Vizio, SRS partner up to wow you
By Steven Kim 
posted Jun 11th 2008 6:43PM
posted Jun 11th 2008 6:43PM
posted Jun 11th 2008 6:43PM
The amount of electronics thrown away rather than recycled in 2007.
The EPA reports that 82% of electronics disposal in 2007 ended up in the garbage (mostly landfills) rather than a recycling center. (source: EPA, July 2008)
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Which HDTV has only a single speaker and outputs mono?...come on. My Vizio using stereo sound for casual watching is fine. I haven't seen a mono TV over 13" in a long time.
...anyway I have the theater for my serious watching :)
Beat me to it.
The author is talking about the majority of hdtv's with little or nearly no stereo separation between the actual speakers, guess what? its as good as mono in my book. At least the psycho-acoustic modeling and further stereo separation help widen the sound stage when these tv's have a 2 ft gap between their lo-fi paper cones. I've got roughly 15 ft of separation between my front and rear pair of speakers in my home theatre. Any $150 HTiB will kick the tv's ass in every aspect of sound stage, dynamics, and frequency response.
Most of the time I agree with engadget's analysts, but Mono...and in case you didn't notice SRS hasn't just partnered with Vizio lately. They also announced partnerships with Syntax Brillian (Olevia) and Sharp.
Also, the 76% number is rather low in my opinion. The CEA only reports data on US consumers. Even so, for those US consumers that hook up an AV receiver and a 5.1 speaker system with their main FPTV, more often than not they have 2nd, 3rd …FPTVs elsewhere in their home without a 5.1 AV system.
Moreover, more FPTVs shipped to Western Europe last year, than N.A. I understand that right now Vizio is only sold in N.A. but last I checked they’re in the Top Ten in WW LCD market share and they only sell TVs in the US.
So, even if you're gullible enough to think that US CE consumers represent the average WW CE consumer take a look at the price of gas or perhaps the business section of a newspaper...disposable income is decreasing rapidly. Thus, US consumers capable of affording a FPTV in these recessionary times are flocking to Costco or similar bargain warehouses and aren't likely to be throwing in that extra (not to mention crappy) $150 HTiB to go with their new FPTV. If they are considering adding a separate AV receiver system, my guess is they will wait until they can afford something better than a $150 HTiB and purchase one at a later time.
SRS offers a great psychoacoustic solution. Without getting into the technical nature of the technology, TruSurround XT does a great job of overcoming the poor enclosures, cheap drivers and overall poor audio equipment that FPTV makers give them to work with and not only increases the quality of the audio but also gives consumers the best possible surround experience given the constraints.
Personally, I think we should expect and demand more from the TV manufacturers in terms of audio....how cool is a 1080p 120 Hz refresh rate picture without sound or with poor sound. In fact, few if any would watch TV without sound. If the TV manufacturers were to devote $150 instead of the $20 they currently devote on a good day to audio to improving the audio in the TV, I bet it would sound better than a $150 HTiB and wouldn’t require a complex set-up or wiring speakers and placing them around the room.
As consumers we should expect an HD like sound experience to go with our HDTVs....just my opinion but at least there's a company out there trying to do something about it and it looks like the FTPV makers are "listening" to them.
I like your screen name -- you definitely backed it up with your points. The "mono" bit was really about stereo separation across small distances. We would have wrapped all the SRS announcements together, but the Vizio one came separately (and before) the Sharp and Olevia release.
http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/06/12/srs-labs-sneaks-trusurround-xt-into-sharp-olevia-hdtvs/
Seriously, thanks for chiming in -- I think we both share a desire to get people better audio, within their budget. Like I said at the end of the post, I don't want folks to be "missing out" on the better experience provided by improved sound. A psychoacoustic solution like SRS is a step up, but it still can't beat discrete channels, IMHO.