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The 4 Best Sounding TVs - Winter 2024 Reviews

Updated
Best Sounding TVs

No home entertainment system can deliver an extraordinary experience without proper sound quality, even if you have the best picture quality from your TV. Like in a movie theater or a stadium, sound plays an important role in immersing the audience. TVs are getting thinner and thinner, which means less space for proper speakers. Despite this, modern high-end TVs can get loud; some have okay bass and deliver clear and understandable dialogue, but the sound quality is nothing compared to a proper sound setup. We suggest you check our recommendations for the best soundbars if you want the best sound.

Even though 2024 models are being released and starting to become available, they're usually not worth buying in the first few months as they're significantly more expensive than previous year's models, but they do eventually drop in price. On top of that, last year's models tend to drop to their lowest price point after the new models have been released. You can learn more about price changes in our article on when to buy a TV. You can also vote on which new models you want us to buy and test. To learn more about the 2024 models, check out our 2024 TV lineup page.

We've bought and tested more than 425 TVs, and below are our recommendations for the TVs with the best sound you can buy. Make sure to check out recommendations for the best TVs, the best outdoor TVs, and the best smart TVs.


  1. Best Sounding TV

    The best-sounding TV we've tested is the Sony X93L/X93CL, a great TV loaded with modern features. It uses a 60W 2.2 channel speaker system with two midrange drivers, two tweeters, and two subwoofers. Its well-balanced sound profile makes dialogue clear and easy to understand. It gets very loud, with little compression and very little distortion at high volume levels. It supports eARC and a wide range of audio formats, including DTS:X via DTS-HD MA, which is great as it's the most commonly supported format on UHD Blu-ray movies. The TV also has Sony's S-Center speaker input, which allows you to use the TV's built-in speakers as a center channel when paired with certain Sony soundbars and receivers.

    It delivers fantastic picture quality, and while it doesn't deliver the perfect inky blacks with no blooming of OLED TVs, the Sony relies on a decent Mini LED full array local dimming feature to achieve deep blacks, giving the TV excellent contrast and black uniformity at the cost of some distracting blooming around bright objects. It still looks great, and bright highlights stand out with its excellent peak brightness in HDR. It also has a wide color gamut, making HDR content vivid and lifelike. This TV's unofficial predecessor, the Sony X95K, also sounds great, but it's a bit worse overall than this newer model. If you're looking for a super high-end model, the Sony A95L OLED sounds pretty good but is very expensive.

    See our review

  2. Best Sounding OLED TV

    The best-sounding OLED TV we've tested is the LG G3 OLED. It's an impressive TV that delivers fantastic visuals with good sound quality due to its 60W 4.2 speaker setup. It has a very good frequency response, but like most TVs, it doesn't have much bass. It does get very loud, however, and it sounds good and clear all the way to its maximum volume. Still, it has more compression and distortion at high volume levels than the Sony X93L/X93CL. It sounds slightly clearer at moderate listening levels due to its balanced sound profile, making dialogue clear and easy to understand. It also supports eARC, which is great if you connect it to a home theater system or soundbar. It also can upmix audio into a virtual 9.1.2 channel setup.

    Of course, it also delivers fantastic picture quality thanks to its OLED panel. Blacks are perfectly deep and uniform in a dark room, which is great for watching movies as there's no distracting blooming or haloing around bright objects or subtitles. It can display a wide color gamut with HDR content, which looks incredibly vivid and lifelike. The TV's MLA technology makes it one of the brightest OLEDs on the market, so it looks great even in very bright rooms. Its predecessor, the LG G1 OLED, sounds better overall, especially with its surprisingly good bass. Sadly, it's now very hard to find, as it's discontinued. Of course, the G3 has many advantages over the older model; it's brighter, has better image processing, and supports advanced DTS and DTS:X audio formats.

    The LG G4 OLED will be released shortly and will have an upgraded 11.1.2 channel setup. Thanks to its new processor, the TV is supposed to produce better-quality sound than the G3, but only time will tell if that's the case.

    See our review

  3. Best Sounding Mid-Range TV

    The Hisense U8/U8K is the best-sounding mid-range TV we've tested. It's a great TV overall, available in a few different sizes, from 55 to 100 inches, and it combines its great picture quality with satisfactory sound quality. It features a 50W 2.1.2 channel speaker setup and has a decent frequency response with a well-balanced sound profile that delivers clear dialogue, which is great for watching the news or TV shows. It also gets quite loud, although at the cost of some distortion and pumping artifacts at max volume. That said, not everyone is sensitive to this. If you plan on using an external soundbar or home theater system, it supports eARC audio passthrough with all major formats.

    It delivers worse sound quality than the Sony X93L/X93CL but with comparable picture quality. It's even brighter than the Sony, with better contrast and a better local dimming solution, although it has a much narrower viewing angle and worse accuracy and image processing. It uses the user-friendly Google TV smart platform, which is easy to use and has a huge selection of streaming apps, so you can easily find your favorite streaming content.

    See our review

  4. Best Sounding Budget TV

    The Hisense U6/U6K is the best budget TV with decent sound quality that we've tested. It's a simple TV with satisfactory overall performance and offers great value for its price. It features a 20W 2.0 channel speaker setup, and surprisingly, it has an alright sound quality for a budget-friendly TV, as most other low-cost options have mediocre sound. It gets fairly loud and has a well-balanced sound profile, meaning it's a good choice for listening to dialogue, but like most TVs, it doesn't produce much bass, so get a soundbar for the best sound possible. If you do, the TV supports many Dolby and DTS audio formats for passthrough over eARC, although it can't pass through some 7.1 audio formats like DTS:X and DTS-HD MA.

    Like the Hisense U8/U8K, it uses the user-friendly Google TV platform. It has a bunch of apps you can download, and the mic built into the remote gives you access to the Google Assistant and Alexa voice assistant features. It also has decent overall picture quality with deep blacks, helped by a sub-par but functional local dimming feature, so it looks great in a dark room. It has okay peak brightness in HDR and good peak brightness in SDR, with decent reflection handling, so it's capable enough for bright rooms.

    See our review

Notable Mentions

  • Sony X90L/X90CL: The Sony X90L/X90CL is a lower-end version of the Sony X93L/X93CL. It means it doesn't sound as good and isn't as bright, but it still has decent sound quality and excellent peak brightness, so it's still a good choice for well-lit rooms if you want to save a bit of money. See our review
  • Sony X75K: The Sony X75K is a decent-sounding TV for a good price, but it has low contrast and just okay picture quality, so the Hisense U6/U6K is a better choice for most users. See our review

Recent Updates

  1. Mar 14, 2024: Mentioned the upcoming LG G4 OLED in the 'Best Sounding OLED TV' category and refreshed the text in the introduction.

  2. Feb 16, 2024: Updated text throughout for clarity and confirmed that picks are accurate and available.

  3. Dec 20, 2023: We verified our picks for availability and mentioned the Sony A95L OLED under the Sony X93L/X93CL as a more expensive alternative.

  4. Oct 23, 2023: The Sony X93L/X93CL replaced the LG G3 OLED as the 'Best Sounding TV' due to the Sony's better distortion performance. Due to availability issues, we've replaced the TCL 6 Series/R646 2021 QLED with the Hisense U8/U8K and the Insignia F50 QLED with the Hisense U6/U6K.

  5. Aug 24, 2023: Replaced the LG G1 OLED with the LG G3 OLED as the 'Best Sounding TV', replaced the Sony X95K with the Sony X93L/X93CL, and refreshed the text for accuracy and consistency.

All Reviews

Our recommendations above are what we think are currently the best sounding TVs to buy for most people with different tastes. We factor in the price (a cheaper TV wins over a pricier one if the difference isn't worth it), and availability (no TVs that are difficult to find or almost out of stock everywhere).

If you would like to do the work of choosing yourself, here is the list of all our reviews of TVs, sorted by their sound quality. Be careful not to get too caught up in the details. While no TV is perfect, most TVs are great enough to please almost everyone, and the differences are often not noticeable unless you really look for them. Keep in mind that no TV can deliver the sound quality of a dedicated sound system or a soundbar.