“Why would Samsung do this?” Because they are a deeply, deeply consumer hostile brand. Do not buy Samsung consumer products, no matter what the feature set and price tag look like. They are not trying to provide you with a good or service in exchange for money, they are trying to take as much of your money as they can.
I've regretted nearly every Samsung device I've ever purchased. The only one I've ever been pleased with were the Galaxy Buds Pro (gen 1). I bought the gen 2s after I thought I lost my first pair but found them a month later. Those gen 2 buds have always been flakey. They take a few extra seconds longer to connect, sometimes one doesn't connect until I dock it and try again or if it does connect, it has staticy or garbled audio on just one bud. I also have an awful time getting them to switch to other devices. Connecting them to my steam deck requires telling the deck to forget them and then re-pair. Meanwhile, the gen 1 buds just work. Battery life is not great on them anymore but they last long enough for my typical daily use.
Yeah… fair enough. I’m honestly a noob when it comes to TV/Audio equipment so it doesn’t surprise me that I picked one of the worst brands out of the bunch… hah!
I mean, spec sheets and all that, they seem like they'd be good, but they're just insanely predatory as a brand at this point. I learned it the same way you did.
I have a Sony Bravia that was ludicrously pricy but seems to have been made by people who genuinely love what they do. It's got rough edges, but it's a very well-behaved product. Among other things, you can basically disable all the Google Home stuff and have it run as a borderline "dumb" TV.
(I'm aware of Sony's history here. Ain't no saints in this business, I'm afraid.)
55" is the 'sweet spot' for value. Within that, either (1) just buy whatever and don't EVER connect wifi (if possible, cut the antenna); or (2) if you can find it, get a signage-targeting system which doesn't come 'smart' with Android, this means you can rely on longer use and no surveillance (eg. no microphone) however you may not get the same visual results as a TV-market screen.
Option 2 is a frequent HN recommendation, recently I tried it and bought an ~AUD$400 55" signage screen which would be ~AUD$1000-1200 for a lower-end Android device with surveillance. The visual caliber is not perfect however I can rest easy knowing it's not recording all my household conversations and uploading it to the advertising databases. For the price I can buy something 3 times over before I'm at the same capital outlay, and get upgrades along the way. As my main requirement was 'big' (had to be comfy to watch on a relatively distant couch) this basically checked all the boxes.
55” is small at very typical viewing distances for 4K home theater. I get that many are content with a 55” or even smaller TV (25” was considered bigger than usual years ago and 19” was norm), but for an enthusiast crowd 55” doesn’t even meet minimal criteria so “value” is meaningless. As far as objective measures of value, 75” is closer to sweet spot in terms of cost per viewing area.
And no thanks I’m not going to give up Dolby Vision for a signage TV for security issues that border on paranoia. Keep the network cable unplugged and WiFi disabled.
I have two Sony Bravias. They are older LCD with souped up panels. I have been eyeing the micro-leds but can’t justify buying it when the other two are still going strong.
AV equipment is cheap if you are ok with (1) buying used equipment and (2) accepting large speakers that many people will think are ugly. If you can accept these two things you can find incredible deals on the used market because people don’t know what they’re selling. I picked up a solid 5.1 Boston acoustics system with a 4k receiver for $50 in the sf Bay Area. Boston acoustics went bankrupt and has no brand value anymore. The speakers look like boring rectangles. But that system will absolutely destroy the soundbar in this article. And the difference will be huge, not just audio files but anyone with ears. Obviously this was a ridiculous deal but with some effort and awareness of non cool, dead brands like BA, you can build an amazing system for cheap.
When you get a sound bar, you aren’t just getting a lower cost product you’re getting a product that is handicapped by physics (and cost).
> (r/hometheater please put down your pitchforks).
To be fair, the r/hometheater community feels strongly because they're trying to help people avoid the mistake that's led to these problems. If you care about home theater audio, even a low-end or used AVR paired with low-cost separate speakers will generally provide better results today and more flexibility going forward.
I get that running seven different kinds of cables everywhere was a bit of a faff, but honestly I miss those days now that I have to be an electrical engineer, a computer systems analyst and a network engineer just to have my TV play sounds.
(And I still have to turn the subtitles on because I can't quite hear what the people on the TV are saying.)
I went through the cabled vs wireless run around with Q-Symphony as well until I just settled on using wireless.
The main, unsolved issue was getting the Samsung remote to also work as the cable box remote. Spent 2 full days working on that, to no avail. This will be the last Samsung TV I ever buy. It's back to projectors or industry display TVs for me.
I actually recall seeing an option on my TV to set up the Samsung remote as a ‘universal’ controller. I haven’t had the need to do so because I have a Philips Sync Box that handles HDMI-CEC for me (So I can basically use the TV’s controller on the devices connected to the Sync Box).
Oddly enough (At least in my model) the ‘trigger’ to setup the universal remote is within the ‘input sources’ menu?
Now movies, music & games sound great, subtitles are no longer needed, and I don't have to worry about a single app! Just the windows shattering from the massive subwoofer
“Why would Samsung do this?” Because they are a deeply, deeply consumer hostile brand. Do not buy Samsung consumer products, no matter what the feature set and price tag look like. They are not trying to provide you with a good or service in exchange for money, they are trying to take as much of your money as they can.
Even their appliances are total garbage. I regret buying a Samsung vacuum. Thing was designed to be ewaste.
I've regretted nearly every Samsung device I've ever purchased. The only one I've ever been pleased with were the Galaxy Buds Pro (gen 1). I bought the gen 2s after I thought I lost my first pair but found them a month later. Those gen 2 buds have always been flakey. They take a few extra seconds longer to connect, sometimes one doesn't connect until I dock it and try again or if it does connect, it has staticy or garbled audio on just one bud. I also have an awful time getting them to switch to other devices. Connecting them to my steam deck requires telling the deck to forget them and then re-pair. Meanwhile, the gen 1 buds just work. Battery life is not great on them anymore but they last long enough for my typical daily use.
Yeah… fair enough. I’m honestly a noob when it comes to TV/Audio equipment so it doesn’t surprise me that I picked one of the worst brands out of the bunch… hah!
I mean, spec sheets and all that, they seem like they'd be good, but they're just insanely predatory as a brand at this point. I learned it the same way you did.
which TV vendors you recommend then?
I have a Sony Bravia that was ludicrously pricy but seems to have been made by people who genuinely love what they do. It's got rough edges, but it's a very well-behaved product. Among other things, you can basically disable all the Google Home stuff and have it run as a borderline "dumb" TV.
(I'm aware of Sony's history here. Ain't no saints in this business, I'm afraid.)
Sony sold its TV business to TCL early this year: https://www.tomsguide.com/tvs/sony-just-handed-its-tv-busine...
It is a new company or joint venture with TCL owning 51%.
https://www.sony.co.jp/en/news-release/202603/26-0331E/
Huh, interesting. I’m glad I’m in a place to be able to sit on my hands for a few years. Could be OK, but the Bravías are really pretty special.
It's a shame that Sony does not run TV business in here, South Korea anymore. All we have is Samsung/LG and Chinese vendors like TCL/Xiaomi.
My best try is jailbroken LG OLED.
55" is the 'sweet spot' for value. Within that, either (1) just buy whatever and don't EVER connect wifi (if possible, cut the antenna); or (2) if you can find it, get a signage-targeting system which doesn't come 'smart' with Android, this means you can rely on longer use and no surveillance (eg. no microphone) however you may not get the same visual results as a TV-market screen.
Option 2 is a frequent HN recommendation, recently I tried it and bought an ~AUD$400 55" signage screen which would be ~AUD$1000-1200 for a lower-end Android device with surveillance. The visual caliber is not perfect however I can rest easy knowing it's not recording all my household conversations and uploading it to the advertising databases. For the price I can buy something 3 times over before I'm at the same capital outlay, and get upgrades along the way. As my main requirement was 'big' (had to be comfy to watch on a relatively distant couch) this basically checked all the boxes.
55” is small at very typical viewing distances for 4K home theater. I get that many are content with a 55” or even smaller TV (25” was considered bigger than usual years ago and 19” was norm), but for an enthusiast crowd 55” doesn’t even meet minimal criteria so “value” is meaningless. As far as objective measures of value, 75” is closer to sweet spot in terms of cost per viewing area.
And no thanks I’m not going to give up Dolby Vision for a signage TV for security issues that border on paranoia. Keep the network cable unplugged and WiFi disabled.
I have two Sony Bravias. They are older LCD with souped up panels. I have been eyeing the micro-leds but can’t justify buying it when the other two are still going strong.
AV equipment is cheap if you are ok with (1) buying used equipment and (2) accepting large speakers that many people will think are ugly. If you can accept these two things you can find incredible deals on the used market because people don’t know what they’re selling. I picked up a solid 5.1 Boston acoustics system with a 4k receiver for $50 in the sf Bay Area. Boston acoustics went bankrupt and has no brand value anymore. The speakers look like boring rectangles. But that system will absolutely destroy the soundbar in this article. And the difference will be huge, not just audio files but anyone with ears. Obviously this was a ridiculous deal but with some effort and awareness of non cool, dead brands like BA, you can build an amazing system for cheap.
When you get a sound bar, you aren’t just getting a lower cost product you’re getting a product that is handicapped by physics (and cost).
> (r/hometheater please put down your pitchforks).
To be fair, the r/hometheater community feels strongly because they're trying to help people avoid the mistake that's led to these problems. If you care about home theater audio, even a low-end or used AVR paired with low-cost separate speakers will generally provide better results today and more flexibility going forward.
I get that running seven different kinds of cables everywhere was a bit of a faff, but honestly I miss those days now that I have to be an electrical engineer, a computer systems analyst and a network engineer just to have my TV play sounds.
(And I still have to turn the subtitles on because I can't quite hear what the people on the TV are saying.)
Exactly. I in part, chose this setup to avoid running cables; I figured that technology has come a long way… but here we are unfortunately.
I went through the cabled vs wireless run around with Q-Symphony as well until I just settled on using wireless.
The main, unsolved issue was getting the Samsung remote to also work as the cable box remote. Spent 2 full days working on that, to no avail. This will be the last Samsung TV I ever buy. It's back to projectors or industry display TVs for me.
I actually recall seeing an option on my TV to set up the Samsung remote as a ‘universal’ controller. I haven’t had the need to do so because I have a Philips Sync Box that handles HDMI-CEC for me (So I can basically use the TV’s controller on the devices connected to the Sync Box).
Oddly enough (At least in my model) the ‘trigger’ to setup the universal remote is within the ‘input sources’ menu?
I finally bit the bullet on building a 5.1 home theatre system this year, and deliberately made the choice of keeping it as dumb as possible.
I went with;
* Denon AVR-X1800H
* Q Acoustics 5000 family (5020s surrounds, 5050s fronts, & 5090 centre)
* RSL Speedwoofer 12S
Now movies, music & games sound great, subtitles are no longer needed, and I don't have to worry about a single app! Just the windows shattering from the massive subwoofer
> Just the windows shattering from the massive subwoofer
That's a respectable subwoofer but let me introduce you to massive:
https://www.avsforum.com/posts/64557995/
That would be 8x SI HS-24’s in 4 sealed GSG cabinets, with cabinets placed around the corners of the room, two in front behind the screen:
https://www.avsforum.com/posts/64778927/
How I found out I could get a 2026+ TV feature working on a (Year) older one and a few other rants.