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A lot of the best improvements for TV audio come from sound treating your space, rather than setting up fancy speakers and soundbars. And don’t worry, you don’t have to spend a fortune on professional soundproofing.
You’ll be able to get a little more out of your TV speakers with things you already have on hand, or can get for fairly cheap. Your TV may also be hiding a few menu settings that can help you push your sound quality even further.
Also: Why TVs look bright and vibrant in stores, but dull in your living room
To help you curate the best space for creating clean, rich sound, I’ve put together a list of simple hacks that don’t necessarily require you to open your wallet.
Soft materials and surfaces
Sound waves love to bounce off hard surfaces like walls, floors, and ceilings. This can cause annoying echoes, tinny-sounding music and dialogue, and generally muddled audio as sound waves move around the room and crash into one another. Thankfully, you can easily combat this simply by filling the room with your favorite furniture and decorations — preferably made of soft materials.
Cloth, leather, and other fabrics absorb sound, rather than reflect it, helping reduce the number of sound waves bouncing around the room. Couches, rugs, throw pillows, and blankets can all play a vital part in your home theater or living room acoustics. Even canvas art on the walls can help absorb sound.
With just a little rearranging in your house or apartment, you can massively improve your TV audio for free.
Sound-deadening curtains and studio foam
If your living room or home theater isn’t the problem, noise from outside your home can seriously affect how your TV sounds. If it has to compete with traffic or loud neighbors, even the most expensive OLED could sound terrible. Sound-deadening curtains are an affordable way to help block at least some of the noise coming from the outside.
Made from layers of heavy materials, they won’t completely eliminate outside noise, but they’ll at least reduce it to a more manageable level.
Also: This hidden TV feature tracks your viewing – here’s how to turn it off (no matter what brand)
Sound treatment options like acoustic foam have become much more affordable. You can pick up packs of foam tiles or a pair of corner bass traps for fairly cheap on sites like Amazon to help create strategic reflection and absorption points in your home theater, for perfectly tailored sound while streaming, watching live sports, or console gaming.
You often don’t need any special tools for foam installation, just a can of spray adhesive, so you can sound-treat your room in a few minutes.
Built-in calibration settings
Many new smart TVs let you set up specific sound configurations for wall mounting and for use with a TV stand. Since many TVs are built with rear- and downward-firing speakers, it’s important to tell the screen which ones to prioritize while producing sound.
With the wall-mount sound mode, the rear speakers get a volume boost for more powerful sound reflection off the wall behind the TV. In stand mode, the downward-firing speakers are boosted to reflect sound from the table or shelf surface.
For Fire TV
- Settings > Display & Sounds > AV Sync Tuning
This test calibrates the visual and audio syncing of wall-mounted Amazon Fire TVs, helping reduce latency issues caused by reflecting sound.
For Hisense
- Settings > Sound > Sound Mode Settings > Wall Mount setup
For LG
- Settings > Sounds > Additional Settings > Installation Type: WALL MOUNT
For Samsung
- Settings > Sound Settings > SpaceFit ON
OR
- Settings > Sound > Expert settings > Auto Volume ON > Optimized Mode ON
If your Samsung TV features adaptive audio, SpaceFit activates the built-in sensor that automatically monitors ambient sound and adjusts settings and volume for the best listening experience.
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For Sony
- Settings > Display & Sound > Sound > Acoustic Auto Calibration ON
If your Sony TV uses the Acoustic Surface Audio+ system, toggling on the auto calibration system will activate the built-in sensors to monitor ambient noise levels and how well sound reflects from surfaces behind or beneath the TV.
For TCL
- Settings > Display & Sounds > Audio > Mount Configuration: Wall
For Roku TV
- Settings > Audio > Optimize for wall-mounted TV
