Low sibilance TV

Thanks for the replies.  We ended-up with a Sony KDL48W705CBU as the (Limited) reviews I managed to find said the sound was not that bad.

I have spent an hour or so playing with the settings, and despite turning the equaliser to minimum at all frequencies above 200Hz there does not seem much else I can do to reduce the sibilance.

This is not a sound quality issue -  It seems to me that the ‘better’ quality sound systems produce more of the higher frequencies and so more sibilance.

I don’t know why TV sound engineers don’t use de-essers as a matter of course. It’s a shame you can’t buy one that will work on the composite audio produced by a TV rather than needing to work on the speech component alone as this would solve my problem.

I don’t really care if it is mono, stereo or surround.  If there were old fashioned hisses, crackles and pops that would also be OK.   I just want to minimise the sibilance. 

I have tried time and again to design something that will remove sibilance from composite audio, but all I manage to do is remove the high frequencies altogether and so you can’t make out what is being said.  I think DSP is required with a very fast processor to actively seek out the sibilant points and remove only them and not the high frequencies, but although I am an electronic engineer, my programming abilities are too limited to attempt this type of project.

I guess the next step is to go around the shops listening to sound bars as you have advised – The potential problem here is that the sound bar will only reproduce (To varying qualities) what it is input from the TV.  As I won’t have my TV with me it will be difficult to assess the sibilant performance.

I guess I can’t make things any worse!

Sorry if I sound an ungrateful complainer, I really do appreciate the replies and will let you know what happens.

Thanks.

Thanks for the replies.  We ended-up with a Sony KDL48W705CBU as the (Limited) reviews I managed to find said the sound was not that bad.

I have spent an hour or so playing with the settings, and despite turning the equaliser to minimum at all frequencies above 200Hz there does not seem much else I can do to reduce the sibilance.

This is not a sound quality issue -  It seems to me that the ‘better’ quality sound systems produce more of the higher frequencies and so more sibilance.

I don’t know why TV sound engineers don’t use de-essers as a matter of course. It’s a shame you can’t buy one that will work on the composite audio produced by a TV rather than needing to work on the speech component alone as this would solve my problem.

I don’t really care if it is mono, stereo or surround.  If there were old fashioned hisses, crackles and pops that would also be OK.   I just want to minimise the sibilance. 

I have tried time and again to design something that will remove sibilance from composite audio, but all I manage to do is remove the high frequencies altogether and so you can’t make out what is being said.  I think DSP is required with a very fast processor to actively seek out the sibilant points and remove only them and not the high frequencies, but although I am an electronic engineer, my programming abilities are too limited to attempt this type of project.

I guess the next step is to go around the shops listening to sound bars as you have advised – The potential problem here is that the sound bar will only reproduce (To varying qualities) what it is input from the TV.  As I won’t have my TV with me it will be difficult to assess the sibilant performance.

I guess I can’t make things any worse!

Sorry if I sound an ungrateful complainer, I really do appreciate the replies and will let you know what happens.

Thanks.