure. I cut eraser tips from 2 pencils and put them under the front of the center speaker (the back is already isolated via an adjustable foot). The difference in clarity was VERY pronounced. Best free tweak in awhile. Also, pull the front of the center forward a bit so it overhangs the front of the RPTV.

 

[Bill Will]

Also if the set has an "Automatic Volume Leveler" that keeps everything at the same volume level (No Loud Commercial Blasts & etc) set it to "OFF" & see if that solves the problem.

 

[BradleyS.]

Your correct that I don't have any exterior speakers yet. I think the tv speakers sound pretty good, but my parents are used to a very bright sound from our old rca and dont like the more natural sound the hitachi gives off. All dts modes are turned off and it is set to stereo mode. I guess I can just keep the treble pumped up and the bass way down until I purchase some speakers.