We popped into our local John Lewis store today and wandered into the TV/Consumer electronics department. It was an education.
Now, you have to understand that we have a state of the art TV. After all, Panasonic said it was when we bought it only 10 years ago. It even has these new HDMI input sockets, as well as the proper sized, chunky SCART ones.
Our local TV shop told us to expect a decent flat screen plasma TV to last about 10 years before the power supply gives up the ghost (fancy that, power supply capacitors only lasting 10 years...), hence today's visit.
Lesson 1 for us was that Blu Ray players are all about to become obsolete. If we want to buy 4K movies on a disc, then there will be a new format of disc out in the summer of 2016 which will make this possible. Apparently, a 4k movie is too big to fit on a blu ray disc. But current blu ray players will not be able to play these new, higher capacity discs. So don't buy a blu ray player now, even an OPPO 105D one, but wait 6-12 months and buy the new style disc player as they are released. The new style players should also be able to play blu ray & DVD ... or just stream 4K movies over the internet as and when your broadband connection is up to it.
Lesson 2: phono sockets have been exterminated on modern TVs for audio out. Oops, that's a tricky one. Apparently, we would have to use a 3.5mm mini headphone jack to connect to the Naim pre-amp, which sounds like a very Heath Robinson or sub-optimal solution.
Alternatively, there is an optical digital output which can be used. This means a new optical cable and some form of DAC for us then, as there is no way that we will replace a recently serviced, POTS8 NAC52/Supercap just for TV duties.
So, for those of you who are more au fait with TVs, how do you recommend connecting a modern TV to a classic Naim music system in order to get a half decent sound, without the audio-video mis-timing issue that can happen if you take the audio signal of the Virgin Media Tivo box or the blu ray player? I really want to tap the sound off the TV, as this avoids having to mess with audio leads every time we switch between the Tivo box and the blu ray/DVD player.
Thank you in anticipation
Your video Luddite.
Posted on: 15 February 2016 by PhilipH
I use a Yamaha RX-V667, a cheapish A/V amp for TV sound, it runs pre-out to my Naim NAC-N172XS, which works perfectly using the unity gain. The Yamaha takes care of centre, rear and sub-woofer which I only use for TV and occasional Blu-ray, and connect to the TV using an HDMI with ARC. The Sony TV remote controls the whole set up for TV without any intervention needed for the Yamaha or Naim.
Newer A/V amps only seem to offer options that the 172 already gives me, but it's noticeable that pre-outs are becoming less available so the upgrade path is not too clear.
With this solution you don't need to worry about the vagaries of built in TV sound which are often the major limiter on a cheaper TV, over more expensive models.
Posted on: 15 February 2016 by tonym
You can wait for the "Next Best Thing", but 4K disc players won't be aound for a while yet, & the discs promise to be very expensive. I've recently treated myself to a 4K TV and the picture, even with standard definition material, is stonkingly good.
A reasonable DAC to accept the digital feeds from disc player and TV, into 52, will work fine for stereo only.
Posted on: 15 February 2016 by PhilipH
I rarely use the Yamaha or Naim controls at all for TV management. I have both a Sony TV and Blu Ray player, and both those remotes turn the relevant items on with just the appropriate one remote. I also have YouView and I can do the same with the Youview remote. What I can never manage with the Youview or BluRay remote is to to turn the TV off, but that's a minor irritant so I haven't spent much time on it.
The whole thing works much better for me than bothering with Soundbars for the TV and I'm generally pretty impressed with the TV sound in this way (it also adjusts the scene control automatically).
Posted on: 15 February 2016 by SamS
If buying a new TV this year, and like me you keep them till they break or at least 10 years, you may want to purchase one that is HDR (High Dynamic Range) capable, to ensure at least a bit of future-proofing.
Just like high Dynamic Range is generally good for audiophiles so it is also in the video world. A larger scale from brightest bright to darkest dark, and a much wider colour spectrum to play with.
Much better explained here
and here
Posted on: 15 February 2016 by J.N.
I would question the need to connect to your main system, on the basis that it will only show how appallingly bad is the quality of sound from programmes or films. I gave up some time ago and bought a Sonos soundbar and subwoofer, which ensures that boom and tizz of TV and films are produced at an adequate level.
I agree. Even my 84 year old mother couldn't tolerate the appalling SQ from the excuses for built-in loudspeakers in her new 40" Samsung LED TV. Dialogue was often indecipherable. There is of course an industry con-trick going on to make us buy an external sound-bar etc. After much research I fitted mum up with a Sony HT-XT1 sound-base from John Lewis for £199. Fantastic value. Owing to the design of the TV stand, a sound bar was a bit impractical, so we went for the slim Sony sound-base, upon which the telly stands.
It's a beautifully neat design and reassuringly heavy with a black glass top. The sound quality is easily good enough to satisfy this audiophile set of ears. Clever porting produces amazing bass slam and depth from two 3" drivers and the forward facing dialogue speakers render speech quality beautifully clear and free of nasty plastic cabinet resonance artefacts.
Good luck with your TV decision Ian.
John.
Posted on: 16 February 2016 by SamS
I wouldn't buy a TV till UHD-1 Phase 2 is available later this year or early next year to be honest. That's should support all potential UHD broadcast format (afaik)
Thanks for this Eloise - not really heard of this before but I guess it is the next logical step - the delivery of UHD Broadcasts. I have only had a brief read around the net, and may be way off the mark, but it seems that the broadcasting standard of UHD-1 Phase 2 will aim to exploit the current HDR certified hardware which is being rolled out in this years (and some of last years) TVs. Or have I missed something?
Is it possible that a different tuner from the current (DVB-T, DVB-T2, DVB-S2) if using FreeView or FreeSat, might be required?
Posted on: 18 February 2016 by John Willmott
I, too, optical out of my TV into my NDX .. I've had an LG Smart TV capable of 4K for about 8 months now and have to say I'm very very impressed with the picture quality. We don't have TV service per se, just streaming Netflix and their 4K video offerings, though limited, are superb.
A neat trick that the TV pulls off in the event it doesn't have enough bandwidth (broadband is horribly over subscribed in my neighborhood .. in the US) is to drop back from 4K to 1080P .. so no break in service.
Posted on: 25 February 2016 by Aric
FT,
I have done in the past what you are looking for. If you look at my profile to review my system, I have left out that my TiVo and Sony PS3 are also on the base level of the Fraim. Behind the Fraim hangs a Plasma tv. Currently I do not have the TV integrated into the HiFi, but in the past I did via an Uniti and then later the 172XS. In both situations a HDMI cable fed the TV via TiVo/PS3, and then PCM stereo outputted from the TV via a TosLink into the Uniti or 172XS. This worked very well in providing significantly more realism to the sound then the TV speakers could ever muster. I do not have any furniture along the wall where the TV hangs except the Fraim...and I wasn't about to put a SoundBar on it.
I seldom use the PS3 for anything more than playing movies or streaming Amazon Instant Prime, but lately I have become increasingly dissatisfied with my cable company, and am very seriously considering kicking them to the curb, or cutting the cord to use the parlance of our times.
So my seriously devious plot that I have sprung on my poor Wife entails the following:
1) She despises the PS3 as a disc player / Prime / Netflix streamer --> Solution, sell it off and replace with slimline (Sony) Blu-Ray player (also WiFi enabled) from big box store for 180 quid.
2) Give the TiVo back to the Cable company. Thanks but no thanks, your service stinks. And you've been raising your prices significantly of late. Solution, buy the new Apple TV (little box that gives back a lot of real estate on that shelf previously occupied by the TiVo!!). Use Amazon Prime, subscribe to HBO, Netflix, less tv, buy a la carte, yes, I can do this, save money, and probably have less tv showing in the house and the Wife won't realize what happened AND be happier using the better products.
3) New space on shelf allows the purchase of a s/h n-Dac! Oh yes, why not re-integrate the movie / tv experience with the HiFi AND improve my CD replay!!!
Everyone wins. Champagne flows, Wife doesn't realize what just happened. I managed to squeeze another upgrade in!
Hope some of this helps.
Aric
Posted on: 26 February 2016 by Eloise
I should have added that I'm in absolutely no rush to upgrade TV to 4K and then buy a whole new disc player / series of disks to replace my movies, blah blah blah. I think the movie industry will have a VERY hard time moving people along to 4K. For me, it's just not necessary.
The increased resolution I agree with you about. I suspect that 4k may replace BluRay in the medium term, but DVD will likely hang around longer.
Standard Def to Hi-Def was a quantum leap. Throw in large screen format with slimline depth of cabinet that could be hung on wall and this was valhalla.
I'm pretty sure for most people, the desire is a slimline cabinet which you can hang on the wall. The quality of SD vs HD was just an aside. Most people stick with DVDs even though the BluRay hardware is so cheap - mostly because they see the discs as more expensive. If the movie industry wanted they could get everyone to move to BluRay by removing the supply of DVDs.
Why I now need to see the pores of Angelina Jolie's nose I have no idea. Some things are best left to the imagination. IMO the next quantum jump will be on to VR or something like it. The transformation from 1080p to 4K just doesn't do it for me. But I'm happy it's coming along because it will mean DVDs and Blu-Rays will continue to drop in price and s/h bargains will be plentiful!
The main benefits of 4k screens is less the 4k resolution (IMO) its things like high dynamic range and improved colours. And generally they have improved the quality of screen - a fairly budget 4k screen is now the quality that a high end 1080 screen was.
