Grace Digital’s Voice Enhanced TV Speaker promises to enhance the sound of your television and potentially give it a volume boost. The sound was engineered with voices in mind because, more than anything when watching TV, dialogue is what you need to hear. As a bonus, a Bluetooth connection lets the speaker work with any Bluetooth-enabled computer or smartphone.
I hooked up Grace Digital’s Voice Enhanced TV Speaker to my television and gave it a whirl.
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I was never a huge sound bar enthusiast, since I always thought the sound coming from my TV was perfectly adequate, but this speaker opened my eyes.
For a Bluetooth speaker, setup was honestly kind of a nuisance. First you have to take the Bluetooth receiver out and plug that into the wall with the included power adapter. Then you take the auxiliary cable and plug one end into your TV’s audio output and the other into the receiver’s audio input. Finally, you plug the actual speaker into the wall with the separate power adapter and turn the thing on.
Photo: George Tinari/Cult of Mac
It took me a few times to get it right because I kept trying to bypass the receiver and plug the auxiliary cord directly into the speaker, but that didn’t work. Once it’s on, press the Bluetooth button and then press Pair right next to it. When the LED light blinks blue, press the Pair button on your receiver to link them together. It takes about 10 seconds before the LED light remains blue so you know they’re linked. Cool. Setup was complete and I never had to do it again.
Once I got the sound pumping through my speakers, I was pretty impressed. Characters in TV shows definitely had much clearer tone when they were speaking. It certainly didn’t sound like they were right in the room talking to me, but the sound was far better than what my TV is capable of emitting.
Photo: George Tinari/Cult of Mac
Most importantly, it sounded true to life. It didn’t have too much bass or treble — it just sounded real. However, if you’re one to tinker with sound settings, you can adjust the EQ right from the included remote.
Satisfied with how the speaker sounded watching several TV shows, I tried out music. This definitely wasn’t the Voice Enhanced TV Speaker’s strong suit, but in fairness it’s not really supposed to be. Music lacked fine detail and sounded somewhat flat. I had to bump up the bass quite a bit to get the sound how I like it for music, and I’m not really the type of person who enjoys an exaggerated, booming bass.
Don’t get me wrong. If you’re in a large room filled with people who aren’t paying attention to the intricacies of sound quality, Grace Digital’s offering will fare just fine. It isn’t bad for music, it’s just not preferred.
My least favorite part of the speaker is its exterior design. It’s very generic but, most importantly, it’s too tall for my TV. Even though it’s only 3.8 inches in height, my TV sits pretty low and the speaker obstructs the view when in front of it. I have to keep it off to the side instead, which takes up space.
Photo: George Tinari/Cult of Mac
Lastly, an important tip: When setting up the speaker, your TV (like mine did) might ask if you want to control volume like you normally would or have the TV send a fixed volume to the speaker so you can control it there. I went with controlling volume through the TV since that’s one less remote to deal with, but when I eventually experimented with the other choice, sound was very muffled through the speaker. That could be a problem with my TV, but stick with the former option to be safe.
Grace Digital’s Voice Enhanced TV Speaker is a worthy television and Bluetooth speaker. It’s definitely best paired with a television show or movie rather than with music, but I appreciate the flexibility. If you shelled out a good amount of money on a TV with great picture quality, for this speaker’s asking price of $179.99, you might as well add good audio to the package.
