How To Choose Active Speakers For TV?
Most TVs have built-in speakers, but they are not very powerful, and their sound quality is mediocre. But when watching movies, you want to completely immerse yourself in it. A high-quality speaker system will help to do this, which will envelop the audience with surround and loud sound.
Types of acoustic systems
Acoustic systems are distinguished both by the design and number of loudspeakers, by their location, and by the principle of operation.
According to the principle of operation of loudspeakers (speakers), there are two main areas:
- Electrodynamic
- Electrostatic
Electrodynamic
Electrodynamic are the most common. This is an ordinary speaker, in which the cone is fixed through an elastic suspension on the frame (diffuser holder). On the reverse side of the diffuser, a coil of copper wire is fixed, and placed in the magnetic field of a permanent ring magnet. The diffuser creates sound vibrations by disturbing the air due to the interactions of the constant field of the ring magnet and the magnetic field of the sound signal generated by the alternating current through the coil. The sound quality and the spectrum of reproducible frequencies depend on the material from which it is made, its geometric dimensions, and its shape.
Electrostatic
Electrostatic ones have a relatively new design, a very low coefficient of non-linear distortion (about 0.05%), and a very high price. In addition, their operation requires a special amplifier with an output step-up transformer to create high voltages. Such acoustic systems are more expensive than classical ones with electrodynamic loudspeakers. Their frequency response does not allow them to cover the low-frequency spectrum with small linear dimensions of the loudspeaker. Therefore, in TV speakers, electrostatic and electrodynamic sound emitters are combined, but, again, paired with an expensive amplifier. So, it turns out to achieve a relatively flat frequency response and high sound quality.
According to the location and purpose, the columns are divided into the following types:
• Floor.
• Shelf.
• Planar.
• Central plan.
• Rear.
• Front.
• Subwoofer.
There is also a division into:
- In them, the amplifier is built into one of the speakers of the speaker system. Such speakers are most often found in the budget segment, in the speaker segment for home theaters, and in the field of acoustics for PC.
- They require a separate, external amplifier to operate. Such speakers were most common in the last century, most Soviet speakers were of the passive type. Now passive systems mainly occupy the middle and high-price segments.
Number of columns
With all this variety of classifications, the first thing that catches your eye when choosing speakers in a store is numbers like 2.0, 2.1, 5.1, written on boxes and price tags. In the amateur price segment, this is one of the main indicators. The designation carries the number of speakers and subwoofers.
Soundbar
A compact solution for improving sound quality is a soundbar – this is a speaker system that is placed under the TV. It looks like an oblong column with a set of speakers combined in one housing.
Its advantages are compactness and good sound quality, but it makes no sense to compare it with 5.1 Hi-Fi systems, including because of its compactness.
