Has Anyone Realised How Bad Flat-Panel Tvs Actually Sound?

January 2012

For my first blog entry, I assumed that I’d be writing something regarding the consumer electronics industry’s annual Vegas show, the CES.  After all, the CES has just been and gone and there’s been loads of media attention on this, many new products announced, etc.  However, there was so little released of any real merit that I’m struggling to justify spending my time and yours on it. 

I’m sure the tech magazines and websites will start listing their top ten shiny new things at CES soon….in fact I see that most have them have already done so….but back in the real world the chances of the majority of us being able to afford a lot of this stuff is zero.  Being told by some journalist that these new toys are ‘aspirational’ doesn’t work for me – we do not ‘aspire’ to own these things – we ‘aspire’ to paying our rip-off utility bills and our mortgages on time.  Still, the publishers need to sell magazines and sell advertising on their websites so any new product from a major brand will always get coverage of some sort, even if the relevance to you and I is close to zero.

Yes, it’s interesting for around 5 seconds, but quite frankly, our ability to splash out over £ 3,000 on a TV left the building when the bankers screwed us in 2008.  Ironically, they’re the only ones that can afford this stuff now as they’re still getting paid the eye-watering salaries and bonuses that I thought the Government had banned a couple of years ago.  I wonder what size TV Sir Fred Goodwin has got on his wall.

On the subject of TVs…

they get thinner and thinner…..and the press really make a big song and dance about it…..but don’t ever get into any kind of discussion about how woefully poor they actually sound.  Millions of us bought into the flat-panel TV phenomenon and we got carried away with ‘thinner is better’ and we ignored the appalling audio quality they provide.  It’s simple physics – less room, less depth, smaller speakers, lousy sound.  I’m struggling to find any detailed discussion of audio quality in one of the larger circulation magazines that do monthly TV-shoot-out tests.

Can anyone reading this actually tell me why that is ?….