CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

zaphod · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 2002 Location: Cloverdale

our two old 27" crt TVs are dying. one has an intermittent right channel on the audio out and the other has a growing green spot on the lower left corner.

so we're looking at a 32" for the bedroom and a 40 or so for the family room. my wife would be more comfortable with a name brand. both TVs are run through an amp, and we use the TV remote to adjust the volume because the audio out RCA have variable levels.

it's hard finding a flat panel with variable audio out - heck some don't even have audio out, instead having digital only (great, but i don't happen to have digital in the bedroom, just good old analog cablevision. i have better things to do than watch a lot of TV in there.

the 55" 3-D sony Bravia has variable outs, but none of the smaller 2-d Bravias. Who has a 55" 3-D sony and listens to it in 2.0 audio?? i mean, other than Wan.

anyone know of a flatpanel 32 or 40 that comes with variable audio out?

zaphod · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 2002 Location: Cloverdale

bueller?

rwallmow · Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 12:49 pm Post subject:

Well most TVs have headphone ports, and that will do variable audio, however using the headphone ports will cut out the TVs internal speakers, and I'm not sure if that's a deal breaker for you or not.

That said, I'm not up on what models have true variable audio outputs, maybe a trip to the local TV shop (or wal-mart, best buy, etc...) to check out the display TVs and try for yourself, speaking from experience working for a (now defunct) retailer, most places will let you monkey with settings and play with the demo TVs as long as they think you might buy one, lol

zaphod · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 2002 Location: Cloverdale

rwallmow · Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 5:27 pm Post subject:

My grandparents Panasonic 32" (older model, dont recall model #) had RCA audio outs, and in the menu you could set variable or fixed, but when you selected variable it would shut off the internal speakers (which you said you don't care about).

Also many modern universal remotes have an option to have the volume buttons control another device (amplifier/stereo) rather than the display device, I know the Harmony will (I have one, but hate it for other reasons), but I have had cheap $30 remotes (an RCA remote I had comes to mind) with that feature as well.

Good Luck in your search for the perfect TV Wink

ecrabb · Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 5:56 pm Post subject:

zaphod · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 2002 Location: Cloverdale

unfortualetly the pre-amp i am using in the family room setup has no remote capabilities, and the bedroom setup has the IR on the amp just out of range of the remote unless my wife hangs sideways out of the bed and shoots directly at the IR receiver on the amp. sometimes i can bounce the IR off the back wall at the amp, but that's sketchy, and what are the odds of a guy letting his wife have the remote in any case.

Kevin D · Joined: 23 Nov 2007 Posts: 63

We've been forced to start using Sherbourn mini amps since most TV's have ommited variable outputs (that's a 2c savings right?). We used to use Niles audio units, but they expect variable. The Sherbourns have their own remote for volume. They would replace your exisiting amps though.

We do have a box of Xantech IR controled line-level controls. We'd sell what you needed cheap as they were about to go in with those Niles amps to save a job, but we wound up finding the Sherbourn ones.

http://www.xantech.com/Controls/ControllersSwitches/ControllersSwitchers/RGC11/

I think we have one remote, but it's really designed to learn codes into another remote.

Kevin D.