TV's with speakers & tuners..

[GMichael]

How many of you out there are using the tuners and speakers that came with your TV? If you have cable, you end up using the tuner the cable company gave you. Same with Dishnet I believe. We can not use the speakers and our HT units. The delay creates a killer echo. Echo?
So wouldn't it be better (for us) if mfgs sold TV's with and without these? I know, you can get them without the tuners now. But what about the speakers?

[paul_pci]

Funny you should bring this up. I was with a friend last night at Circuit City after successsfully talking her out of buying a new car in favor of a flat panel. As we looked over the models, all we could think was how the models with speakers on the sides of the display were both ugly and a waste of space. Some, Panasonice, Samsung, have models with under the display which is infinitely better, but still a waste of space. The way to go is with a professional monitor, if it matters that much, but those can be difficult to find.

[kexodusc]

Hmmm, just a video display a la computer monitor? Not a bad idea. Though I think the cost difference would be extremely low, so maybe it's best to give everyone the flexibility.
I don't use either right now, but over the course of ownership, I'm sure I will.

[GMichael]

Hmmm, just a video display a la computer monitor? Not a bad idea. Though I think the cost difference would be extremely low, so maybe it's best to give everyone the flexibility.
I don't use either right now, but over the course of ownership, I'm sure I will.

Not a bad point. You never know what the future will bring. Maybe durring our move I will end up wanting the TV before I have time to set everything else up.

[Jim Clark]

I hate to admit it, but I'm needing both but probably the speakers more so than the tuner. 13 years ago we ditched cable realizing that TV wants to be free. That's why we see so many darned commercials! For a couple of years we got by famously. I doubt that I'd ever go to that extreme again but just in case it would be nice to be able to pull in OTA HD signals.

Speakers again are another matter. I absolutely hate the speakers on my Sony 55XS955. I've grown used to them, but I'd prefer they were placed elsewhere, like underneath. I see the SXRD model has the same set up, ugh lee. There have been occasions though when the AVR was in the shop or when I was moving furniture and stacks of gear and it was nice to be able to turn on the TV speakers. I used them a lot when I first got the tv and hadn't yet decided on a table/cabinet to house the whole deal. Without speakers I'd have been watching silent movies for a couple of weeks. Nice to be able to hear a show when unforseen circumstances pop up.

[bfalls]

If the savings are substantial and you're buying for a dedicated home thearter I see the point. But, a home theater is not very economical for watching general TV. I watch mostly satellite, but the integrated tuner comes in handy when the satellite goes out, especially during threating weather (thunderstorms, tornado warnings) The satellite almost always goes down leaving you pretty much blind. I was still able to watch local weather reports via the antenna conection and tuner. You can listen to the radio, but it's not as comforting as seeing the dopler radar.

[Slosh]

I'm glad I have an ATSC tuner built in, otherwise I wouldn't get any HD at all (I'm not upgrading my sat. receiver to an HD DVR until the vast majority of channels I actually watch are in HD, which means not anytime soon). I have no use for the NTSC tuner. Why would I even bother with it when every analog channel I receive also has a digital or HD channel up now?

I haven't used TV speakers since at least 1992. Those clock radio quality speakers and amp can't add much cost to the set, though if it made the cabinet smaller that'd be good.

[L.J.]

I rarely watch TV using my surround speakers. Football and some HD are the only exceptions. Besides that, TV speakers it is.

[EdwardGein]

Someone here posted a few months back that the savings with no speakers would be totally minimal- less than $30. I have never used any speakers with my HD TV's and the 5.1 sound from my cable company is perfect though my receiver. As an aside, I still recommend people buy for $25 a glass optic cable for TV Sound which their is one regular seller on Ebay as the sound is punchier and better on this then normal cables (I wouldn't recommend this for CD & DVD connections though as the audio signal is too strong).

As for tuners, I really think if you live in a location with Satellite or Cable HD Service this is a waste of money (although you might be able to get UPN & WB in HD locally which my cable company does not carry in HD).

[GMichael]

Many good points. It seems that tuners and speakers may still have their place in today's TV's. For now that is.
I still plan on going with a projector soon. No speakers or tuners included. But one of the three TV's I already have will probably get set up first.

[Woochifer]

I don't use the tuner or speakers on my TV, for one thing the speakers on the TV suck and would create a timbre matching nightmare with the rest of my system. All of the video devices get routed through the receiver output using a single S-vid cable to the TV. Even so, whether or not my next TV comes with speakers and a tuner probably won't weigh into my decision at all. The reason is that by at least by next summer, all large screen TVs sold in the U.S. will be required to carry digital OTA tuners. This is part of the ongoing transition to digital TV broadcasts and accompanying analog phase out.

And I don't know if you'll find too many TVs sold without speakers either. A friend of mine who works at an AV store told me that Pioneer got a lot of complaints because its plasma sets had been sold with the speakers as an optional item. Apparently, a lot of consumers did not like opening the box and finding no speakers inside, so Pioneer will start including speakers with all of their newer models. Like it or not, the majority of consumers, even the ones who buy HDTVs, still don't have home theater systems.

If you want a stripped down monitor, then you'll have to go the industrial route. For example, Panasonic's industrial flat panels models are very popular with home installers (and with HT owners in general -- just look at how many members of the AVS Forum own Panasonic industrial plasmas). They use the same plasma panels as their consumer models, but come with no tuners, no speakers, and even no input connections. Everything is an add-on option, and you have to buy peripheral cards for the connection formats that you want to use. The other difference is that industrial flat panels do not use the same shielding as the consumer models, so if you have any electronics around the house that are susceptible to interference, that's another cautionary note about using the industrial models. And supposedly, the fans are noisier and the panels have lower tolerances for dead pixels. Plus, there are fewer places to bring those units for warranty service.