The sound quality of vintage television

[Panrock]

In the very early days (the 1930s) it almost went without saying that your new television set - a solidly built luxury item - would provide deep, satisfying sound to accompany the 'magic' of the picture. The wide audio bandwidth available on the 'ultra-short waves' from Alexandra Palace was put to good use at other times too, to broadcast high fidelity radio well before the later arrival of VHF/FM: for example the Toscanini concerts.

After World War II, as the 1950s progressed TV sets became more lightly built. Purchase tax was high, market competition increased and there was downward pressure on the prices. Sadly the sound quality often suffered, with small speakers sub-optimally mounted in light weight cabinets. One example of this is my Philips 17TG100U. It has thin, disappointing sound, though the picture is so good I'm apt not to notice it!

There were exceptions, and I recall how, when colour came along in the late '60s, our Baird M702 dual-standard console had good bass response and gave really good results on the UHF FM sound channel from Crystal Palace on Ch. 33. (AM sound on Ch.1 and Ch.9 was good too... though the background probably wasn't as hiss-free.)

Roll on to the turn of the century and my Panasonic CRT Widescreen set also gives great sound.

What are your memories of the sets, and the sound quality they provided? The best? The worst?

Steve

[G6Tanuki]

I remember buying one of the first NICAM Stereo tellies - from memory it was a Ferguson - sometime in the mid to late 1980s, and being deeply disappointed to find that very few transmissions, and none of the VHS tapes I was in the habit of renting, included NICAM content!

[mhennessy]

No VHS tape came with NICAM.

Stereo sound on VHS was always analogue. Originally linear, so relatively poor quality given the low speed of the tape, even with Dolby B. Subsequently FM, recorded across the tape along with the picture.

Of course, NICAM decoders were added to Hi-Fi stereo VHS machines later on. Meanwhile, film releases came with hi-fi stereo soundtracks for several years before the arrival of NICAM. Every tape I rented had a stereo soundtrack, but perhaps there were some cheap copies made for some rental chains?

While the first NICAM test transmissions were in 1986, the general rollout didn't happen until the late 80s/early 90s. I remember that happening as I had a job in a local TV shop at the time, and well remember the huge premium NICAM added to the price of TV sets and VCRs. Also, an uncle worked for Fergusson/Thompson at the time in the R&D site at Enfield. He had a stereo TV at home, but it was non-NICAM, so relied on a line connection between a hi-fi stereo VCR to get stereo reproduction. From mono FM TV sound, it had that fake stereo option, which was a bit of a gimmick. This set was based around the TX10 chassis.

If you had a stereo TV in the mid-80s, it's highly unlikely to have been equipped with a NICAM decoder. It must have been a later model if it had NICAM.

And not everyone realised that you had to have a baseband audio connection between VCR and TV - NICAM VCRs did not contain NICAM encoders, for obvious reasons. Scart was around, but by no means universal during the '80s. Without Scart, you'd need DIN cables or similar...

By the time I'd built a NICAM tuner in 1991, based on a scrap prototype module from an ICC5 chassis that my uncle gave me, a lot of "quality" content was produced in stereo, and sounded wonderful. I think that a lot of producers were keen to exploit the advantages, and invested in the sound side of the operation. My DVD collection documents that today. Of course, the broadcast industry has gone though a lot of change since then, sadly.

Generally, having NICAM meant more sophisticated audio stages and speakers, which improved FM mono considerably, luckily. I say "luckily" because in the patch covered by the shop I worked for, there was a choice of 4 transmitters, and only Reigate and Crystal Palace carried NICAM at that time. Of course, most customers didn't know which they were pointed out, so during deliveries I got quite good at explaining that the lack of NICAM was a hopefully short-lived problem, and in the meantime they were getting much better sound than they would have got if they'd not been up-sold a NICAM set.

But not all NICAM sets sounded good. As always, you had to shop around... And plenty of non-NICAM sets were surprisingly good - the Philips K30 always sounded better to me than the competing TX10 sets (even the stereo ones) because the speaker Philips used was better than the Goodmans speakers Fergusson tended to fit to those sets.

I've always run TV sound through the hi-fi anyway. Even before NICAM. And long before flat-screen TVs. For a while I had a Sony with separate bass-reflex cabinets, and that was pretty good - the set is long-gone, but the cabinets are in the attic awaiting a future project that will likely never happen. I did have an older B&O with a similar thing, but with a very high-Q, one-note tuning, the sort of thing that impresses at first listen but is very unnatural. And while Philips did good with the K30, the later K35 (with built in Teletext printer and a stereo audio system but only 1 speaker) was considerably worse, despite the extra electronics (with bass/treble controls, etc). All because the speaker wasn't as good as the similar one in the K30. So all in all, there's a lot of luck here. Just like with radios...

[lesmw0sec]

I seem to recall an early GEC TV which had excellent sound - particularly if you replaced the 'top cut' capacitor across the OP transformer primary with a resistor/capacitor network. I also recall the excellent test card music on both BBC & ITV. One customer almost wore her set out by having it on all day, just to get the music!

[slidertogrid]

There was a 405 Pye set that had twin speakers, one each side. A relative had one and positioned in a corner so the sound was reflected forwards it sounded pretty good. I think it was a Pye Continental?
One of the best colour sets of old I heard was the Philips K70 it sounded better than any other set I had seen.
Most customers were more interested in the picture than the sound as time progressed. My parents had a B&O in the late 80s that sounded pretty good.
For worst sound that award goes to the Thorn 1400 !

[Panrock]

Originally Posted by lesmw0sec

I also recall the excellent test card music on both BBC & ITV. One customer almost wore her set out by having it on all day, just to get the music!

My first job when leaving school at 18 included playing the test card music on BBC2! Yes, the quality was pretty good. A floor-standing Leevers-Rich tape machine running at 15-inches a second if I recall correctly. And the monitor speaker (15-inch I think) could be switched between the control room output and CP off-air. I couldn't tell the difference.

Steve

[Nickthedentist]

There were some good Grundigs in the 1970s, too, with a 2-way speaker system in a sealed chipboard enclosure driven by a TDA2030.

And as Steve says, some of the late 1990s/early 2000s CRT sets from Panasonic etc. were nothing short of stunning, with complex speakers and signal processing incorporating feedback from a small microphone.

[Richardgr]

I had a 98kg Sony Trinitron with 36" screen. The reason for buying it was the sound quality, which was extremely good. Reading online it was 10W (2 x 5W), a bit less than I imagined.

It helps when there is the large case of the TV to augment the performance and placement of the speakers.

I collected it from 4 stories up, with only a circular staircase for access, and with its weird centre of gravity it was a 3 person job to return it to terra firma.

[turretslug]

As a kid, I'd long been aware that TV sound was at least potentially good but somewhat let down by the typical small oval speaker in a less-than-ideal box producing a lousy frequency response with the added risk of exciting grille rasps and buzzes if the wick was turned up. Just generally disappointing really. Said speaker would be fed by an almost afterthought Cinderella of an amplifier, either stressed single-ended triode-pentode and basic small OPT, or a thrifted version of a transistor radio output stage.

Sometime around 1987 or so, a colleague got hold of a handful of Toshiba NICAM chipset evaluation boards, I bought one of them and was pleased to find that it would fit neatly into a space in my Philips V6100 tuner (paired with V6600 monitor) and was simply interfaced into IF and audio circuits. This tuner only had line-level audio out, so I made a 2x TDA2030 output stage in an Eddybox screwed to the back of the stand, I wound a custom 10-0-10 VAC transformer for it using an O/C secondary one discarded at work. That fed a pair of Goodmans bookshelf speakers from Richer Sounds either side of the monitor. Very satisfying, if not quite to ultimate audiophile standards and I'll wager better than pretty much anything off-the-contemporary-shelf. The V6100 lasted until analogue switch-off, replaced by a Humax PVR into the set-up. The 20" monitor was finally displaced by a 32" Loewe CRT set from a forum member in 2019- pretty good sound but not as good as from the Goodmans speakers.

[red16v]

Originally Posted by Panrock

My first job when leaving school at 18 included playing the test card music on BBC2! Yes, the quality was pretty good. A floor-standing Leevers-Rich tape machine running at 15-inches a second if I recall correctly. And the monitor speaker (15-inch I think) could be switched between the control room output and CP off-air. I couldn't tell the difference.

Steve

Part of my wife's duties at the BBC as a Presentation Operational Assistant was performing the same operation. She said it was a bit of a game to change tapes in, I think, under a minute otherwise the 'no-sound' alarm in the transmission chain would operate. I wonder if you bumped heads? - early 80's.

Over where I was at ITV we needed to wait for our IBA supplied dual channel SIS encoders before we could contemplate stereo distribution and transmission. The Beeb used a very similar but different non-compatible system.

[its ur aerial]

One TV that I remember that had exceptional sound quality in the 70`s were the Hybrid Luxors`s, cant remember any model numbers but they had both base and treble controls, twin speakers and thick chipboard cabinets.
There was also a couple of later GEC`s that had decent sound quality.
I personally think the sound quality of the 3 tellys we have now, one Samsung, one Nat Pan and a cheap Tesco one are awful.
Ken G6HZG.

[JoshWard]

Since I started playing with televisions I have been rather surprised at how small the speakers often are compared with most valve radios. I guess the large wooden cabinets make up for it somewhat. The television I use the most is a Decca Bradford 30 series console which sounds great. Again, I suspect the large cabinet helps.

[Panrock]

Originally Posted by red16v

Part of my wife's duties at the BBC as a Presentation Operational Assistant was performing the same operation. She said it was a bit of a game to change tapes in, I think, under a minute otherwise the 'no-sound' alarm in the transmission chain would operate. I wonder if you bumped heads? - early 80's.

No, 'my' period was 1969-1974, when the task was allotted to a TA. If I fumbled the large reels during the changeover, the tape could (and did) end up unravelling all over the floor!

Years later, when working under the Radiocraft name, I had a customer who insisted on superior sound for his Baird Townsman restoration. A special box was made with its own sound detector and TDA2030 audio amp, tapping to the set's sound IF. A new 8-inch speaker was also fitted into the large console cabinet (which had plenty of spare room). It all sounded rather nice.

Steve

[Mike Phelan]

Ages ago I had a Philips K70 which had two speakers and and wonderful sound quality, most UK sets had mediocre sound. Then I got a B & O ...

[Pfraser]

The best-sounding set I have owned was an ex-rental Granada Finlandia. Hybrid chassis, single speaker, bass & treble controls. For context, I have also owned Körting hybrids, Thorn 1400 & 1500, a Defiant and a Marconiphone. The Körtings didn't sound too bad. I agree with slidertogrid about the 1400!

The best-sounding vintage set I have heard was a huge Panasonic CRT one, model unknown, in a guest house dining room. Very rich, full reproduction, with clear top end.

[Panrock]

When I had my 1937 Marconiphone (some years ago now), I remember how good sound was. However there was a drawback. Whereas the vision was a wide-band TRF, the sound receiver was a superhet with the low IF of 200 Kc/s. This meant the oscillator frequency was very high - not far from the 41.5 Mc/s carrier. It had a propensity to drift, so much so the manufacturers had included a tuning knob! Most of the adjustment was in the first ten minutes. After that, one could relax in one's armchair.

Steve

[stevehertz]

Originally Posted by Panrock

When I had my 1937 Marconiphone (some years ago now), I remember how good sound was. However there was a drawback. Whereas the vision was a wide-band TRF, the sound receiver was a superhet with the low IF of 200 Kc/s. This meant the oscillator frequency was very high - not far from the 41.5 Mc/s carrier. It had a propensity to drift, so much so the manufacturers had included a tuning knob! Most of the adjustment was in the first ten minutes. After that, one could relax in one's armchair.

Steve

Was that a front mounted 'tuning' knob? what did they call it?!

[Panrock]

No Steve, it was upward-facing alongside the other controls. I'm pretty sure it was inscribed with the word 'Tuner'.

In the Manual, we read:

"A slight amount of tuning drift is inevitable with this chassis, but it should be negligible after the first ¼ hour, and should never drift outside the range of the Tuning Condenser, or cause a drop in volume after retuning.

If tuning drift is excessive, an extra Negative Coeficient (sic) Condenser may be fitted in parallel with the existing one and TC1 readjusted."

Steve

[marceljack]

Originally Posted by stevehertz

the sound receiver was a superhet with the low IF of 200 Kc/s. This meant the oscillator frequency was very high - not far from the 41.5 Mc/s carrier.

What was the reason of choosing such a very low sound IF which could not even provide the AF bandwidth of a normal AM radio with 450 to 470 kHz IF ?

[dazzlevision]

Originally Posted by Mike Phelan

Ages ago I had a Philips K70 which had two speakers and and wonderful sound quality.

Yes, indeed.

Made by Philips in Norrköping, Sweden, with excellent sound and the shallowest (side mounted) woofer I've ever seen. The AOPT was a decent size and the audio output valve was a PCL86. Treble and Bass controls provided.

The picture was also excellent and it doubled as a room heater (circa 500W power consumption!).