Low cost sound for a flat screen screen TV

The new flat screen high definition TVs are great and most have many input an outputs on the back panel of the TV.

TV sound has always been marginal, but it can be improved inexpensively without buying a $200 sound bar.

If you want to upgrade your TVs audio, first make sure you have either red and white RCA output ports or Digital Audio Output.

 RCA ports

Rightardia will address the RCA setup. The digital setup isn't complicated but you will need a preamp that takes a digital fiber optic input. Digtial sound like Dolby or DTS may have to be disabled to get the digital preamp to work correctly which seems counter-intuitive.

Pyle PFA200 preamp

What you will need for this project:
1. TV audio preamp (Pyle PFA 200 Preamp)
2. 2-4" bookshelf speaker (Pyle 3" 100 Watt Mini Cube speaker pair)
3. RCA patch cable
4. speaker wire

First power down the TV and the PFA200 or similar preamp if you have already hooked up power. Use the red and white RCA cable to connect the TV to the preamp. The white RCA jack is for the left speaker and the red is for the right.

You will then need speaker wire to connect the preamp to your speakers. You can even use use PC speakers if the speakers have an 8 OHM impedance. You will probably. have to cut of the RCA cable on the PC speakers to do this. Rightardia purchased Pyle 3" 100 Watt bookshelf speakers that had high ratings on the Amazon web site. Note that the speaker wire clamps have red and black connectors for the left and right side speakers.

RCA patch cable

Never hook up the yellow video connector of the patch cable to the white or red ports. You will destroy the preamp of blow a speaker if you do.

Turn on the TV and the preamp on and enjoy the improved sound. The TV controller should be able to adjust the audio volume.

Try to match the audio.volume of the speakers to the output of the the TV. If you don't match the volumes, the TV controller may not be able to  mute the sound.

If you have a Roku or similar media player, you will be impressed by the sound quality for Pandora radio.

The overall cost of this project was under $50.00.


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