Это видео недоступно.
Сожалеем об этом.
The first TV sound bar: 1980 TeleSound with TeleStereo
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 31 июл 2024
- The first TV sound bar was made over 30 years before most people heard of such a thing. Too bad most of them languished in a musty warehouse for decades before being sold as surplus, because it actually works well and sounds great.
You can download a scanned copy of the TeleSound's manual here:
www.amstereo.org/files/telesou...
Time flow:
0:00 Introduction
1:16 Overview
2:12 Stereo video history
3:21 Simulated stereo
3:59 Sealed cabinet
4:29 Comparison test
6:26 Direct audio hookup
7:19 Stereo speaker test
8:20 What happened?
9:42 Conclusio
#VintageTV #soundbar #RetroTech
When I was 16 or 17, I managed to hook up the family TV to my father's huge stereo console cabinet. He was horrified at first when he saw the hole I had to drill for the wires on the back of the TV. But he ended up loving the sound. Maybe this was the largest sound bar in the world at that time :)
I have a console stereo and they are just a giant soundbar
Regarding both your and their idea of attaching the TeleSound to the innards of a TV, this seems "potentially" (electrical pun) unwise. I assume that virtually all contemporaneous TVs would have been "hot chassis" (not electrically isolated from the mains), and none but extant tube-type sets would even have an audio output transformer between the speaker and the works.
@@frednitney5831 I agree that it wasn't ideal to use the speaker connections as an audio output. I was an ignorant teenager at the time. But it worked. Of course the volume had to be set at a very low level on the TV. A couple of years later, the addition of our very first VCR made things a lot safer, because of the proper audio/video outputs
So why you didn't use music on the tv speakers to do the test🤔 I did hear much difference between the tests
@@frednitney5831wait would that not be a ground fault or at worst a thing that needs to be grounded or double insulated?
Just hearing the "Tele-" part always make things sound so futuristic. TELESEC, TELENAST, TELESCAPE, TELENYNE, TELEPOKEMON, TELEUNIVISION, TELE-EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!
This is actually a really impressive sound bar, not to mention the easy to use controls on the front. No internet integration or forced to use it with an account, it just works! I like the 90s era of Home Entertainment surround sound the most, but honestly this really does a good job. I know how the speakers can be on 80s TVs, they do get the job done but having something like this or a dedicated Stereo connected makes a big difference. Great video!
I have my Mitsubishi TV set (it does have full stereo sound because it was a high end model for its time) hooked up to my hi-fi system, which really improves the sound a great deal (as 100 watts of power would do).
Sounds like a nice setup, lots of older TVs like CRTs and Rear Projection have excellent speakers because they've just got so much room inside for good drivers! The TV market nowadays has basically become the same, 2000s flatscreens are still nice because of the inputs and some are still decent speaker wise.
yeah forgot to say it's from 1987. @@TheOriginalCollectorA1303
Now is the time to buy those 90s surround systems. They're out of fashion to the point people are giving away brand name 5.1 & 7.1 surround speakers with a head unit. I've seen some free in the small ads, and many for almost no money.
And like all this stuff, it will become collectable, as the kids whose parents owned it grow and up get a nostalgia slug to the brain.
I agree, plus they still sound excellent! Still easy to get ahold of them but you got to make sure you get them, just like old TVs. At first everyone has one, then no one wants one because its “old”, then everyone wants one again.
It's funny because the major brand TVs I remember from this era had pretty decent sound overall. Not Hi-Fi, but decent fidelity and clarity - RCA was probably the best for this. I think if this had come out a little later and offered a way to decode MTS stereo it could have had a better chance at succeeding. Or even if they had marketed using it with "simulcast" stereo transmissions on FM radio.
As a kid (probably 7?) I learned I could hook the mono output from our VCR up to the 1970s stereo we had in the same room, and just pull the "mono" switch to get that sweet, sweet fake stereo and more bass.
Yeah, the TV in my bedroom which is a 1985 Zenith Advanced System 3 19 inch set has pretty great built in sound. It has speakers on both sides of the screen. On each side it has a larger speaker and a smaller tweeter (I don't know the exact size.) they are Foster speakers which are pretty descent, it sounds good and gets quite loud if you want it to. I do believe it is just dual mono and not stereo as if it was stereo, it would probably be boasting about it somewhere, and it doesn't say it anywhere.
My parents had a Sony TV that had "Matrix" sound. Definitely no issues with sound / audio with that set.
I'm from Europe and our higher end TV sets had good speakers as well. Up until the plasma screen era. LOEWE was one of the best. I believe they did partner up with some high quality speaker brand at some time. I believe it was Bose, but not entirelly sure on that.
Sony also had some Trinitron models with good speakers. I also remember that one of my friends had a rear projection TV with large speakers and a subwoofer in the stand. The picture quality was horrible, but he did not care, because he only used it to have VIVA (central europes music channel at the time) run in the background. But to be fair, it was the 90's and techno was all the rage here. If it didn''t have a subwoofer or good bass, nobody wanted it.
My grandparents in Lithuania had a TV which was compatible to a small component stereo system, and was sold as a complete set. I don't remember what brand it was, it is too long ago. It was some sort of soviet era system and they are not well documented on the internet.
Here in the UK, in the mid-80s, a company called Ferguson invented what they called stereo televisions - but stereo television didn’t actually start until about the mid-90s - other companies manufactured what they described as “stereo televisions” - but mono through two speakers is not stereo! Those Ferguson ones could generate a sort of “quasi-stereo”, but, as no terrestrial broadcaster offered stereo sound on television, it wasn’t stereo - the BBC came up with a solution called “the simulcast” - broadcasting the programme on both television and radio at the same time - you had to tune a stereo to the FM (VHF) frequency of a radio station - AM radio was completely incapable of broadcasting in stereo - it usually worked for concerts and suchlike - place the speakers at either side of the television and turn the sound off on the telly!
Around 1980, I was 11, I remember plugging our good home stereo to the TV and taping on audio cassette the ''Battlestar Galactica Special'' and other stuff maybe... and really listening to it after.
Back In My Day, You would just stack a Smaller TV with No Sound on Top of another Larger Console TV that had no Picture but Good Sound.
It was A dark time way back when.
Ah! Memories. I had friends that had that same setup. Plop the good 19" TV on top of the no picture, but great sound giant console TV. I remember playing hours of NES like that. Damn, I'm gettin' old sonny.
A lot of people did that in the 80s and early 90s. Until they got a stand or entertainment center for it.
I know I am watching and listening through youtube, phone and earphones, but this sounds amazing.
I've read that in the early 80s satellite was an option for picking up stereo broadcasts. MTV, which started in 1981, transmitted in stereo out of the gate, promoting it heavily in their marketing. From my understanding some cable suppliers would carry the stereo signal through FM, and satellite receivers picked it up directly.
Ok then.. From now I Absolutely expect all youtubers and reviewers that even come close to a product like this, must in fact direct record the headphone jack and turn all the knobs and do all the things! That was incredible!
I love Surplus Shed! I've gotten some pretty unique optics from them over the years.
more accurately described as a "sound box" lol
Around the late 90s, I had TV stand with a built-in subwoofer, amp etc.
I can't remember the name of it but it certainly made a difference.
I turned seven in 1980, and this is my first time ever seeing this device!
The simulated stereo sound would blow any pre 1986 TV away.
The ultimate TV setup before 1986 would be a 19 inch sony trinitron, with a VCR and laserdisc player, and this soundbar
Most old CRT's had pretty decent sound. My black & white Telefunken CRT from 1976 had amazing sound quality. It had a massive (mono) speaker too. A far cry from the tiny, tinny and shoddy speakers in flat panels these days.
@@robertmartin1116 Thats true. My sanyo crt from 1999 has really nice speakers
Every early flat screen TV seemed to have rear firing speakers, did nothing for decent sound.
Most early flat screen tv's in my experience had front facing speakers like CRT's. But my grandpas flatscreen from like 2010 has it on the back, and his smasnug tv from 2015 has it on the bottom@@spooley
Seems like the first ever soundbar is also the best looking
That TV in the ad was my family TV! That thing was a staple of my _entire_ childhood, and more than a few years after I had moved out on my own. I'm not sure it ever stopped working, it just got replaced by a flat panel TV with six or eight times the screen area.
Anywho, like many sound bars, I'm sure it was _better..._ but not enough to make a difference for a lot of people. Old CRTs had speakers that ranged from puny (in countertop models) to far more than sufficient (in console models.) That Sony in the ad did alright. Not HiFi by any stretch, but certainly adequate.
Maybe the TeleStereo just needed a Dolby Atmos logo..?
When a 19" TV was a common size and 27" was considered the best thing ever, the fuzzy display that most folks considered acceptable on a CRT went well with the typical lo-fi built in speakers. One reason the big TV consoles with included stereo radio, phono and even tape were popular was the improved sound when watching TV. The Bonanza theme song sounded great on a Magnificent Magnavox 7 ft long console stereo with 15" woofers.
Thanks for the demo and interesting music and videos. 👍👍
That's all we had. No point complaining if no alternative exists.
that's very impressive...I love devices from the early 80s .and that it works great today is a bonus....1980...wow!
I'm always surprised by this sort of thing - learning that a familiar technology has been around longer than I'd expect. I always thought soundbars came on the scene around the same time as flat-screen TVs, so to learn that they debuted in the early 80s is pretty cool. And the fact that they're a Jersey original is also pretty damn cool in my book.
I consider your videos as teaching material about electronics history. 💖
They were ahead of their time. Sadly for them, a lot of stereo tvs in the late 1980s to late 2000s, sounded great. Once speakers were put on the back of the unit, in order to eliminate the bezels on the front, they started sounding terrible.
i love the timeless look of that thing. great video!
Gotta love that 80's design😍
We got our first video machine in 1984, a JVC VHS, it was a stereo machine so I just plugged it straight into the stereo. Now I just plug the TV into the stereo so all my video equipment audio sounds perfect.
I'm surprised this genius device failed. In olden times my huge glass CRT TV and stereo system were in the same place, so I ran the VCR's audio output into the AUX on my receiver. The improved sound quality made a ton of difference in the experience, even with that day's crappy video quality.
Some of these used multiple band filters to separate left and right, the filters were staggered a bit one way or the other so each speaker had a different frequencies notched out of their audio, but overall, you don't actually miss any frequencies, as long as the capacitors don't go out of spec. I does give the illusion of separation, but it's no replacement for real stereo. Later speakers generally used phase offsetting for artificial stereo separation instead, but I always found that disconcerting to listen to.
What a great find! In the eighties we had a Jerrold converter with an audio-out jack (mono only). My dad hooked it to an old receiver and speaker (yes, just one). Worked very well!
Wow that is really cool, and I never heard of it. When I was a kid we had those TVs that looked like a piece of furniture and I always wondered why the TV manufacturers didn't put a bigger better speaker in them. They had like a three or four inch full-range speaker, not exactly room filling sound. Then when I got older I started hooking my TVs via the headphone out Jack to my stereo systems since the late 70s. Being a vintage HiFi and stereo enthusiast I may have to find one of those Telesounds.
Wow this is amazing! It sounds great, still improving sound on a TV that is 20-30 years older. Definitely ahead of its time though I wish my family had one back in the early 80s!
wow thats a really cool unit
Had one of these hooked up to the volume pot in an old TV. Thing worked great.
Then I realized I could hook up to my main stereo... and that got real interesting.
Interesting! And loving the music at the "Direct Audio hookup" section.
Cool! I’ve never had one, because no one had this, but people switched to stereo amplifiers over this one. Nowadays, they have AV receivers with composite AV inputs and HDMI inputs. I also have my Kodak Pageant AV-126-TR 16mm sound projector with a built-in amplifier with a selector where you can switch it to “Film”, it will run movies, and when you switch to “Phono/Micro”, it will use as an input for MP3 players, cassette recorders and other vintage audio equipment as an amplifier, and it came a speaker with a long cord to plug it in, and you get better a speaker.
If anyone is looking for a modern version of the TeleSound, it's very similar to the "Dayton Audio MKBoom Portable Bluetooth Speaker Kit". It requires a little bit of woodworking skills to build, but it sounds great. It looks to be the same size box, but it has separate woofers and tweeters instead of the full-range drivers. I really wish new sound bars would stop using small 2" drivers with a subwoofer that is really just a 5 or 6" midrange driver. It's getting to the point where some TV speakers are actually "better" than soundbars because TV's have space for larger drivers than the new slimline soundbars with small drivers. The only benefit of sound bars is that the speakers fire forward towards you, whereas most TV's are down or rear-firing. I still prefer using a surround sound receiver and separate speakers (bookshelf or floor standing), which provide a huge improvement in sound quality, but most people don't have the space or patience to set it up.
I have such fond memories of my F.R.E.D. decoder. I used it with a stand alone TV tuner box that had composite output to my TV monitor. It was so state of the art back then.
My F.R.E.D. II served me very well for over a decade till it was destroyed in a flood,
it would be really cool if TV makers would just put speaker terminals on the back so people could just wire in speakers.
I do remember some older TV's back in the wooden TV console days would just have speaker terminals in the back.
heck even a headphone jack would suffice, but samsung doesn't do that either.
You'd need an amplifier in the TV. That's going to create a lot of heat and make the TV bulkier which manufacturers don't want. I recommend getting self powered speakers and using RCA out or optical out. Finally there is an HDMI audio splitter if worse comes to the worst. Though you could do an AV receiver too which you'll need if you want surround.
There was a time when many TVs actually had that.
Like half of the 19+ inch TVs I saw in my time* had speaker jacks. Some would even allow to switch so you could use the internal speaker only, external only or both at the same time. And even small TVs from the early 70s had headphone jacks. The color models even had to use an isolation transformer on the output because they were still hot chassis.
*) around the late 90s to mid 2010s, the TVs I found were all early 70s to mid 90s.
I wish they would put line out jacks on the back of TVs. They'll put in crappy headphone jacks that don't have enough signal for a line in on an amp. My digital optical jack died on my TV and there are no other output jacks. I just started using the TV as a monitor after that.
@@robertgaines-tulsa line in is less signal than a headphone jack though, line in is unamplified, whereas headphones is
Many high end plasma TVs had this, those with detachable speakers that mounted on the sides of the screen.
My parents had RCA cables from the console TV hooked up to their Magnavox console stereo for years.
Wow, that thing sounds really good. I have a few audio devices I'd like to try on it.
I used to watch TV and movies and I ran the sound through my 300 watt kenwood stereo and whenever a good song comes on in a show or movie I turn it up. I was watching Beverly Hills cop 2 on TNT and Bob Seger's shakedown was playing and I had it blasting.
The large rectangular space between TELESOUND(TM) and the red power LED is perfect space for a bluetooth/USB audio module install/upgrade.
When you connect the headphone jack I feel like I am really in front of the Telesound actually using it. It's like going back in time
My father bought a bleeding edge 27” RCA stereo TV in 1980. The sound on that TV was impressive by today’s standards.
Great product & video. I remember in the early 90s ,hooking up my Toshiba Nicam stereo VCR up to my Dads pioneer Amplifier using Cambridge audio RCA leads, i was gobsmacked 😮, and a smile that stretched my face😂. Great days!!! 😊
My dad had one of these at the TV repair shop he worked at. I believe someone either gave it to him or he got it at the fleamarket. He used it for the CRT Jig for larger TVs where you would remove the PC board of a huge CRT tube TV and not have to take the whole TV back to the shop to work on it.
3:30 it still is the Untimate, today's soundbars don't have balance, bass, treble controls. These would sell like hotcakes today..
I love learning about stuff like this that I was never aware of. Thanks for giving it a thorough overview!
We had a pair of powered Fisher speakers hooked to our TV in the mid 80's. Still have them and i hooked them back up this year with a bluetoooth adapter on the rca inputs Still sound great.
People dont realize none of these ideas are truly mew as most have been around for years in one form or another.
Surprisingly good sound, I hope you managed to get it taken apart and cleaned. I would love to know what drive units that thing uses.
Fair play, for something so old, it sounds amazing! What a find 👍
19" in 1980? Wow! I think that I was already on my 2nd RCA 25" color console TV. I knew a couple of people who had 19" or smaller TV's in their kitchens and/or bedrooms.
Never heard of Telesound. I probably would have bought one if I'd known about them back then.
I don't think that I even got my first stereo VCR until the late-80's. I just hooked them to my home stereo systems.
My first stereo TV was when I bought an RCA Dimensia console, maybe a 26 or 27" screen.
Before stereo TV and even when VCR's were uncommon, sometimes for concerts on TV's, back in the early-70's, FM stereo radio stations would simulcast the TV program in stereo. I remember when a TV station broadcast a concert, got together with 2 FM stereo radio stations and simulcast the concert in quadraphonic. Car and home quadraphonic systems were just catching on back then. As you know, the format died out fairly quickly and it was another decade or so until Dolby surround-sound equipment came out.
Great video.
Hehe, i have both of those concerts on laserdisc, the Paul Simon and the Olivia Newton-John ones. Love both of them.
Lovely bit of kit!
Congrats on 200k subs!!!!
Thats a great product that still does its job, despite knob oxidation. fun stuff, vw~
Love the design of the case here, looks like a quality piece.
It kinda looks like someone had some spare material after installing countertops in the garage, so they built a speaker box out of it. I can imagine the WAF of this thing was through the roof. 😅 Just imagine the living room's simulated wood grain TV with a crocheted doily on top, and then this flaked gunmetal box with imposing brushed-aluminum control panel. Can you believe nobody bought this...
100% would use it if I had one. It's really decent.
Sounds like the perfect monitor amplified speakers for my studio.
btw your music choices are Always top notch, "colors in motions" a connoisseur choice i mist say
The irony is... this 43 year old "Soundbar" has BETTER features than the modern ones. Imagine having an analog stepless potentiometer for volume, equalizer and balance adjust on modern Soundbars by default and of course a quarter inch / 6,3mm Headphone jack. I can see why this thing had a purpose back then when most household TV sets only had Mono-sound and not Stereo. This was also fueled by Hollywood Studios not really giving a darn about sound and a lot of the shows were Monoural. That slowly began to change in the mid-late 80s with more TV shows offering stereo sound. I think CBS were among the first to do so with shows like MacGyver (from season 2 or 3 onwards) and Star Trek - the next generation, which had been in Stereo since the Pilot, which helped the amazing high quality of the shows soundtracks a LOT to really shine. In Germany it took even a little longer. Most dubs were only done in Mono, way into the mid 90s. At least for some TV shows. And yes it makes sense the manual referred to Laserdisc as Magnavision as by the time it was still in the process of actually becoming the Laserdisc format we knew that Pioneer gave us. Here in Europe it was originally called Laservision and was sold by Philips.
In 1985 I bought an RCA color monitor with variable audio output and an RCA hifi stereo VHS.
The whole rig set me back about $1100,,, sounded amazing through my home stereo but that VCR was the worst piece of junk electronics I ever owned...
The TV lasted 20 years with one repair..
Very cool device and way ahead of its time. As I was watching this video the first thing I thought was when this came out stereo TV or video sources would have been hard to get but at least if you had this you were ready for upcoming technology when stereo became more common.
Back around 1980 I had a small box, the Rhoades Stereo TV sound simulator, which took a mono input from the source, and a left and right
Channel output of this audio. 😊
5:34 the narrator in the Video Professor tape sounds like Phil Hartman!
Could be. He did the voice of Waldo on Van Halen’s Hot for Teacher video.
This is an awesome video! Thank you!
This was slightly ahead of its time and a groundbreaking product for 1980, because TVs were still using mono! People wanted to watch TV and music videos in stereo in the early 1980s, Telesound knew stereo sound was going to gain popularity!
New TVs with monaural sound were still being sold in 2001, I know, because I bought one. It was a little JVC TV with a 34 cm screen and I mostly used it with my PlayStation 2 and N64. As I say the screen was on 34 cm in size, no small TV like that had stereo sound back then, too bad.
@@Lachlant1984 those small TVs are the exception, because they were meant to be moved around and internal sound quality isn’t necessary for those small TVs! Sega Genesis was the first console to use stereo audio, I plug in stereo headphones, because Sega knew their console was going to plugged in to many kinds of TVs with monaural and stereo audio!
My parents last bedroom rca crt from 04 was mono and then we replaced it in 07 with our very first 40" samsung flat-screen lcd which we still have in storage
@@albertpintor3522 RCA is considered a budget brand by the early 2000s, my cousin’s RCA 11” tv from 2002 which is mono, was mostly used for GameCube and PS2! It was only good to take it to recreation and birthday parties!
@@Markimark151 OK, didn't the Turbografx come out a bit before the Mega Drive? When was the Turbografx released in the US? I understand it did provide stereo sound as long as you had the correct hardware.
Pretty cool device and ahead of it's time to boot!
It reminds me of the time in 83 or 84 my parents bought a new 25 inch console TV that had stereo speakers that were just ok for the time. My dad wanted the ability to watch TV at a decent volume late a night so he and his younger brother made or bought a kit to add a stereo headphone jack to the back of the TV. A year or two later my parents bought a decent used stereo system that had a record player and 8-track with an aux input. After a bike ride to radio shack with some allowance my sister and I plugged the headphone jack of the TV to the aux input on the stereo. We were able to crank up music videos on MTV before our parents got home from work. Those were the days! :)
I have a Panasonic 68 CM TV I think it was called "the one" well anyway it has good sound because it has 2 speakers mounted Coaxially in the guts of the thing and the sound comes out through the front grille. I think the main driver was 12 CM, but anyway great sound for its size, but I guess there was way more space in the cabinet than sets of today.
neat little device! everything has to start somewhere :)
also early congrats on 200k (when it happens)
I live in Europe, and grew up during the 70s-80s era, and was heavily into high quality video entertainment, and I have never ever heard of, or ever come across a Telesound device or soundbar.
However, before Nicam Stereo was launched in Europe (1986, digital stereo via regular TV Broadcasts) we often got our stereo-fix from our satellite dishes. I think it was called Panda-wegener and first aired around 82-83 ish, I do remember I had stereo sound way ahead of television sets back in the early 80s.
Nice! Wish I'd had one back then.
When I was very young my Dad was a bit of a technophile and had to have the latest and greatest. He signed us up for cable TV as soon as it was announced that they were going to lay cable in our trailer park. They simulcast premium channels on FM stations so you could get full range stereo sound on HBO. Probably some other channels too. A few months later a channel called MTV came out and the cable company simulcast sound from that channel as well. I remember my dad's old Sanui receiver and the little marks my mom made on the tuning scale marking each TV channel as well as her favorite radio stations. Needless to say this device wouldn't have served much purpose in our house and obviously other people either. Anyone who cared enough to to get better sound from their TV would just figure out a way to get the signal into their existing hifi
Listening to the stereo test beginning at 7:20 on a decent computer setup with wall mounted CANTON monitors and a subwoofer, it really sounds good. Not much worse than a direct feed instead of through the speakers and microphones. Would not have expected that result.
After all these years, it still sounds awesome! That really surprised me. I'm impressed!
Very interesting Kevin thanks alot i was too young but i remember my grandpa had one you're the best
I miss the days when TVs came with great built-in sound. I think my late 90s Sony WEGA TV's built-in speakers could rival any sub $200 soundbar you could buy today.
Definitely TeleSound was way ahead of the curve as I remember TVs back in the 80s and even into the 2000s having good sound capabilities. However, I would say that TVs from the 2010s onwards sound quality has gone down. While the 65' 4k Samsung we have is a good TV, sound wise it is not good and am glad I have a sound bar hooked up to it.
Being the curious teenager back around 83, I figured out that my all in one stereo unit could be fed sound directly from the mono output from my 13" color TV via the phono needle wires. I found if you didn't fully seat the jack that you could get a simulated stereo sound effect. It was likely affecting the sound phase in some manner. This was amazing to me at that age. The local TVs stations weren't yet stereo and even when they did get it, stereo TVs were well out of my price range on min wage. A local independent TV station made a deal to broadcast the 2001 movie and simulcasted on a local FM station. I was blown away by what I was missing with mono TV. I wish I had this sound bar back then. I do recall some cable TV companies were sending stereo via the FM band if you split the coax and sent the signal to your FM stereo receiver. Usually it was MTV or a premium channel.
wow that fantastic ,I graduated from high school in 1980 thats when my family got our first color tv 19 inch i remember those tv's I got my first 19 inch in 1985 and I had the recoton fred stereo system hooked up to my stereo system ,I kinda like that telesound unit it looks like it was well made and sounded good ,I did not know about this its good to know you are out there checking these things out ,I really enjoyed this vid JRo
I wouldn't be shocked if their failure was a marketing / distribution issue. I've certainly never seen one of these before.
When I was little, I do recall the TVs in the house both being hooked up to external audio, though they weren't purpose built devices for the TVs. Our "big" TV, a fancy late '80s Sony had decent built in sound - but the spare, a fully analog mid-'80s GE had trash audio. (however, the Sony died in the late-'90s - the GE still works to this day far as I know)
The USA was always so much more advanced than the UK when it came to TV’s. We didn’t get decent sounding NICAM sound until the early 90’s.
Its still surprising that it took until 1985 for BTSC/MTS stereo audio to become a thing. Even then it took awhile for broadcast TV stations to install equipment for it. Widespread adoption really didn't happen until the early 90s in most areas.
Fun stuff thanks for posting!
"In stereo - where available". Right here!
This thing was built like a tank. Beautiful craftsmanship. They sure don't make shit like this anymore!
Interesting to know that even decades and decades later, poor quality speakers still plague TVs and require external speakers! Congrats on the 200K subs as well!!
Even external speakers now are cheaply made too.
some of the TVs in the 70s to 80s in the UK had pretty good sound quality, i had a 1976 26inch ITT(a 'chuckout' i repaired myself) for a few years around the mid 90s, it had an 8 by 5 inch speaker and gave quite good bass, at a guess i'd say its output stage capable of around 4 watts, maybe more , some of the other ones 5 by 3 or 6 by 4 types, probably 2 watts
I'm sure a lot of people did what I did before sound bars and that was put the TV sound through the hifi. It was so much better.
I have one of those Archer video sound enhancer and it has basically the same circuitry as one. I’ve found that when listening to it on a good stereo with the speakers spread out you get more separation.
I know someone said this already, but try to remove those rubber feet at the bottom, as they might be hiding the screws. As for sound quality of your typical TV around 1980, I've head it stated that they sound like a tin funnel in a hailstorm. And I agree 100% with that.
I used to have my telly connected to my ghetto blaster, you had to have it on record for it to come out of the speakers. I used to stick my finger in to the tab to trigger the record button to engage. After a while the rubber wheel that takes in the tape would start squeeling when the pause button had been pressed for to long. I tried it without pausing it but it kept popping up! Me and my dad tried it for one night but it was annoying even though while it wasn't squeeking it sounded brilliant!
Cool unit!
The TeleSound is very cool. I've never seen one. It would have been redundant for some who had the right TV though. It was very easy with some sets, as early as the 1960's, to connect them to a stereo via factory installed, external dual line level RCA jacks. Our Motorola had them and as well as an external speaker jack. Using the dual line level jacks we put the audio into the home stereo system that had a reverb unit in the loop. Amazing sound from just a regular TV. It worked quite well until MTS came out.
Rest in peace to the projection screen TVs that had HiFi quality sound and horrible picture quality. I've seen so many Mitsubishi projection TVs in my life it's not even funny.
I think the stereo TV sound was popularized when they first launched MTV. You had to get a special stereo decoder for your satellite receiver and connect it to your home stereo. The market for these devices was booming back then. But I might be mistaken, after all I was a non-American newborn at that time.
What a neat little device! You can immediately hear the clarity in the voices when you switch to it.
I was listening to this on a phone with twin front speakers (a Sony Xperia 1 IV, but that isn't so important) and it was incredible hearing how that little box could send sound directionally like that! I could really hear it, even on my little phone!
Do you think they were overshadowed by the rise of home hi-fi systems? A lot of people were hooking up hi-fi equipment to TVs and using the directional speakers that came with those for extra sound oomph.
6:32 WOW, that Increases even the Quality of my PC Speakers (2.1) Triable and Bass. :D
Never seen that. But I did have a device from Radio Shack I believe about the same time frame. It was smaller with no amp or speakers. My TV didn't have headphone jacks, so I wired it directly into my TV, and it outputted to my stereo receiver. good times
Didn't need the Telesound in our living room. We had one of those massive RCA console stereos that I connected to the VCR. The 12" woofers in that thing, combined with (I think) 4 or 5 inch mids, and 2x6 inch metal horn tweeters, put out sound that rivaled the best 2.1 bars on the market today. Why settle for a sound bar, when you can have a sound lounge?
It's very cool
I think I used to own a Radio Shack box that took a mono input and produced left and right channels. I think I owned one but I can't find it in a search. It would have been made in the late 70's - early 80s.
Oh the irony! Watching this video on a modern TV with its teeny tiny built-in speakers.
They could have possibly succeeded if they could have gotten themselves into TV stores at the time. I imagine more people would have been impressed by a demonstration than an ad in a magazine.