Sony TV witchcraft
Discussion
was bimbling about in Currys yesterday and had a quick look at the TV's (as you do) and I happened across the new Sony OLED range that a sales bod was demonstrating. The colours were amazing (as you'd expect!) but then I noticed that the sound quality was (to my cloth-ears) quite superb and as the volume was turned up the quality stayed with it. Bloke who was looking at the TV then asked "...where's the speaker, it sounds great..." only to be told that it was the screen that was the speaker! Say what now? Yup it's a flat panel speaker as part of the TV 
touch the screen and you feel the screen vibrating but that's it.
Had a little play a while later and with the volume at 33% it was comfortably loud enough to hear clearly and also hear what was on the left and on the right (the demo they had was fireworks). Added to this 2/3 of the screen is no thicker than my mobile phone. Quite honestly this TV has shot straight to the top of my (vaguely affordable) items of desire list.
touch the screen and you feel the screen vibrating but that's it. Had a little play a while later and with the volume at 33% it was comfortably loud enough to hear clearly and also hear what was on the left and on the right (the demo they had was fireworks). Added to this 2/3 of the screen is no thicker than my mobile phone. Quite honestly this TV has shot straight to the top of my (vaguely affordable) items of desire list.
I'd agree - the sound from my Sony A9 almost defies belief when you see how slim the TV is. As someone else said still not Hifi but you would have to pay quite a bit for a sound bar to better it (one review said £750!). Picture is top drawer. However the Android OS lets it down , clunky, buggy and not very intuitive.
I have a Sony AF9 - bought getting on for 3yrs ago - and the screen speaker's brilliant.
I use it as the centre speaker in a 5.1 set up. Obviously means I can ditch the separate speaker, which in turn means being able to set the screen lower in its stand.
I'm slightly concerned that a vibrating panel might impact longevity...but thus far its great.
Can really recommend the Sony OLEDs. First TVs that wow'd and nudged me into replacing my Pioneer Plasma (well, moving it to games room duty
).
I use it as the centre speaker in a 5.1 set up. Obviously means I can ditch the separate speaker, which in turn means being able to set the screen lower in its stand.
I'm slightly concerned that a vibrating panel might impact longevity...but thus far its great.
Can really recommend the Sony OLEDs. First TVs that wow'd and nudged me into replacing my Pioneer Plasma (well, moving it to games room duty
).Murph7355 said:
I have a Sony AF9 - bought getting on for 3yrs ago - and the screen speaker's brilliant.
I use it as the centre speaker in a 5.1 set up. Obviously means I can ditch the separate speaker, which in turn means being able to set the screen lower in its stand.
I'm slightly concerned that a vibrating panel might impact longevity...but thus far its great.
Can really recommend the Sony OLEDs. First TVs that wow'd and nudged me into replacing my Pioneer Plasma (well, moving it to games room duty).
No Need to be concerned here Murph.........the excursion of the panel is tiny.I use it as the centre speaker in a 5.1 set up. Obviously means I can ditch the separate speaker, which in turn means being able to set the screen lower in its stand.
I'm slightly concerned that a vibrating panel might impact longevity...but thus far its great.
Can really recommend the Sony OLEDs. First TVs that wow'd and nudged me into replacing my Pioneer Plasma (well, moving it to games room duty
).The tech is very mature (25 years old ) and was originally developed by NXT based in Huntingdon back in the late 90s. NXT had a plasma TV prototype running a screen speaker 20 years ago ( I was project manager for the tooling and injection moulding company that made many of NXT's prototype tools and also the production tooling for Mission range of NXT flat panel speakers.)
They are also known as distributed mode loudspeakers ( DMLs ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_mode_lou...
Whereas a conventional moving could speaker is a pistonic device which generates pressure by pistonic movement of the speaker cone a DML speaker propagates sound in much the same way that an acoustic stringed instrument does. It is a resonant device not a pistonic device........when you hear an acoustic guitar or Cello or Violin you are not hearing the strings you are hearing the thin walled wooden body of the instrument set into resonance by the strings, via the bridge. In the Sony TV you are hearing the thin, clear front panel of the TV's display set into resonance by the electomagnetic actuator coils at the edges of the display. Early designs were mediocre tbh but recent advances in DSP tech has improved things sufficiently to make them viable.
Here's a pic of one of Mission's flat panel products from circa 1999 iirc. Performance of these was good; they could use a rigid but super lightweight panel material made from carbon fibre skins and a https://www.rohacell.com/en core rather than the far heavier optically clear panels needed for a TV's display.
Edited by Crackie on Monday 28th February 18:50
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