I'm looking at an old issue of Popular Mechanics (Sept., 1989) and of course, kicking around this forums are the familiar Zenith/Bose partnership, but I did not know that Magnavox and JBL were partners, nor did Toshiba and Carver were - and the picture of a 32-inch Toshiba "Super Carver" console with the "stereo look", 40-watts.

Damn! What a console! But sorry, no scanner in sight in the school's library. :sigh:

Anyone here have any of such sets that were built to sound great?

I knew someone who had one of the Zeniths with Bose speakers. I don't recall being all that impressed with the sound. But who knows, it probably wasn't adjusted correctly.

Here's one of the Zenith/Bose sets.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Zenith-25-Color-Stereo-Receiver-Monitor-System-3_W0QQitemZ170073507537QQihZ007QQcategoryZ3638QQrd Z1QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item170073507537

Not too bad looking of a set for its time. Almost seems like the offerings at the time were trying to aim higher than they are today, in terms of sound quality.

Probably I'll get photos of the Toshiba/Carver collaboration from that magazine on Monday - unless someone has an old copy and wants to post it.

I've always been surprised by the sound quality in '80s TV sets, compared to earlier or later ones. Not ones "built to sound great" just normal TVs. I have a crica-1985 13" mono Trinitron in the kitchen that has much richer sound than the 1997 27" stereo Trin in the den.

I had a 1983 Sony KV-1946R that had robust sound for a mono television - and same went for the 1986 RCA/Thomson 13-incher set I had also, the audio wasn't shrill. Heck, even a 1991 base 25-inch Sanyo television I came across at the GW sounded better than a 27-inch Funai-based television made in the past ten years. Unsurprisingly, a 13-inch Sanyo made six years ago sounds very shrill with that misdesigned down-firing speaker (it sits in my kitchen) - which oddly we had a 1994 27" Sony KV-27S15 in the kitchen which sounded okay, but moved it elsewhere - and loathe the sound quality of the smaller Sanyo.

The sets that were "built to sound great" were overbuilt (and probably weighed more than a typical "modern" console). Maybe that design touch began with that $10000 Sony console. Heh.

By the way, for small televisions with audio overkill, I remember in 1997 that Samsung had a "gamer's" 13-inch television with over-engineered looks, retailed around $200 or so when it came out. It was a decent sounding set when one of the electronics chains (Electronic Express) had one on display; but the GXTV was definitely overkill in putting big sound in a small set. For the (then) recent restructuring of Samsung in 1997, this was a sign for things to come.

Link to what it looks like: http://cgi.ebay.com/Samsung-GXTV-Video-Game-Television_W0QQitemZ130041292534QQihZ003QQcategory Z15081QQcmdZViewItem

Wow I remember that Samsung. I saw one in Funcoland game stores around 97. It's hard to believe it was the hot item for that time, it would be a laughing stock for gamers today-- Curved screen, not 5.1 surround, and WAIT--It doesn't do 1080i?? Blah. I still think its cool

I wouldn't believe it being a hot seller either. The television set sat prominently on the sales counter for two years - with unfortunately, the same price, since it was too expensive for most gamers at the time. It's junk to the kids nowadays.

There was a PSM review article in '97 about the set, they compared it to a low-end Sony 13-incher - which its picture was much better to look at, but the sound wasn't like the GXTV.

That GXTV exudes cool along with too much design. :smoke:

I have a late 1970's or early 80's Quasar with "Audio Spectrum Sound". Has speakers on both sides of the screen with separate woofers and tweeters and seems to have very good sound. Also the RCA Lyceum/Dimensia sets with the speakers at the sides and bass/treble controls have good sound too. Going back to the 50's these sets can often have good sound due to 10" or 12" drivers.

The 60's and 70's sets tend to be the worst on sound due to cheap small speakers. Some of these sound worse than a cheap AM radio with severely attenuated bass and highs. The 80's and later sets often use small speakers too, however the speaker technology seems to be better in providing a wider frequency response.

Wow, that's nice. Large and obscene drivers in the '50s! :drool: So it's the evolution or devolution of television sound over the past few decades. Now I'm thinking of that parody ad on classic SNL (1981?) with a Zenith System 3 console with sixteen speakers.

I have a friend with an older RCA Dimensia, a very fine series with all of the features that would have been unheard of until a decade later (trickling to the low-end).

Say Chad, show us some pics if you'd like on those models, if you'd like.

My 1982 25 inch Zenith System 3 console has great sound for a mono only TV, much better than the stereo 1998 Zenith BPC 19 incher I have.

While looking through some old boxes, I ran across a 1987 brochure for "Zenith Digital System 3 Color TV with sound my Bose",
I knew that Zenith pioneered FM stereo, but per this; Zenith pioneeered the MTS Stereo Sound System. Looks like for that year there were 4, 27" models including the black lacquered finish with oriental designs. Model SC2749Y. Anyone got one of those?? With the full doors, it looks like a beauty.
John

I have a 1985 System 3 27"console that was the first year of the Zeniths having built in MTS Stereo decoders. It's surprising the sound that comes out of that tv. It has 5x7 full range speakers and a separate audio amp board with what I think are supposed to be 5w per channel audio output chips. Sure sounds like it's more than 5 watts per channel and full rich sound.

I have one of the 27" console Bose sets waiting for me to repair.It's a light woodgrain cabinet with no doors.Still a nice looking set.

Some of the best tv audio systems come in the projection sets though some still try to use relatively small speakers for such a huge cabinet.I think the biggest speakers I've seen in projection tvs are usually on Pioneer sets.Some of the tiniest are on Sony projos.They still surprise you with bass you wouldn't think could come out of those little 4 inch speakers.

Wasn't it true that the FCC rules limited the frequency response of TV broadcasts in the late 60's/early 70's? I think it was 100Hz-5kHz? This would explain the cheezy audio on some of those higher end sets. If the FCC won't let it be broadcast, then why waste engineering and money to equip a set with "good" audio? Put the money into some other googaw for the set (not that there was a lack of gimmicks on sets back then to begin with). I haven't been able to determine of any reasoning behind the limitation, only that they did it.

Some of the best tv audio systems come in the projection sets though some still try to use relatively small speakers for such a huge cabinet.I think the biggest speakers I've seen in projection tvs are usually on Pioneer sets.Some of the tiniest are on Sony projos.They still surprise you with bass you wouldn't think could come out of those little 4 inch speakers.

Yep, I have a 2003 Mitsubishi WS-55311 (or equiv., manual not nearby) and it's equipped with what looks like two 4-inch drivers behind a removable grille. The sound is incredible for a television, but then, I have a former neighbor with a late '90s Sony Videoscope XBR with at least four speakers - two on sides of bezel, two woofers on bottom of bezel and sounded as good as a decent shelf stereo system. In this field of standalone TV sound quality, CRT RPTVs and large console televisions sound quite deep - can't do that with flat-panel televisions and possibly any microdisplay; all because of the size and possibly materials of the cabinet.

I had a 1975 Sears 25" console back in the late 90s (was my grandfathers). It only had a 3x5 speaker, but that TV got awesome audio. I was quite surprised. Sounded very hifi. Unfortunately I no longer have that TV.
I haven't had a TV with that good of sound since then.

I once had an early 80's Sanyo, or Sears set that had stereo speakers and a simulated stereo circuit, but no audio inputs. It seemed strange that they would go to the expense of a stereo amp without allowing you to feed it a stereo signal.

A reason TV manufacturers cheaped out on the speaker (other than the obvious) is that the 4.5 MHz FM sound subcarrier (in intercarrier TV sets) tended to have incidential modulation from the video carrier. This incidential modulation comes from the video IF's frequency response curve, which is sloped at the main video carrier frequency. This is the vistigal sideband Nyquest slope. That slope induces a false FM signal on the video carrier, which, when it is beat against the sound carrier, adds its false (or incidential) FM to the desired FM that is to be the soundtrack of the TV show. That's the buzz sound you sometimes hear during quiet times in the program. But it's different than that buzz you sometimes get on some mis-adjusted sets with white lettering on the video. Often the magnetic fields from the deflection yoke will leak into the speaker to make some of that buzz. So TV makers don't bother to work hard to avoid the buzz in the detected audio if the buzz from the deflection yoke would swamp it out. And you'd use a speaker with weak response at the low audio frequencies, and also the high frequencies to avoid responding to the horizontal deflection frequency (15KHz).

Now, when stereo TV sound came out, consumers expected better sound, and really won't want buzz in it. So separate intercarrier IF strips for the sound were developed. These had peaks at the main video carrier, and another at the sound carrier. Both peaks without any slopes at these specific frequencies. When the sound and video carrier is beat against each other to get the 4.5MHz sound subcarrier, no incidential buzz happens.

Why not just treat the sound carrier as an independent FM station, like they did in the early days of TV you ask? Well, fine tuning becomes a PITA as the sound gets lost easily. Another reason is that the intercarrier system cancels out any incidential FM from tuner local oscillators and oscillators inside cable converter boxes. These were sloppily designed, as the designers knew that virtually all TVs used the intercarrier system. A crummy local oscillator would impart the same incidential FM on both the video and the sound carreirs, and the intercarrier system detector would cancel that indicential FM out. An independent FM receiver wouldn't do that.

We had a 27" Zenith console from the 80s. It had one 4 or 5" speaker in the lower right that filled our big cathedral-ceilinged family room with huge warm undistorted sound. Today's cost cutting makes me sick.

Wasn't it true that the FCC rules limited the frequency response of TV broadcasts in the late 60's/early 70's? I think it was 100Hz-5kHz? ... I haven't been able to determine of any reasoning behind the limitation, only that they did it.I haven't researched it, but I don't recall that happening, but I could be wrong. I wonder though, what benefit could come from suddenly requiring a narrowing of the transmitted audio spectrum for a few years?

Back in the '50s, IIRC, WCAU-TV in Philadelphia would use cheap 5- or 8-kc phone lines to pipe in its audio from New York. Video looked fine. But when the station switched to local programming, or even a station break, my young ears easily picked up the difference. Full 50 to 15,000 cycle response capability from local audio vs. the limited bandwidth transmitted over the same facility when fed by the low-bandwidth ATT lines between NYC and Philadelphia.

A radio station of the day would do the same thing to cut the cost of its dedicated phone lines. An AM station maybe would have one balanced line from studio to transmitter with an 8-kc upper limit, but cheaper 5-kc unbalanced (read noisy) lines would back up the good one. If you knew how to listen, the same program one day could sound different the next day.

Actually, I think those 4" or 5" single speakers used in old console TVs were considered pretty cheap even in those days, and the audio output circuit on most TVs probably wasn't much more sophisticated than the output on an 5-tube AM table radio. The reason they tended to sound fairly pleasant despite these limitations was probably mostly attributable to the fact they had the benefit of having a nice big baffle courtesy of the big console cabinet. Any small speaker will sound better if you bolt it in an opening in a nice big, reasonably-solid hunk of wood.