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If you own a sleek modern-day television without external speakers or a soundbar, you’ve likely more than once turned the volume all the way up to hear the dialogue in your favorite movie or show.
It’s no huge secret that many modern televisions have awful audio despite excelling in nearly every other department. But, even though it’s frustrating, there are a few ways to fix your TV audio.
Why Modern Televisions Have Terrible Audio
While modern televisions have reached new heights in terms of picture quality, the audio quality often leaves much to be desired. This happens primarily due to their ultra-sleek designs. As TVs have become slimmer over the years, the space available for internal speakers has also reduced.
The smaller speakers that modern TVs are designed with often fail to deliver the kind of cinematic audio experience viewers expect. The easiest fix, in this case, is to play around with your TV’s sound settings until there’s marked improvement. If that doesn’t work, you’ll likely have to spring for a soundbar or external speakers.
How to Fix Poor TV Audio
Below, we’ll take a look at a few ways to make your TV’s audio more audible and crisp:
1. Use the Right Sound Settings
If you’ve just purchased your TV or haven’t made any changes to its default audio settings, check what sound mode it’s on. For instance, I find that using the Standard or Clear Voice mode on my TV makes speech more intelligible. Your TV, too, likely has a number of preset sound modes that you can switch between to optimize the sound quality to your liking. You should be able to access these settings by navigating to your television’sSettingsmenu and checking theSound/Audiosection.
2. Adjust the Equalizer Settings
If that doesn’t work, take a look at your TV’s equalizer settings, including the bass and treble levels. Navigating to theSettingsmenu and accessing theSound/Audiosettings menu should allow you to do this. Too much bass can make dialogue hard to understand, so be sure to reduce it for a more balanced audio output. Similarly, treble can make dialogue sound sharper, but too much of it can make the audio output sound harsh. You’ll want to find the right balance for both these settings to ensure a balanced sound output.
3. Check if Your Speakers Are Too Close to the Wall
There are also things you can do toimprove the sound quality of your existing speakers. One of these is to change their placement. If your speakers are located too close to the wall, the bass frequencies can exaggerate, causing a muddy sound output, which makes dialogue hard to comprehend. This is because low-frequency sound waves are dispersed in all directions from the speakers, including backward, while higher frequencies only move forward.
A speaker that’s too close to the wall will reflect low-frequency waves, amplifying the bass. Given this, if you have external speakers, try moving them forward to create some distance from the wall. When I tried this trick myself, I accidentally moved the speakers far too forward, which completely eliminated bass. This was especially noticeable when I played music. So, you’ll likely have to do some fine-tuning to find the right placement.
Invest in a Soundbar or Get a Home Theater System
If these adjustments fail to make a difference, investing in asoundbaror even a home theater system can dramatically improve your TV’s audio quality. A soundbar is, of course, the more cost-effective solution between the two. However, if you have some dough to spare and want an even more immersive experience, I recommend setting up a completehome theater systemwith multiple speakers and a subwoofer for the ultimate audio experience.
