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Many of the biggest improvements to TV sound come from taking care of your room, not buying expensive speakers or sound bars. The good news is that you don’t need professional acoustic treatment or a big budget to make a noticeable difference.
Simple changes using things you already have — or can get cheap — can help your TV sound better. Your TV may also have a few overlooked settings that may improve sound quality.
Also: Why do TVs look bright and vibrant in stores, but dull in your living room
To help you choose the best space for creating clean, rich sound, I’ve put together a list of simple hacks that won’t require you to open your wallet.
Soft objects and places
Sound waves tend to bounce off solid surfaces like walls, floors, and ceilings. This can cause annoying echoes, muffled music and conversation, and a generally chaotic sound as the sound waves bounce around the room and collide. Thankfully, you can easily combat this by filling the room with your favorite furniture and decorations — preferably made of soft materials.
Cloth, leather, and other fabrics absorb sound, rather than reflect it, which helps reduce the amount of sound waves bouncing around the room. Sofas, rugs, throw pillows, and blankets can all play an important role in the acoustics of your home theater or living room. Even canvas art on the walls can help absorb sound.
With just a little rearranging in your house or apartment, you can dramatically improve your TV sound for free.
Sound deadening curtains and studio foam
If your living room or home theater isn’t an issue, noise from outside your home can greatly affect how your TV sounds. If it has to compete with traffic or noisy neighbors, even the most expensive OLED can sound bad. Curtains deaden sound they are an affordable way to help block out at least some outside noise.
Made of layers of heavy materials, it won’t completely eliminate outside noise, but it will at least reduce it to a manageable level.
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Sound treatment options such as acoustic foam they are becoming more affordable. You can pick up foam tile packs or corner bass traps for cheap on sites like Amazon to help create key points of reflection and absorption in your home theater, with well-designed sound while streaming, watching live performances, or console games.
You usually don’t need special tools for foam installation, just a can of spray adhesive, so you can treat your room in a few minutes.
Built-in measurement settings
Many new smart TVs allow you to set up specific audio settings for wall mounting and use with a TV stand. Since most TVs are built with rear and bottom-firing speakers, it’s important to tell the screen which ones to focus on when producing sound.
With wall-mount audio mode, the rear speakers get a volume boost for the loudest sound coming from the wall behind the TV. In vertical mode, the floor-firing speakers are raised to reflect sound from a table or shelf area.
For Fire TV
- Settings > Display & Sounds > AV sync tuning
This test measures the visual and audio synchronization of Amazon Fire TVs mounted on the wall, helping to reduce lag issues caused by the audio display.
At Hisense
- Settings > Sound > Sound mode settings > Wall Mount Setup
For LG
- Settings > Sounds > Additional Settings > Installation Type: WALL MOUNT
For Samsung
- Settings > Audio Settings > SpaceFit ON
OR
- Settings > Sound > Professional settings > Auto volume > Optimized mode ON
If your Samsung TV features dynamic sound, SpaceFit activates a built-in sensor that automatically monitors ambient sound and adjusts settings and volume for the best listening experience.
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For Sony
- Settings > Display & Sound > Sound > Automatic Acoustic Calibration is ON
If your Sony TV uses the Acoustic Surface Audio+ system, switching to the automatic leveling system will activate built-in sensors to monitor ambient sound levels and how well the sound is coming from areas behind or below the TV.
For TCL
- Settings > Display & Sounds > Sound > Mount Settings: Wall
For Roku TV
- Settings > Sound > Configure wall mounted TV
