How much do you have to pay for a quick boot, no ads, and a private movie or music experience? Just like every retailer has embraced usury with their credit card programs, every technology company has decided they are in the data harvesting business. I’m so over it.
Not much. Buy used. Buying new stereo equipment is an activity of the wealthy. Everywhere I've ever lived, CraigsList is overrun with excellent used speakers and receivers at reasonable prices.
I won't inundate you with brand-flexing, but I'll say I'm very happy with my home theater system. 4K OLED TV, big ol' tower speakers, and a pretty nice home theater unit. All from reputable brands. All used. Under $400 all together. No shitware.
Also gotta add, if my B&W speakers started playing ads at startup, Id be fucking livid!
Radiotehnika Audio Goldline 90
;-)
And, to be fair, not all new stereo equipment is malware-infested trash. I'm sure there are plenty of new receivers that quietly go about their job - but not from Samsung subsidiaries, apparently.
Now if only the Logitech Harmony remotes would come back.
Get a Yamaha [0], NAD [1], Rotel [2]?
I would have adamantly said AKAI, but they are no more.
[0]: https://usa.yamaha.com/products/audio_visual/hifi_components...
[1]: https://nadelectronics.com/product/c-3050-stereophonic-ampli...
Edit: Immediately after posting this I scrolled down and saw "The C 3050’s industrial design was inspired by the NAD 3030 Stereophonic Amplifier, a 1970s classic" which explains the look!
Yesteryear's HiFi equipment was something else.
isn't like this our goal here??? I mean we are comment on YC site that produce startup aiming just that
Generally though, consumers have already spoken with their wallets on this topic and they have told many thousands of doe-eyed founders loud and clear: “we will happily sacrifice our time and privacy to save a $3, bring on the ads”
Hence why YC focuses on B2B Saas for B2B Saas companies who sell to other B2B Saas companies.
I don't know, going back years ago, if anything it would have been YC figuring how to push ads/bloatware. It would have just been more subtle about the phrasing and meaning behind what was trying to be accomplished, but the underlying 'value extraction' stories were still there.
The "entrepreneur" aspect of YC generally was about "enshittification" before that word became more used.
However it could be certain headlines attract a certain type of person, allowing for an entirely different subjective experience of what "people on hacker news" are like.
NO! I've been here long enough to remember PG saying to build something people WANT. YC has become less about technical founders building an MVP and more about the investors finding something they can make money from. The later often depends on "monetization" which has become the driver of enshitification, which is precisely the opposite of what people want and the antithesis of what YC once was.
Abusing customers as a business model should not be legal. It's not ethical to begin with, actually, and applauding this practice is interesting.
If you want to stay within the Apple ecosystem without the TV part, you could use an AVR with airplay built-in. Or get an AirPort Express, which can join a wifi network and become an Airplay client, and connect it via optical (mini toslink) to an AVR. And control it all from a phone or Mac.
Unfortunately as of a few years ago Google TV/Android TV forces ads for useless content in the home screen, taking up bandwidth and slowing load times. The 'dumb' Chromecasts can still talk to the AVR over HDMI-CEC to turn on power, adjust volume, etc.
gp is most likely using a display that quickly boots into "source" mode – think hdmi input
It’s actually insane to me.
I have my AM on my Sonos, my phone, my ATV, and my dad’s Sonos and have never seen a message that it’s playing elsewhere. With Spotify my setup absolutely would be impossible using the same account.
I personally don’t want the Spotify style playback features; keep them out of my AM please.
Edit: I forgot you can also now share a queue via Apple Music using airplay, even if others at the party don’t have an account.
I'm not, honestly. Think of AVR-integrated radio receivers and hi-fi CD players: a typical appliance-grade (non-raster) VFD/LCD display is sufficient for navigating through radio stations and CD tracks; I will admit that Alexa-style voice-control can work quite well for online services like Spotify or Apple Music, but even then I find myself frequently needing to reach for my phone (and wait for Amazon's webview-based Echo app to load) for anything nontrivial.
While a good modern TV can show a picture from standby in a few seconds, it "feels wrong" to me to have to turn-on an eye-burningly-bright main living-room TV just to select a song to play.
Aside my guess is the Apple TV does usually work “headless” in OP use case with music playing controlled from his phone. One only needs a tv for streaming video (obviously) and I think for initial setup.
Old article for background but if anything it’s even more common now: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/18/you-wat...
So yes, you can probably shave off 3 seconds of boot time by never connecting your gadget to the internet.
I use a Frame and don't have any of the issues you describe in the slightest.
The power button turns the TV on with a 0.5 second animation, and immediately I see the Roku interface with no popups or Samsung branding or anything.
Probably the ONLY complaint is that by default my washing machine puts an alert on the TV every time it's finished.
I would probably find the setting to turn it off but honestly part of me finds it very cool for my washer to creep onto the TV because it knows I'm watching.
EDIT: maybe you are using wifi? It's the only thing I can think might be different in my setup. Try running RJ45 and see what happens? All I can say is Works On My Machine unless you add some details
On top of that, its harvesting the hell out of your data.
Stop being a sucker. Toss that Roku powered shit out of the window.
2-3 second boot up. No ads. Snappy interface. No complaints. No bloatware. No adware.
Why does this solution not work for you?
Does your TV not work when you turn off WiFi with an attached Apple TV? I’m confused.
Roku is breaking things constantly. If you ever have to replace that hardware, it will have more up to date software and your experience will be broken. This will be by design.
Even implying that somebody should consider buying Roku hardware at this point is stunningly irresponsible. In the last few weeks they broke HDR. Before that they broke the ability of their TVs to display content properly when using apps on the built-in OS due to some new craptacular frame rate feature they pushed out and have refused to roll back. Thankfully I can work around it on my Apple TV by turning on Game Mode for the input. They are currently testing a wide variety of invasive ad features that you can be damn sure will destroy your experience once they officially roll them out.
They harvest every bit of your data and sell it to whomever will pay.
Roku is a stunningly objectionable company. On top of all that (as if it wasn't enough), their platform lags behind everybody else. They refuse to license a full range of video codecs so pieces of software like Channels DVR will never work on their platform. Not to mention that when you run a Roku TV that isn't connected to the Internet, you lose the ability to customize various aspects of it. You can't rename the inputs for example.
Nobody should ever even imply that somebody should buy a Roku device. They are crap and there is virtually no chance of the company changing course.
They are a poster child for enshittification.
From day 1, all smart TVs had horrible latency when it comes to navigating through menus and screens. I'm glad for that, because it stopped me from ever buying one in the first place!
Maybe it's the people that show up at best buy without doing any research and just buy the most expensive TV not realizing it's a crappy smart TV. Who knows. Do your research!
...I want it.
For me, I reckon less than 5k overall. JVC DLA-X5000 projector, Yamaha A1020 receiver, Focal Aria 936 speakers, SVS SB1000 sub, Raspberry Pi 2 with Kodi on it, a NAS with 16TiB of storage and gigabit networking to connect it all. All the AV stuff second hand, of course. No load times, no ads, just a system that works for me.
I do not accept technology into my life unless it works for me. If the latest nK formats and 1000 channel surround doesn't work without equipment that works for someone else than I'll never have it in my home. Simple as that. I'll read a book instead.
SMSL has some good, well reviewed products; as do WiiM and quite a few other brands.
The Audio Science Review forum (1) has objective measurement based reviews of many of the newer amps, standalone and integrated.
I’m using the SMSL AO300 to drive Boston Acoustics VR3 floor standing speakers in a study, and they’re sound as good as they did when they were on an older Yamaha amp, or a Denon integrated amp.
Edited to add: most (none?) of the class D integrated amps can’t do Dolby -(licensing, I suspect, is the main issue here), so you’ll need to get a receiver in the middle for HTS though.
Edited post edit (sorry!): turns out Wiim streamers can now do 5.1, so some options are slowly emerging. (2)
(1) https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?forums/am...
(2) https://faq.wiimhome.com/en/support/solutions/articles/72000...
I have an Anthem pre and an LG TV, both of which are blocked from accessing the internet, and I have none of these issues.
Back in the mid 80s I spent way more than was sensible and bought myself seperate NAD pre/power amps, Boston Acoustic Speakers, and a Rega turntable for my birthday. I not only still have and use all that gear, but have since bought more of the same brands 2nd hand mostly from the same era, so I now have 5.1 surround in my lounge room, and stereo amp/speaker sets in my kitchen, office, bedroom, and guest bedroom - all NAD/Boston Acoustic, and all capable of doing Apple AirPlay via Apple TV or old Airport Expresses.
Vintage hifi is great. You will probably need to become the sort of person who can replace all the electrolytic capacitors in your amps and speakers crossovers, or at least know someone who can. And you'll become the sort of person who'll hunt the internet for someone who can ship you replacement drivers for your speakers, styluses and drive belts for your turntable, and hifi grade capacitors (and you'll probably stock pile all of those those). It's at least partially a hobby instead of just appliances you own.
Sure, I spray it down with contact cleaner, and it fixes it for a few years each time, but the dial light bulbs are starting to burn out.
Most of its internals are hand soldered and switches /relays/etc that would be cheaper, better and more reliable with modern technology.
Even though it was hand wired, it didn’t cost much new (inflation adjusted), so why can’t anyone manufacture something with a similar amplifier but an automated assembly line and better control circuitry (and maybe a rpi header for electronic control) for, say, $1000 in 2025?
But the feelies are the hard part. An attractive bespoke case is expensive to build and ship. Some of the stuff (high-grade tuning capacitors) probably simply can't be had in quantity without opening a new production line.
I know there are a bunch of DIY kits that claim to be circuit-equivalent to popular vintage amplifier designs, and there's the Akitika range, but they're still not really a turnkey "it's your favourite vintage model, but with zero hours on it"
You can almost always replace knobs and switches, usually with high quality ones, if you're prepared to hunt around various internet sites to fond them (and often you need to be prepared to just buy something that looks like it's close and accept wasting the money if it doesn't quite fit).
FOr me, and for no real good reason, I prefer to keep my vintage hifi gear as "original" as possible, and I'm not personally interested in "upgrading" the guts. Having said that, I dfrunk-eBayed a really nice old 70s vintage New Zealand built/designed Perraux 2100EXR power amp a while back, assuming I could repair the listed faults - but it turns out too many of the internal components are completely obsolete and unobtainable, and I'm _strongly_ considering gutting it and filling the enclosure with modern class d amp modules. It _might_ become a 7 channel home theatre amp hidden behind the old 70s rack mount amp faceplate. That kinda feels too much like cheating though?
Exactly what I was thinking when you mentioned mid 80's vintage BA speakers. I have Missions from late 80's and I've had to replace the drivers twice. Also have a BA subwoofer that I should find a new driver for since it's now rattling like crazy.
The only issue is volume control, due to not having a remote for lazier folk. I can control it digitally but don't like "shaving" off bits to control volume.
Chinese copies + Amazon = flood of shit
It takes years to design, test, build prototypes, measure, re-design, re-build, calibrate, certify and produce a good hifi audio amp. That means you start your product journey with $500k in debt and unless you can show how you're going to sell enough units to recover this, your project is dead before it ever started. You typically need to sell at 8x of your real costs, because shipping companies, import agents, wholesalers and retailers all want (and need) their margins. If I expect to sell 2,000 units per month (which is A LOT already) for 2 years, then I need to add about $10 to my costs per unit to recover the R&D expenses. And that means as long as Amazon is happy to turn a blind eye on IP-infringing blatantly obvious clones that typically even re-use my product images or slogans or brand names ... then my "original" product will be undercut by $10x8 = $80 in price by Chinese clones. They don't have R&D to recoup because the can just buy my product, x-ray the PCB, and then make duplicates. And trying to get Amazon to follow the law is like playing expensive whack-a-mole with lawyers. It won't help to recover money.
That means as the manufacturer, I have exactly 1 way left to recover R&D expenses:
I lock down the software. And then I either shove ads in your face, or I bully you into a subscription. Or if the ads pay too little, both.
I hate the situation as much as you do, but I also see no better way forward. Nowadays, you need to plan for the flood of shitty clones on Amazon a week after launch. (Or in some cases, even before the original product clears import customs.) And that means you treat hardware as cheap and disposable, because your competitors do that and unless you join them, you're at a huge market disadvantage, because the average customer cannot tell the difference between a low-quality and a high-quality capacitor. (And Amazon doesn't care.)
https://www.cultofmac.com/news/selfie-stick-iphone-case-gets...
(And please note that these guys even had US patents on the product. Didn't help them, though.)
Too much effort when they can just go to the company making them and get cheaply made copies :)
To give you some price ideas:
10x10cm 4-layer PCB x-ray and RE: $200
STM32 firmware dumping: $700
EEPROM dumping: $300
The STM32 is the most expensive because you need to decap them to get the hardware encryption key. But it's still A LOT cheaper than building your own firmware from scratch.
Disclaimer: I have booth systems in parallel and I feel disgusted and disappointed every time I have to use the Sonos system now.
Beyond the speaker and amplifier of your choice (both dumb! or dumbed down) a few hundreds of USD and couple of weeks or months of learning and tinkering with low cost hardware and open source software for HiFi use. Some Raspberry Pis and matching DAC allowed me to have a very decent experience I needed (around KEF speakers). There were dead-ends, confusions, restarts, dubious or closed down solutions offered but you will rely moslty (not completely) on your own in the end if done right, and not exposed to the mercy of ruthless conglomerate assoles that much.
Projector (Optoma laser) - $1200
110" powered retractable projector screen - $100
Mid tier PC - $600
DAC (Schiit modi 2) - $180
Amp (Behringer A500) - $100
SVS prime towers - $1000
SVS Sub - $750
All of my music is running off Jellyfin. I have a turntable that barely gets used but that's because I don't have enough space for it to keep it out of the reach/ damage radius of my kids.
You can of course do this for much less if you don't spend 2 grand on the audio part.
Why on earth do you say that? :))) I got a nice Samsung 12" tablet, and a nice Samsung (work) smartphone. After 20-30mins of disabling bloat/crap-ware their batteries last a week on stand-by.
My TV is just a rather basic chinese 75" TCL, and I have absolutely 0 zilch ads anywhere apart from actual Google products (youtube of course but thats a terrible experience anywhere without ublock origin or similar, and OS showing on the background in main menu ads for their paid movies - the place I spend maybe 3s during start if at all and they don't even look like ads just background). If I launch straight ie netflix 0 nanoseconds spent seeing ads. If I play from USB there is nothing. And this is rock bottom chinese stuff.
Turning on TV which is in sleep mode is like 2s max, another 2s and soundbar is on automatically via eArc.
I used to have B&W towers with Pioneer receiver (bought for peanuts, older tech sounds 100% as new one) but then I realized they add friction to whole experience and I prefer a small notch lower sound quality to convenience and surround. Samsung soundbar with that TV does that 100%. Apart from playing music only I don't even notice the difference.
Is this maybe region specific behavior? I live in Switzerland, US consumers are widely known to accept way more ads than other western countries, plus there is a lot of wealth in that single market.
Have a 10TB movie collection on an external HDD (mostly 1080p x265 rips and few 4K ones) but its less convenient and I have to download new stuff myself. Plus I love standup collection Netflix has.
Total price cca 1.5 years ago - cca 1700$ and a proper cinema experience.
What does this mean?
Sure, there is some boot up time to warm everything up, but there are no ads and no user agreements etc on mid to high end systems.
Even my entry level system (denon avr, lg c1 oled, appletv4k and ugoos as media players) does not take more then 10 seconds from totally off to showing the menu / plex interface, and no user agreement popups or ads
My system is very similar to yours. I’ve got a UHD player, XBox, Plex Server, and a half-dozen retro gaming systems in the mix. But apparently I'm not as patient as you (and others that responded) are.
I find 10 seconds to be intolerable and unnecessary. I’m old enough to have been spoiled by the analog world where power meant you were ready.
Not only is the time-to-wait painful, occasionally the HDMI handshake fails or the TV powered on quicker than the receiver’s signal was output and its input selection “picks” the wrong input or wrong display settings. So now you have to consider the order you’re powering things up, because the TV is “smart” and if you tell it to choose an input that isn’t ready, it’ll self-select one it thinks is ready.
And if I’m using HDMI-ARC, which I frequently do when using an over-the-air signal, if the TV powers on sooner than the receiver, the TV falls back to its own speakers. So now I’m stuck navigating the TV menu to get the audio through my SVS speakers instead of the ones in the TV.
Occasionally my TV has an “update” and then its apps have updates and then the update presents a new “user agreement” with all the data harvesting options pre-selected. If I don’t use my system frequently, two of the devices in the chain may want to update!
And after all that, if I’m watching physical media I then have to wait for the disc to be read and navigate through forced ads or trailers or piracy warnings. If they aren’t forced, I still have to intervene to skip them and get to the menu. But don’t select anything too fast on the menu! It has its own animations it wants you to watch before it will show you what options you have.
And all of that whining doesn’t even cover the wasteland of options available to remote control and make sense of the Rube-Goldberg AV system. The best option (Logitech Harmony) bailed leaving consumers with nothing but the Chinese schlock that hollowed out the market in the first place.
Logitech stopped selling new harmony remotes, but all the infra to configure them is still online and managed by them, and as soon as you have configured the hub, it does work totally standalone. I'll worry about another brand when I buy new hardware and the harmony configuration infra is no longer online (I'm pretty sure there will come an opensource alternative)
About the update: the secret here is 'dont connect your tv to the internet, there is 0 use for that'
On Logitech, for one system I still use a Harmony One that was gifted to me in 2008! I bought a Harmony Elite (and hub) off Ebay a few years ago for my upscale system.
It feels like there's definitely an opportunity for someone to build remotes or an orchestrator for A/V systems that works well.
No Bloatware.
But! There are relatively few home theater receiver makers, and the Denon/Marantz siblings have been a big chunk of them for decades.
(Sony, Yamaha, Onkyo, Denon. Nobody else covers the low and mid cost market.)
That role is no longer sensible when used with smart TVs/Apple TV boxes/Android TV boxes.
As a result, traditional receivers are relegated to be being audio decoders and amplifiers. Honestly, I think there's already more manufactured and lying around than the world really needs. It was inevitable that a few product lines would be consolidated.
I really really wish there were digital audio decoder/processors available. It sucks so bad that you either buy a semi affordable consumer amplifier with 7.2.2 Dolby Atmos out and ok amplification, or if you want to step up you need a $4000+ processor whose only real job is decoding Dolby formats & turning them into analog outs for amplification. And there's almost no market, just a couple odd products like Emotiva's XMC-2: https://emotiva.com/products/xmc-2-plus-16-channel-9-1-6-dis...
Opener standards like DTS would hopefully have some remedy here but if the source material isn't available it hardly matters. Hoping for actual open standards Immersive Audio Model and Format (iamf) and the Eclipsa Audio Format profiles atop that maybe some day give us good spatial audio that an rpi and multichannel sound out board can help us free ourselves from this vile civilization-scale Dolby tarpit with. https://opensource.googleblog.com/2025/01/introducing-eclips...
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/HDMI-1-4-Splitter-1-i...
$25 minimum order (for ten) + shipping and tariffs. No idea if these work, but they’re the top internet hit. The metadata says they do.
I used their stuff for a four-speaker audio setup but they do affordable home theater devices as well.
It's amazing the difference you can make with a basic DSP engine and a tape measure.
90+% of the things people complain about would no longer be a problem if they got a traditional A/V receiver, plugged all their sources such as streaming boxes and game consoles into the receiver, and just used the smart TV as a monitor (and as a tuner if they watch OTA television).
Until that is no longer the case there will be a role for traditional A/V receivers.
The problem there is the terrible UI of those A/V receivers, designed by committee that upholds long-standing traditions. It takes a lot of fussing with the complicated remote to get to where you want, which is perhaps fine for geeks, but annoying in a family setup, where all household members would like to know how to watch Netflix.
BTW, these traditions are ridiculous: as an example, my DENON receiver has two monstrous knobs on the front, like most AV receivers. The one on the left I will never use in its entire lifetime: it is for manually sequentially switching input sources, which nobody does anymore. And yet they still place it as the most prominent feature/control on the front panel.
The buttons that I'd like to use are small, black-on-black with dark gray labeling in 8pt type, so basically impossible to use unless you use a magnifying glass and a flashlight.
...then the AppleTV was released, with a remote that made the Harmony look like the console of a nuclear power plant by comparison, and I never went back
The problem is that as video technology has advanced, it makes less and less sense to pay for video processing technology on a receiver. Your new TV supports HDMI 2.1 with 120hz and VRR for your new PS5.
Does your receiver? Are you willing to spend $1000 to upgrade your receiver to simply correctly pass through that video signal, with little meaningful audio upgrade?
I think you hit the only problem I have with receivers being the upgrade of them as new versions of HDMI come out.
- An old LCD TV with 4(?) HDMI inputs and a few legacy ports.
- linux box with hdmi out
- apple tv with hdmi out
- console with hdmi out
- line out cable from TV to 1970’s receiver’s line in.
- line out from sonos to another line in on the receiver.
- roof antenna, with a Y to the TV and receiver
- turntable
- two extremely nice speakers
(Before someone asks, the TV has some sort of multichannel digital audio out. I don’t care. If I did, that’d give me surround sound. Similarly, I could get a subwoofer if I wanted.)
This is completely fine. The apple tv and console auto-switch the tv to their output, and sync the power buttons. The linux box doesn’t, but probably could if I decided to RTFM. The apple tv can be controlled with the tv remote, but its native remote is nicer. We only use the TV remote to access linux.
We only touch the receiver to switch between TV, turntable, sonos and radio.
How would an A/V receiver possibly improve this? (Note: I want the analog radio and record player with their nice mechanical switches and warm FM sound, and will run the sonos s1 app until the cloud side of it dies.)
Side benefits include:
- Adding more ports to often port-starved TVs or projectors.
- Providing alternative port-switching interface if you hate your TV’s UI and want something simpler.
- An organizational aid—you can put all your stuff somewhere away from the TV, and all that needs to reach it is a single HDMI cable. This can create interesting room layout options that are otherwise impractical.
All of these can also be accomplished by a simple HDMI port switch, but still, it’s handy.
The appletv is in the closet, but the other devices don’t make sense there. The linux box is about as big as a decent USB hub, and has a few wired game controllers plugged into it. The console is a switch, and going into the closet is too much trouble. I could put the sonos in the closet, but the play/mute button on it is too convenient when I don’t have a phone handy. The other stuff is self explanatory.
Can you not get a surround sound audio receiver/amp anymore? The digital out on the tv presumably would feed it. I had an old one like that, but it died.
No, not really. If you want surround sound audio, you probably want it over HDMI, and then they may as well have video features too.
But, if you have enough ports on your TV, and it doesn't do dumb things, and eARC works, and the TV doesn't forget it's attached to the receiver... You can still plug in everything to the TV, and you don't have to uss the receiver to switch inputs. I typically run the movie disc players through the receiver, because they have high bitrate audio, and tvs like to mess that up.
Its just I wouldn't want the TV doing the switching because you are still managing two remotes for that and I dont want the wiring to the TV, I would want more speakers and some basic room eq, delay correction and subwoofer management. And I always end up with more devices. I also want Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos.
My receiver does everything yours does and more, and the TV auto switches on and off but I am also been into this stuff for years.
Plus AV receivers can consolidate all the connections so there is only one run to the TV. This could be done with an HDMI switch if you can find one that integrates as well as a receiver, with similar number of inputs and isn't a large fraction of the cost.
Plus many (most?) very nice speakers need an external amplifier. Once you look at the cost of a bare bones amp, an A/V receiver with everything else they offer makes a ton of sense. Even for two channels.
The console might be suboptimal, but it knows the TV is in 2 channel mode, so it it’s emitting surround encoded signal, that’s just dumb.
I don't think too many people have, for example, a Samsung TV and a Firestick and use the 2 interchangeably for different apps.
I had this problem until the Samsung interface got too unbearably slow (6 year old tv), so I just bought a Google TV and that goes through my receiver's HDMI in port. Before this update, I was using optical out from the TV into my receiver, but the quality was noticeably degraded. I'm lucky I also don't use the radio function or a record player since that would just add to the chaos.
We're about five years away from "no remotes" anymore, imo. As it is I only need to find the TV remote when something goes really wonky - and even then I can reset it by using the smart app to power cycle the outlet ;)
Really what it should be is:
- a "remote" multiplexer comes in the box with my TV. It speaks HDMI/CEC to the TV telling it what input is active so that the TV's UI can reflect that and it can do things like switch between movie and game mode picture tuning.
- the former AVR should become a purely eARC box with no buttons, not even a power button— it comes on on command of the TV, and adjusts its amplification volume according to the same eARC signals that a soundbar uses. Any initial calibration or speaker setup is done via a single-use phone app.
TV
Apple TV on earc connection (HomePods for sound)
Blackbird switch with all other devices.
It can automatically switch between everything, but also has an IR remote for selecting an input.
Please no. No more phone apps that are unmaintained, barely work in the first place, and don't work at all within 2 years or when the vendor goes bankrupt. Things should be physical buttons and work offline.
Maybe it also matters in a home theatre that's oriented around a projector rather than TV.
I get the impression everyone eventually settles on a roku ($35, but full of spam) AppleTV (a bit over $100; better in all ways), or maybe goes with the google thing.
All of those cost < 10% the price of upgrading a TV, and all of our TVs have outlasted the (incredibly shitty) software they were bundled with.
I have a recent top of the line Samsung TV, and last year's 5.1 Samsung soundbar and even though both components are from the same brand there are some very frustrating times eARC fails. The rest of the time it works like magic.
My TV and audio equipment happen to have an optical connection and after switching to that away from ARC, the issue has gone away.
I have a HomePod in my living room and it gets used, but I also have a traditional receiver hooked up to my external speakers, with a turntable and CD player plugged into the receiver.
Yes at first glance a TV does the switching, and the rest. But a modern receiver can be better. Better switching, better ability to handle multiple speakers ( particularly for Dolby Atmos ) including Room EQ. Alot of TVs only have 2 HDMI ports with all the latest features.
the receiver doesn't need to be under the TV. it can sit in a basement. the question is if you really want to have proper sound or it's only a nice to have.
> use my TV without taking a class first
this is not an issue at all. HDMI ARC handles this.
Sometimes it stops working, but a reboot of the remote fixes it. The idea that I need to reboot a remote hurts my soul a little, but at least it works. Hold the TV and Volume Down buttons until the LED on the Apple TV turns off. Wait a bit and you’ll see a notice that it disconnects. Wait a while longer and press a button (volume seems safest) and it will connect again.
There are also some settings around the remote and volume. It can be set to use HDMI, the TV’s IR, and there is a learn option. The TV I’m currently on is using the IR direct to the TV… I guess this is why it doesn’t work when I try to use the app, but I almost never use that anyway.
There's no need for a super-complicated setup for good sound.
I do audio work but they took my brothers recommendation on the home theater so I'm a bit 'you made your bed' about it haha.
Speaking only anecdotally, when I was in my 20s, I bought a Sony "home theatre in a box" which included receiver, small subwoofer, and small satellite speakers. Over time, I upgraded to an Onkyo reciever and Polk center, surrounds, and subwoofer.
But... then I decided I wanted a more minimal look, and switched to a JBL sound bar + subwoofer, which has detachable surrounds -- but I almost never utilize them.
For sure, the sound is nothing compared to what I had before, but I'm mostly OK with it. All that to say, how popular are sound bars, and how popular are dedicated receivers?
I suspect something like 80% of people use the TV, and of those who upgrade, use a soundbar, maybe.
And even those with a dedicated theatre room, probably have other TVs that are just TV audio.
Granted, I'm not an audiophile, but I've been in/around audio mix bays long enough that I notice shit audio. It's one of those things that once you see/hear it, you can't un-see/un-hear it. Sometimes I really wish I took the blue pill in this regard
My soundbar can connect a second wireless subwoofer as well as a rear speaker set, and the setup process is extremely easy, which is one of the major hurdles with Hi-Fi equipment.
It has to be absolutely seamless; the received stopped working and the TV was making the noise instead, and it took a month for me to be finally arsed to go fix it.
They also hadn’t given up on original music. It’s crazy how much the soundtrack elevates otherwise-not-amazing films like Twister. I desperately wish they’d at least go back to caring about that.
Thinking over everyone I know who has a TV, I'm the only one with a receiver connected. I think one has a soundbar.
(It's partially a joke, but partially real - out of sight, out of mind!)
https://www.crutchfield.com/g_12600/In-wall-Speakers.html
Personally I think that the "takeover" of the living room by TVs and home theater has been one of the biggest "mistakes" in modern home design - they should be relegated to the basement or some other locale.
I'd agree with others, speakers aren't that concerning. There are niche speaker manufacturers and used or refurbished is still a good option. To be honest, I'd also look to the used market if I where to replace my amp.
Personally I don't have anything against Samsung, but I doubt they'll be a good steward of those brands. Corporate interest and niche high quality audio seems to at opposite ends of the spectrum. I could be wrong, Sony makes nice stuff, maybe Samsung will as well.
I just object to the concentration of market power.
Now, whether that means anything when 99% of everything made for watching is just playing in the background while you're reading HN on your phone is debatable. Still wouldn't trade the setup even if I'm watching one movie per month. (I'm not even close to that high of a number...)
Just in the past few years I was finally in a position to get a nice center channel, then sub, then surrounds, and then I eventually paid an electrician to pull the wires and do a 5.1.2 setup. It's certainly far from essential and overall is still pretty budget, but I love how it sounds for movies, PS5, etc.
Given Samsung’s track record with enshittification and support timelines I’m worried that this acquisition means all that will be going away, which is a shame. Guess I’ll be looking at Sony and Yamaha models instead going forward.
Denon and Marantz are arguably the best AVR manufacturers. It’ll be interesting to see what Samsung does with them. The home theater market is pretty outdated compared to other areas of audio. Car audio, soundbars, and professional systems mostly use active speakers and tightly integrated setups. Meanwhile, home theater is still stuck with passive speakers and a component-based approach.
While some might see this as a monopoly concern, there's a chance Samsung could use its combined brands to modernize home audio. Imagine a fully wireless, all-in-one home theater system with active speakers and centralized room correction. That could be a real step forward.
The problem with wireless speakers is you can't really stream at a high enough bitrate to them to make for decent audio. Plus to really work, they need a plug nearby.
People without a proper room really can't enjoy surround sound which is a shame. There's this whole world of high end home theater equipment most people never get a chance to hear.
I try to show everyone my theater room to get more people excited. Several friends have run out and bought setups after hearing it. It's not too hard to run wires and mount speakers. I genuinely think most people just don't know what they are missing.
Most people don’t have theater rooms, and they don’t want their living room to look like one.
Most people who hear a Samsung q990x series soundbar are super excited too. I think you overestimate how much better a dedicated speaker setup is, especially if we are talking 5.1.
Think pre-GFC peak Best Buy & the old CompUSA/Circuit City chains of the past or even Apple before they captured every other product category and actually had entire tables of headphone and speaker brands.
It strikes me as very hard for any new brand to come about in this environment if they aren't already big enough to have their own storefront. As you are generally left shopping online by price (DTC / China alphabet soup branded sop on AMZN) or by known brand (I'll just get a Sony / Apple / Sonos / Bose).
In my home city, we had several electronics retailers who sold every kind of component stereo equipment, including car stereo and whatnot. So I could literally walk into a store and see a huge gamut of dual-deck cassette recorders, or turntables, or amplifiers, receivers, etc. And they were all set up for customer demo. It was fantastic.
When the time came for me to shop for a CD audio player, I pre-purchased a few CDs to listen to for the demos. That was a great move; the place where I went for "auditions" had a dedicated listening room just chock-a-block with equipment that could be switched into whatever speaker system fit my home setup. And so in exactly one stop at a retail outlet, I was able to listen to that CD through several diverse systems, make a final purchase decision, and walk out of there with my favorite 7-disc CD changer, which served well for about 15 years after that.
The other problem is walmart with the generic stuff is good enough for most even though it is measurably bad, in a cheap but measurably bad listening environment - but they can thereby compete with online sales. That and a lot of expensive stuff is measurably no better than the "our best" walmark junk and so if you do find such a store there is no guarantee they are not pushing you overprice junk instead of the good stuff.
It goes back to the old tale of "being too poor to buy cheap boots" that US consumerism has forgotten. We are addicted to cheap stuff, not good value stuff. Cheap is not always good value.
Trouble is those were only available for a short time, I've gone back and there's been nothing that good.
There are lots of good people left at B&W. If they are afforded the autonomy they deserve, everything will be fine. If not…I guess we’ll see.
Only time will tell.
"Back in the day", home theatre receivers made sense when you wanted Radio + CD inputs in addition to the TV input. But radio and CD players are gone. There is just TV. Even when I do audio, I run it through the TV.
Thus why do you need a separate box? It just seems like a waste.
Instead everyone these days are just attaching their speaker systems directly to the TV.
And with wireless speakers, e.g. Sonos and similar systems, a centralized audio amplifier just doesn't make sense at all.
So all that is left is ultra-high end applications and there are few of those.
The second issue is what you described, the mixing is just bad, sound effects and music are much louder than dialog making it impossible to comprehend without subtitles.
The trend of mixing sound effects much louder has been in vogue for longer than star wars exists and not a lot of movies drown out everything in super loud music (Christopher Nolan films being exhibit number 1 lol). I think part of the issue stems from the audio not being adapted for home releases. There used to be special sound mixes for VHS, TV shows and even DVDs (as stereo version of the 5.1 track) that lowered the dynamic range and made everything fairly clear even on your 70s CRT TV speakers.
Nowadays sound engineers probably marvel at how nice and crisp their work sounds on a studio kitted with 1 million worth of audio gear and call it good enough for playback in all systems. Add some directors wanting more "natural" dialog requesting actors to speak softly and the deal is sealed, only the 0.1% can watch anything without subtitles.
I honestly think the solution is for the industry to adopt a standardized audio gain control solution. The only reason we didn't get that in the past was because implementing such things on consumer gear was far too expensive (it was far more cost effective to just pre-process it and deliver the low dynamic range mix right in the medium, with the advantage of the possibility of a custom tuned mix). Today's TVs all have some kind of audio normalization functionality but they are all kinda bad (they alter loudness balance making everything sound tiny, a proper solution requires proper equal loudness contour compensation) and not suited for sudden and constant jumps of volumes like in movie action scenes. It also doesn't helps that every manufacturer does it differently.
The physics of moving air to create sound hasn’t really changed in any meaningful ways; the biggest upgrade is usually larger drivers fed with more power. I think most would experience that as much more of a theatre like experience than 7+ tiny underpowered satellites outputting an already bad mix.
That being said, I have a 7.1.4 Atmost setup and it is on the level of "HOLY SHIT" good.
I cannot even watch streaming tv or movies on it as it sounds so bad.
But I put in a 4K UHD disc and wow. It sounds better than a real movie theater.
I just think most people are never exposed to what high end movie audio sounds like anymore. I can tell you that channel separation is as good as ever. It's just most people never realize what's possible at home or don't have a room conducive to the setup. Or frankly don't care. My wife loves good movies and she could care less about the sound quality.
As a point of reference my wife also loves good movies and cares whether she can hear the audio properly but it might be because English is her second language.
For the past 15 years, I have used the same cheap combo of soundbar+subwoofer (Sony but anything goes) and it's perfect for everything I throw at it. The sound is equivalent to what I remember on those expensive sets, it's only $250, and I don't spend my whole time in front of the TV listening to high-quality remasters of classical concerts while smoking a cigar.
The high-end brands have failed to recognize that for most people a decent set of cheap speakers is equivalent to a cinema experience. They should have studied that instead of focusing on incomprehensible technical values and numbers. The software industry is guilty of this too.
There used to be a reason to have a 5.1 surround system, because that's how the movies were supposed to be enjoyed. There used to be a reason to engineer your home "soundstage" because that's how the music was mixed and optimally appreciated.
I don't think the bar of entry being money is truly the reason, rather that people have become much more passive consumers of media, and the producers have recognized that and absolutely enshittified their products.
As for the cheap speakers = cinematic experience, watch Interstellar with 5.1, then with the soundbar and tell me how equal the experience is.
I always thought "Blinded by the light" was a garbage song hearing it on the radio all the time, but after listening to the album on my dad's JBL L100's, I understand why he's such a vintage purist. It changed the sound of the song completely. The speakers picked up things I had literally never heard before.
I know nothing about audio engineering, but it does seem like the art has sort of died out or became "more productionized".
I have what essentially is a mastering suite (i just don't do mastering very often) at home and the difference in quality between the majority of modern music and the majority of older music say 25 years and older is large. There are many exceptions that sound amazing that are older, often done by very talented people in the best studios at the time. But one difference, hugely generalising, is dynamics, older music can have more dynamic range with modern music being basically a sausage of audio.
When people come over and want to listen, I usually have to tell them that it might actually be a disappointment to hear your favourite album is badly recorded next to something that is musically garbage but sounds fantastic. Or you wont be able to unhear the amount of distortion on Adele’s voice.
That cacophony was considered quality music?
(I was replying to the person who called Nirvana cacophony/not music)
Marantz gear in particular is great, and Samsung buying them seems really unfortunate. Might be better than some private equity randos though.
The sound quality of modern TV is absymal. The digital compression does play its part, but the speakers and the case are crap.
I think the overall experience with the modern setup is worse in every way than 20 years ago with the exception of picture quality since we have 4K now. (Of course mostly we watch heavily compressed streaming video). 20 years ago I had a 5.1 system and would watch DVDs. The sound was vastly better than TV speakers/soundbar, compression was lower on the video despite being SD. By 15 years ago this was no longer true with a Blue Ray player of course, everything was better. My setup back then even had an audio compressor ("dynamic range adjustment") so you could actually hear the dialog when you needed to turn the volume down at night. No need to use subtitles!
But the old setup doesn't make sense anymore either as you would have had to keep replacing the receiver a bunch of times for no good reason as AV standards changed.
I got rid of my old setup at some point. I have a new system in another room that doesn't do video at all. It's just stereo with a CD player, a Turntable, a digital media player (doesn't get used much) and a Bluetooth input for streaming.
You could have easily kept that setup with the same level of soundquality the whole time - assuming nothing breaks.
I think large 5.1 just went out of fashion due to the size and cable requirements and the fact that soundbars became good enough.
I can definitively tell you that sound bars to not come anywhere close to the quality of what I have, and at a decent price too (the entire audio setup cost less than my OLED tv).
I think most people are never exposed to real home theater audio so they don't know what they are missing. Similar with high end stereo audio these days (which I also have).
Every time I show Top Gun Maverick in my theater room to a friend, they want to go out and buy a real setup. Several have. It sounds better than an actual theater plus I get to lounge on my couch with my dog.
I was sort of one of those people, with a soundbar, because it was easy and convenient. The soundbar came with a wireless subwoofer, and that solved the problem of running wires across my living room.
But, I had a gifted B&W 5.1 system with powered sub collecting dust out in my garage for a long time. I recently made the push to dust it all off and buy a receiver to power it, replacing the soundbar+sub we had been using for years.
The difference is really night and day. The soundbar just never got loud enough for when I wanted to crank-it-up when playing music. It was good enough for watching most TV shows, but the sound we get now from a 5.1 movie is incredible in comparison.
I did the work to run completely flat speaker wires to the surround speakers, under the rug in our living room. It took some work to re-route wires and get power to where the receiver is, but it was well worth it.
The new system goes as loud as I can stand it with crystal-clarity all the way up to "11". The soundbar looks like a piece of junk in comparison and is now out in the garage collecting dust.
Next I'm probably going to surprise my wife and install some bass-shakers inside my couch for the full movie theater experience.
> So all that is left is ultra-high end applications and there are few of those.
(and yes, I am mostly in that tiny demographic)
Dr. Amar Bose donated the majority of his namesake company to his alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. So technically, MIT now owns both McIntosh and Sonus faber, two of the biggest players in luxury audio. (MIT has non-voting shares of Bose, so although the university owns the majority of the company, it does not control business decisions.)
How many people hear B&W or Harman-Kardon and think "logo on my car's speakers" rather than "high end stereo gear?"
How many people hear "Mark Levinson" and think either "Lexus" or "who's Mark?"
I genuinely didn't know that there were still real, standalone speakers and head units made under half these brands that aren't whitelabeled Bluetooth detritus.
The HDMI 2.1 standard already supports 4K 10-bit HDR+ (4:2:2 and even 4:4:4) as well as 12-bit 4:2:2 (via tunneling, a trick which packages 12-bit YCbCr 4:2:2 in an RGB 4:4:4 format). This is already as good (or better) than the quality studios distribute for theatrical digital projection. The only meaningful difference is bitrate but for home users that's constrained by streaming service economics and reliable in-home wifi bandwidth but 25 Mbps in H.265 is already more than enough (theatrical distribution is in the 20 year-old JPEG 2000 compression format, hence needing higher bitrate). So, if you already have a media player and AV receiver that are HDMI 2.1 (48 Gbps) capable (which first appeared in products in 2018), it should be able to handle up to 4K 12-bit HDR+ as ICtCp 4:2:2 which is higher quality than even UHD discs and, I think, the highest practical quality that content for living room viewing will be distributed in in the foreseeable future.
Given all that, it's curious Samsung decided to buy these companies at any price. Are they just rolling up adjacent brands for the low-growth revenue and some marketing synergy or is there a bigger plan?
Top speakers are still extremely expensive, and sound just as good as well.
The RTi12 was easily the best floor standing speaker I've ever owned, potentially at any cost.
Also why don’t TVs and AVRs use display port instead of hdmi (license costs)?
If I'm at the computer and turn off the TV with the TV remote it turns off the monitor the majority of the time.
I wonder if Samsung will manage to make to so Denon and Marantz receivers will also sometimes turn off when you turn off a Samsung TV?
The TV remote will turn off the monitor even if I wrap the remote in a blanket which should block IR or hold it behind some blackout curtains.
First, some pictures [1].
The first picture is the front of the TV remote and what I presume is the window in front of the IR diode.
The second picture is what is supposedly the location of the IR sensor on the monitor.
The third picture is my hand attempting to block the IR emitter on the remote.
Here is what I've found.
1. If I block the emitter with my hand the remote has no trouble turning the TV on and off. Even if I've blocked it with my hand and am holding the remote behind the couch so there is no line of sight to the TV it still works.
2. It also still turns the monitor on and off, but the range is greatly reduced. I have to be within a meter of the monitor.
3. Blocking the receiver with a finger is similar, but the range reduction is more. I have to have the remote within maybe half a meter.
4. Blocking the remote with electrical tape has no effect on its effectiveness with the TV.
5. Blocking the remote with electrical tape almost completely prevents it from affecting the monitor. Maybe 1 in 20 times it will still turn the monitor on/off if near the monitor.
6. Blocking the receiver with electrical tape is similar.
7. Blocking the receiver by hand or electrical tape has no affect on the monitor's remote controlling the monitor.
8. The TV remote can turn the TV on and off and the monitor remote can turn the monitor on and off even if I go down the hall an into the bathroom and close the bathroom door so there is no chance that any IR signal is making it to the device.
9. The monitor remote does not turn the TV on/off even if held near the TV.
10. I also have an Amazon Fire Stick and its remote can turn the TV and monitor on and off. It uses IR for TV control functions (and RF for Fire Stick control).
11. As with the TV remote my hand fails to block the Fire Stick remote.
From this I think we can draw some conclusions but also some questions are raised.
• The TV remote can fully operate the TV using RF. The TV also responds to IR.
• The monitor remote can fully operate the monitor using RF. The monitor also responds to IR.
• The RF for each remote includes specific enough device identification that they do not operate the wrong device. The IR does not.
• IR is hard to block. Why doesn't my hand stop it? With the TV remote the window is big and curved so I could see some of it not being quite covered, but the Fire Stick remote has a smaller window that is much flatter. When pressed tightly into my palm it should be completely covered.
• Electrical tape almost seems to completely stop it, but I did still have an occasional signal get through.
• When turning the TV off from the couch I should be able to stop it from affecting the monitor by simply covering the window with my palm. Even though that apparently still leaks enough IR signal it reduces the effective range, which should be enough to stop it from affecting the monitor. It will still work with the TV via the RF signal.
Near-infrared light is biologically important, which is why we know it will go through your hand and most fabrics. I used to dose myself with near-infrared light by sitting in the sun wrapped in a polyester blanket to filter out the UV light.
They use RF/BT for all other commands, as long as the remote is paired to a TV.
Note: When the remote is not paired with a TV it will also send the basic commands over IR.
Recently I was looking for a toaster. Target has a nice selection of toasters. Look down into the slots, and they are all exactly the same.
There were, at peak, only three different VCRs. All those brands used one of three standard mechanisms. But you could get a hundred different cases.
My recommendation is actually to buy a commercial toaster. It'll toast twice as fast and last for years. Downside is that it will probably look ugly. I've heard good things about Dualit too though.
(+) On the other hand if all you eat is white sliced pan, then go ahead and buy any €20 toaster. You're in luck, they were built for you.
One thing I noticed about commercial build quality: simplicity. No touch bullshit. Small LCD displays. Here's some buttons and maybe a rotating knob. knock yourself out.
Then Netflix, the race to the bottom in terms of bitstreams and portable devices happened.
Netflix delivers Dolby Atmos in bitrates that are indistinguishable from lossless audio. It's better, not worse.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250507182014/https://www.engad...
In case anyone need it, here's[0] Wikipedia list article for HTTP status codes(200, 404, etc.) "Too Many Requests" is 429.
Basically any time a market changes drastically you see older players consolidate. Too often that leads to one big collapse of the consolidated entity. We’ll see what happens in time.
Far too many bad Samsung experiences.
Multi-disk players, either stackable or the big rotating wheel kind, are also fun. Those can give you most of a day's audio if you like.
I’ve got an “Amana” heat pump. It’s really a Daikin, and is part for part compatible with Goodman, also owned by Diakin. But all the brands are sold to customers to create the illusion of choice. Maybe we could at least have a “real name” policy for companies and products.
Time to grab current equipment while you can. Go a little nicer than you would normally for longevity.
I have friends commenting that they have Samsung TVs infested with ads it did not have when they first purchased it.
I forsee a future where marantz amps have really annoying separate startup and shutdown songs and jingles for increments of volume obviously ascending and descending for increase and decrease in volume respectively with unavoidable long melodies for each power of ten, which of course can not be skipped or disabled by the user and also pause all ui inputs while being played causing the unit to grind to a halt if trying to change the volume too quickly and even causing the unit to crash as the melodies over lap and cause a buffer overflow… to be fixed never of course.
Even ignoring price, I can't think of a mainstream brand I consider worse from a quality perspective than Samsung. The only other brand I consider as bad is Sony, and that's more ideological than quality because of their shenanigans and contempt for their customers -- at least their hardware isn't almost across the board destined for the scrap heap. I've seen too many nearly new samsung appliances just die due to bad electronics and they want to charge nearly the cost of the appliance for a replacement circuit board.
On topic for audio -- I got a samsung receiver for $20 from the thrift store and while it sort of does the job of being an amplifier, everything else about it is horrible. Worst interface of any receiver I've used since the 80s, its easy to change a setting accidentally while being difficult to change it back, and it doesn't power back on after a power outage requiring me to manually press the (capacitive/touch) power button on it. Also that (TOUCH!) Power 'button' is right next to the volume knob so you accidentally touch it while changing the volume, shutting the receiver off. But booting it back up requires holding the (capacitive) button. A quick press makes it flash so you think it is booting but the joke is on you, you need to hold it. Also you have to hold it properly, because sometimes it simply fails to register so after holding it for a few seconds and it doesn't boot, you have to take your finger off and try again. It's a receiver and you can't even select an input -- you need to cycle through all of them one at a time. So the one connected to your TV starts blasting erectile dysfunction audio at boosted commercial volume through your speakers when you're just trying to switch to bluetooth so you can listen to some lo-fi. You can't even make this stuff up. It's a joke and I don't believe anyone involved cared one bit about making a decent product.
The fridge ice maker had to have been designed by a troll. One piece of ice every 10 seconds or so. It took a minute to fill a simple dinner glass!
Then the microwave handle just...fell off the door. In all my years of owning bottom of the barrel to top end brands, I didn't even realize it was possible. The repairman said it was common, but because of all the plastic, they had to replace the entire door as the handle wasn't serviceable.
Never again. Not even their phones.
Phone reception is terrible where I live, but I'm not sure if that's the fault of my phone or the carrier.
Samsung knocked it off with the BlackJack, which itself was an obvious copy/knock on Blackberry. It felt like such a downgrade - cheap plastic, hollow, and really buggy. Sounds like not much has changed since those days...
I have a Samsung plasma TV from 10~15 years ago. The picture quality is and always was beautiful, I had to have the power supply replaced once, and the software experience is and always was terrible.
I eventually factory-reset the TV to make it forget my wifi credentials so it would stop interrupting me to claim my internet connection was down, when actually their update server was down. (I was trying to watch a DVD, so it would have been fine even if my internet was down!) Now it's just connected to a PC and I completely avoid the samsung software.
Also agree with you about Sony and their contempt for their customers. I went through 3-4 pairs of linkbuds because they kept failing in ~6 months. I loved the idea of the design ("open back" earbuds with a hole in them to allow in outside sound, instead of using microphones), but the build quality just wasn't there.