My TV speakers are amazing!!

packetjones

So apparently the speakers in my TV are really good. lol. They sound a lot louder than my rig at lower volume levels. I thought I would ask her and see if anyone can help me understand why this is.

First the back story. I am currently selling my house and have taken down the HT rig that I have and am currently just listening to the TV speakers. I was not happy about this as I am sure all of you can imagine but you have to do what you have to do. My HT rig consists of RTiA5's for the fronts, a CSiA4 center, RTiA3's for the rears and a PSW110 sub. I am using a HK254 AVR and have been overall pretty happy with it. During movies and music when I crank it up it sounds great. My concern is with the lower volumes for casual TV watching and family use. It seems that I really have to the volume up high on the AVR to get any sound out of it. It has to be up past 30% to hear anything at all out of the speakers. By anything I mean my ear is right next to the speaker and I hear nothing. Below I have broken down the comparison volume levels between the TV and the AVR.

Both of the units (TV and AVR) have volume scales of 0-100%. These are the settings to get the same volume level.

Low volume - kids watching TV
TV - 4
AVR - 40

Medium Volume - watching football
TV- 15
AVR - 65

I do not understand why I would need to turn the volume up so high on the AVR to get the same volume that I get from the TV. I have always wondered why I needed to turn up the AVR so high but never realized how much it was until I began only using the TV for a few weeks. I find it unnerving that I can not hear anything at all out of the A5's when my ear is right next to them until I get the AVR over 30%.

TL;DR
HT rig is in storage, using only TV speakers
volume is the same on TV at fraction of AVR setting
Can not hear anything from AVR unless volume over 30%
Any explanation?

tommyboy

packetjones wrote: »

. I am using a HK254 AVR and have been overall pretty happy with it.

Well apparently you are not if you made a thread saying your tv speakers are better than you rig worth a few grand...

Since when did the volume determine how good it sounds? I still use my tv speakers most of the time while watching cable (mainly since I don't have HD and the crts have MUCH better built in speakers than any lcd/plasma nowadays). But one thing I noticed was by the time you get half way, turning it up to maximum makes only a marginal difference.

Anyways, my point is it doesn't matter at all where your tv volume is in reference to your reciever. It doesn't mean your speakers are even any good IMO

grimmace19

I think a lot of what you might be experiencing is that during TV modes your surround sound rig will be sucking most of the sound into the center channel. I understand what you are saying because during my changeover to the LSI's I had to use the TV speakers as well and determined that the tv basically acts like a giant center channel. Most of the time when I watch tv with my system going almost everything is from the center channel.

fishbones

It's either your amplification (AVR don't have much wattage or current to drive speakers efficiently), or your speakers don't 'open-up' and sound there best until a certain decibel level (a characteristic of some speakers). I would say it's most likely your amplification. Due to the nature of compacting circuitry in order for all of it to fit inside one box, certain things are sacrificed in the circuitry which degrades the power and SQ. If you hooked up a seperate preamp and amp (decent one) to your same setup - you would most likely notice a huge difference (low volumes and regular).

-Troy

tommyboy

fishbones wrote: »

It's either your amplification (AVR don't have much wattage or current to drive speakers efficiently), or your speakers don't 'open-up' and sound there best until a certain decibel level (a characteristic of some speakers). I would say it's most likely your amplification. Due to the nature of compacting circuitry in order for all of it to fit inside one box, certain things are sacrificed in the circuitry which degrades the power and SQ. If you hooked up a seperate preamp and amp (decent one) to your same setup - you would most likely notice a huge difference (low volumes and regular).

-Troy

Thats also what I was thinking. I think I own his model only a few years older but my AVR only has the power the monitor series which is less power hungry than the RTIs. I would be surprised if the HK doesn't heat up dramatically when playing music or movies..

packetjones

So is this the perfect example of needing more power? I will look into getting a separate multichannel amp when I get all of rig out of storage. I have wanted one in the past but could not really justify it. I guess I can get a used one and if it does not make the expected improvements I can sell it.

A question about external amps though. Lets say I get a 100w/ch amp. will it exert the 100w all the time? For low and high volume? I just dont like that there is absolutely no sound coming out of the speakers at 30% volume. This isnt just at the listening position but with my ear right in front of the speaker.

Thanks for the opinions.

kawizx9r

External amplification will really help.

One thing I've got to ask, does your AVR have any settings for lowering the difference between subtle noises and loud ones (IE explosions,etc). It should be some kind of dynamic volume setting or something. It's kind of like a midnight-setting which allows you to keep your AVR at low volumes yet allows you to hear even the most subtle noises while making sure that explosions/car crashes/etc. aren't as loud.

If you really think your TV speakers are that great, then I'll just swing on by to your place to pick up your HT rig off your hands :D;)

Don't worry, I'll be doin ya a favor haha

eeagle

Its a bit unclear how the audio gets to the HK254 receiver.

I would guess it is coming from either the TV Panel or a cable/sat box analogue outputs . In either case these line level outputs usually have selections for direct or w/volume control. If you select the direct I suspect you will find the HK254 performs much more to your liking.

I have a HK347 and it is a huge improvement over my panel speakers; I also use HDMI rather than analogue....that too can make a big difference.

HTguru1982

Does your theater room double as a living room? I had the exact problem that you experienced when I had my system in a room that was used for other purposes. When I moved the rig into a closed off space with room treatments, low dialog was no longer a problem.

Another thing you can do when you're just using the system for casual/family listening is enable the dynamic range compression mode on your receiver. You lose dynamic capability/loudness but keep your dialog intelligibility.

reeltrouble1

Many tv speakers are 16 ohm.

RT1

packetjones

Thanks for all the responses guys. It is not that my tv speakers are great, I titles the post this to be sarcastic and to draw attention. Lol.

To answer a few questions. The avr does have a night mode, and I have this disabled. I will try to enable this when i hook the rig back up. The tv is connected to a dish network dvr via hdmi. This way the same way that the avr was connected. I think that the comment about the center channel may be the key. Almost all of the tv programming comes through the center speaker. I want to get the A6 but will need to get a new stand for it.

Does any one else have a hk254 that can comment on how high they have to turn it before anything is heard out of the speakers?

j allen

DSkip wrote: »

Run the system in 2 ch stereo mode?

I'll second that. My AVR can't put out enough power to do surround worth anything. Yours is rated at 50 wpc, which I'll believe from HK. I wouldn't bet on that being anything to run surround with, though.

nguyendot

Your tv uses dynamic compression, probably set to narrow, which equalizes the quiet and loud. Your receiver isn't set to do that, so it will sound "better". This "better" is usually that dialog is clearer. I'll go look at my AVR254 that I use in my living room and see how I have mine set. I have Klipsch in my main living room so pretty much all dialog, sound, etc is pretty clear with the horns. I don't have this issue in my bedroom which is all Polk (RT55, CS250).

mdaudioguy

packetjones wrote: »

Does any one else have a hk254 that can comment on how high they have to turn it before anything is heard out of the speakers?

For the full-on movie experience, I'm usually anywhere between -25 and -15, depending on the particular movie and my preference at that time. Background music, probably -45 to -40, and a good music jam session... -15 to -10??

Of course, my amp does most the work, but those are my approximate volume ranges.

packetjones

There is no doubt that the HK254 and the polk's sound ALOT better than the TV speakers. It is not even close when it comes to a SQ discussion. The sound from the TV sounds shallow and very thin compared to the HT rig.

I am talking about purely volume. I just think it is really strange that there is no sound at all out of the speakers until it is over 30% of the max volume. Nguyendot and MDaudioguy, How loud do you have to turn up your HK before there is any sound present at all? I know you have yours set to the negative scale, but could you check and change it to the 0-100 scale in the menu and see what level it is at.

Thanks

nguyendot

On the db scale I usually have it set to -25 for TV for it to be comfortable. I'll check on the 0-100 tomorrow. If I have it set to -35 it's still OK, but depending on the movie it may be too low for my ears. I'm using the built in amps right now. Parasound HCA-1205 will go in later.

packetjones

thanks Nguyendot. I look forward to hearing back from you.

cnh

I think Nguyendot pretty much hit the nail on the head. Compression, more efficient speakers, etc. all make for lower listening levels.

Remember very few TVs have more than 5 watts/channel, some have 10. And then there are the monster CRT/RPTV sets like mine that have 15/channel or MORE. All those speakers are designed specifically for the compression that used to be involved in TV sound. It definitely emphasizes the mid-range--especially VOICES. I too listen to TV mostly through the Toshiba's internal speakers....except when I know a program will have some EXTRA BASS in it. Then the Onkyo and Polks go on!

cnh

mdaudioguy

With my ear to the speaker, I can just barely hear some music playing when set at 1. There's no noticable change when increasing the volume until at about 10. It's not really listenable even as background music until about 30. Is that what you mean?

Btw, the NUM scale is not necessarily percentage-based. The db scale is logarithmic, and the numbers on the NUM setting should probably just be considered as reference points - there's no intended correlation to actual volume measurements. The HK and many other AVRs use a db scale that indicates how many decibels below some "reference" volume - probably in the range of 75-90 db. Many people manually calibrate their systems to 80 db.

nguyendot

Yes, keep in mind the scale on the receiver will correlate differently depending on how efficient your speakers are. My Klipsch's run between 97 and 99db, so my speakers will require much less power to hear something than yours.

If you're using tv or your cable box, check the audio range that it is putting out. I know on my scientific atlanta I can set it at "Narrow", "Normal", or "wide".

On narrow, it equalizes all the sound into a much narrower range which helps you hear the dialog much better. Sound quality is worse, but since you hear it better it sounds "better". I call it the "Bose" effect.

When set to wide, you will have to turn the volume up as the total range is much greater, and voices usually are not emphasized that much.