# Electronics Prices



## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

Has there been some sort of revolution regarding prices of TVs, etc. in Spain? It always used to be the case that they were more expensive here than in the UK. However, today I bought an LG LED 4K Smart TV online from Worten, priced at €389 plus €9.95 delivery charge. The same model is available from John Lewis online for 529 pounds.


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

Lynn R said:


> Has there been some sort of revolution regarding prices of TVs, etc. in Spain? It always used to be the case that they were more expensive here than in the UK. However, today I bought an LG LED 4K Smart TV online from Worten, priced at €389 plus €9.95 delivery charge. The same model is available from John Lewis online for 529 pounds.


What size?

That does look like a good price.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

jimenato said:


> What size?


40", in both cases. I am not a fan of monster TVs.

They don't seem to have the same model on Amazon.co.uk but a very similar one, same brand, same size is 559 pounds on there.

My husband checked out the customer reviews online and it scored 4.5 out of 5 in over 160 reviews so seems quite good. I ordered it this afternoon and Worten have already rung me to say it will be delivered on Wednesday and offered me either a morning or afternoon delivery slot, so so far, so good.


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## Maureen47 (Mar 27, 2014)

We got our small freezer from Worten , great price and delivery service and took the broken one away free !


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## The Skipper (Nov 26, 2014)

Lynn R said:


> Has there been some sort of revolution regarding prices of TVs, etc. in Spain? It always used to be the case that they were more expensive here than in the UK. However, today I bought an LG LED 4K Smart TV online from Worten, priced at €389 plus €9.95 delivery charge. The same model is available from John Lewis online for 529 pounds.


Funnily enough I nearly bought one myself today after receiving an email from Carrefour with these offers:
Televisores tv 40 a 42 pulgadas Led Smart tv --en Carrefour.es
I compared the models I was interested in with UK shops like Currys and Carrefour was much cheaper. However, She Who Must Be Obeyed persuaded me that there was nothing wrong with our existing TV!


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

The Skipper said:


> Funnily enough I nearly bought one myself today after receiving an email from Carrefour with these offers:
> Televisores tv 40 a 42 pulgadas Led Smart tv --en Carrefour.es
> I compared the models I was interested in with UK shops like Currys and Carrefour was much cheaper. However, She Who Must Be Obeyed persuaded me that there was nothing wrong with our existing TV!


Sadly there was something very much wrong with ours - it died! After a few days of noticing an area of flickering on the screen, the screen suddenly went black although the sound was still OK. Investigations seemed to indicate it wasn't worth trying to get it repaired.


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## kalohi (May 6, 2012)

Black Friday week sales? There are excellent prices out there right now for all sorts of purchases.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

We got a 40" Philips smart TV from Media Markt earlier this year for €460. Love it!

I don't think there is such a big difference these days between prices in the UK and Spain, though the exchange rate makes a big difference of course.

HD-Ultra models are now coming in, so there will be bargains everywhere on regular HD models.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

Alcalaina said:


> We got a 40" Philips smart TV from Media Markt earlier this year for €460. Love it!
> 
> I don't think there is such a big difference these days between prices in the UK and Spain, though the exchange rate makes a big difference of course.
> 
> HD-Ultra models are now coming in, so there will be bargains everywhere on regular HD models.


The one I bought for €389 is an ultra HD 4K model which is why we thought it was so cheap (a reduction of €160 from Worten) . and Carrefour had the same model for the same price as per The Skipper's link. As far as the price comparison i could find in the UK was concerned it would have cost me about 150 pounds more there, which I wouldn't say is not such a big difference. Of course, it is Black Friday week there too so one would expect the same kind of reductions to be available.


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## The Skipper (Nov 26, 2014)

Alcalaina said:


> We got a 40" Philips smart TV from Media Markt earlier this year for €460. Love it!
> 
> I don't think there is such a big difference these days between prices in the UK and Spain, though the exchange rate makes a big difference of course.
> 
> HD-Ultra models are now coming in, so there will be bargains everywhere on regular HD models.


I have never found Media Markt to be very competitive on big ticket items like TVs, fridges, etc, although I did get a bargain on a Smart phone there, about €50 cheaper than I could find from any on-line supplier (I think it could have been a pricing error!!). We saw a competitively priced fridge-freezer we liked at Media Markt but they couldn't deliver for two weeks (we live 65km from the store). Went to a small local, privately-owned shop and they price-matched Media Markt for an identical model and it was delivered and installed within an hour at no extra charge!


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

kalohi said:


> Black Friday week sales? There are excellent prices out there right now for all sorts of purchases.


Seems like there are lots of deals on TVs im particular right now. Maybe excess stock in Spain that needs to be shifted.


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## VFR (Dec 23, 2009)

This is cheap.
Black Friday Tesco Preview deal instore and online from Friday - Sharp 49 inch smart led tv £199 - HotUKDeals


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## The Skipper (Nov 26, 2014)

VFR said:


> This is cheap.
> Black Friday Tesco Preview deal instore and online from Friday - Sharp 49 inch smart led tv £199 - HotUKDeals


It does sound a good deal but this is not a 4k UHD TV which everyone now wants. I suspect there will be a lot of bargain offers for HD sets as stores try to clear old stock. Amazing that HD is already old hat!


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## VFR (Dec 23, 2009)

The Skipper said:


> It does sound a good deal but this is not a 4k UHD TV which everyone now wants. I suspect there will be a lot of bargain offers for HD sets as stores try to clear old stock. Amazing that HD is already old hat!



Is there any 4K broadcast ?


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## The Skipper (Nov 26, 2014)

VFR said:


> Is there any 4K broadcast ?


Very little at the moment but I'm told the more expensive 4k TVs will upscale pictures from HD quality to UHD. I saw a UHD film streamed via the internet to a 4k TV a couple of weeks ago and the picture quality was amazing. Pity The Boss won't let me replace our HD TV with a 4k (I'll have to think of a way to make it go wrong!).


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

The Skipper said:


> It does sound a good deal but this is not a 4k UHD TV which everyone now wants. I suspect there will be a lot of bargain offers for HD sets as stores try to clear old stock. Amazing that HD is already old hat!


Yes, amazing. We've still got a prehistoric tv which must measure 35/ 40 cms deep. Whilst I understand that progress must be made I do feel we've lost the plot sometimes with household appliances. I want a washing machine that washes clothes and doesn't cost a fortune to get repaired and oven that cooks food and little else.


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

Lynn R said:


> Has there been some sort of revolution regarding prices of TVs, etc. in Spain? It always used to be the case that they were more expensive here than in the UK. However, today I bought an LG LED 4K Smart TV online from Worten, priced at €389 plus €9.95 delivery charge. The same model is available from John Lewis online for 529 pounds.


OH has just spotted a 49 inch Bush 4G for £279 from Argos. 

I beat you by £100 and 9 inches. 

Will be off to buy it in the morning.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

jimenato said:


> OH has just spotted a 49 inch Bush 4G for £279 from Argos.
> 
> I beat you by £100 and 9 inches.
> 
> Will be off to buy it in the morning.


I hope it's better than some reviews of Bush products seem to indicate.

Bush LE-58GCL

We looked at Smart TVs in Worten and Media Markt before we ordered this new one and the picture quality on the cheaper brands was pretty poor, even to me and I am no techie or expert.


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## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

Lynn R said:


> I hope it's better than some reviews of Bush products seem to indicate.
> 
> Bush LE-58GCL
> 
> We looked at Smart TVs in Worten and Media Markt before we ordered this new one and the picture quality on the cheaper brands was pretty poor, even to me and I am no techie or expert.


Yup - thought of that. It's Argos - if we don't like it it goes back.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

Worten made good on their promise to deliver my new TV this evening, very good service. It was delivered by a very nice chap who spoke good English, when I complimented him on it he said he'd lived in England, in Hemel Hempstead, for a few years during the crisis working as a chef in a carvery! He was required to take a photo of the TV in situ in our house as proof of delivery as well as having the delivery forms signed (in triplicate and a digital version on his phone). No messing us about by saying they couldn't find our address because they can't driver to it, either, which sometimes happens with courier firms. It's the first time we've bought anything from them but have been impressed so far.


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## VFR (Dec 23, 2009)

The Skipper said:


> Very little at the moment but I'm told the more expensive 4k TVs will upscale pictures from HD quality to UHD. I saw a UHD film streamed via the internet to a 4k TV a couple of weeks ago and the picture quality was amazing. Pity The Boss won't let me replace our HD TV with a 4k (I'll have to think of a way to make it go wrong!).


Wait till you see 8K !
Watched a demo of this of the ice skating in the last winter olympics & that was stunning, but will be a good few years I guess before that arrives.


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

I can't tell the difference between HD & a normal picture so it's all be wasted on me.Then again I haven't had Uk tv for some years anyway & the tv in the lounge has the plastic bag that it came in over it.


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## chrisnation (Mar 2, 2009)

The Skipper said:


> Funnily enough I nearly bought one myself today after receiving an email from Carrefour with these offers:
> Televisores tv 40 a 42 pulgadas Led Smart tv --en Carrefour.es
> I compared the models I was interested in with UK shops like Currys and Carrefour was much cheaper. However, She Who Must Be Obeyed persuaded me that there was nothing wrong with our existing TV!


Possibly she does not want any competition in the 'smart' category - esp not from a goggle box


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

gus-lopez said:


> I can't tell the difference between HD & a normal picture so it's all be wasted on me.Then again I haven't had Uk tv for some years anyway & the tv in the lounge has the plastic bag that it came in over it.


I agree and those huge screens in a normal room mean that one is too close and can see every pixel - awful. We have a 40" in the TV Room/Office which cost £245 a couple of years ago and a 42" 3D one (inherited) in the attic lounge. I don't watch TV apart from the odd movie which I am quite happy to watch on the 19" monitor on the PC.

Take a look at what is available on e-bay which is where we bought our 40" and also SWMBO's laptop with W7 when everywhere else wanted to sell us W8.


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## chrisnation (Mar 2, 2009)

Lynn R said:


> Has there been some sort of revolution regarding prices of TVs, etc. in Spain? It always used to be the case that they were more expensive here than in the UK. However, today I bought an LG LED 4K Smart TV online from Worten, priced at €389 plus €9.95 delivery charge. The same model is available from John Lewis online for 529 pounds.


LG do make really good gear, so - nice work. But not all models of various makes are available in Spain. Perhaps, as happens frequently in UK, your model is a special by LG for that retailer.

The Panasonic TX-40/50/58 DX700 range has just been released in Spain. This telly is about the best bangs per buck for 4K there is. The 40" is down to GBP499 and 50" GBP599 at Amz UK. The 50" is €933 and, most bizarrely, the 40" is €930! at Amz ES. That's GBP808 at €1.15

The Humax 1100 500Gb Freesat stb, one for the UK TV via satellite brigade, is GBP172 on Amz UK and €253 on Amz ES tho' €239 from a Marketplace seller, +/- GBP210. You can get one for GBP139 with full 12 month g'tee from Humax refurb dept.


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## chrisnation (Mar 2, 2009)

"I can't tell the difference between HD & a normal picture so it's all be wasted on me". Crikey! Talk about chalk and cheese!

But what is "a normal picture"? Capt Mainwaring and co blundered about in what's now called SD, Standard Definition - 414,720 pixels. Very little, if anything, has been produced in SD for some years. The difference, to my eyes, when watching an old re-run, is _enormous_ and that's just on so-called Full HD.

4k is a big step forward - 8,294,400 pixels. The best HD - and there have been some misleading 'HD's applied to TVs - delivers 2,073,600 pixels. So for any given screen area, the picture is made up of over 4x as many dots for 4k as full HD. You might still have one of the first run of 'HD', often touted as 'HD Ready' which delivered only 921,600 pixels. Compared to 4k, this is what us snappers used to call "soot and whitewash" in terms of repro.

This 4-fold increase in pixel density over Full HD, for any given screen area, means a far sharper image and so, for any given viewing distance, a better viewing experience. Less of the pixels themselves interfering with the appearance of the image.

The result of that is you will get a crisper image with 4k AND you could go up in screen size but withut the pixels becoming intrusive. 

I taped a 50" diagonal 16x9 rectangle to the doors of the wardrobe at the end of my bed. The result is that I'm going up from 42" to 50". Size matters!

As for having a great black rectangle lurking about, with the virtually bezelfree TVs now, I will run a slide show of my photographs on the telly when it's not being a telly and so have rolling show of frameless 110cm x 65cm masterpieces...


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

gus-lopez said:


> I can't tell the difference between HD & a normal picture so it's all be wasted on me.Then again I haven't had Uk tv for some years anyway & the tv in the lounge has the plastic bag that it came in over it.


Totally agree with you. Probably if they are side by side I could appreciate the difference, but when is that going to happen?

If it's important for someone then fair enough, but we are really not bothered.


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

Pesky Wesky said:


> Totally agree with you. Probably if they are side by side I could appreciate the difference, but when is that going to happen?
> 
> If it's important for someone then fair enough, but we are really not bothered.


It is rather like those fanatics who had to have the all singing, all dancing super-stereo umpteen speakers Hi-Fi system and then put it in an ordinary room with all the trappings of an everyday lounge so that anything that might have been gained was lost in the sound-deadening of soft-furnishings, etc,


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

I didn't thnk I'd notice the difference with HD until we got one! It is like cleaning your spectacles after a few weeks not bothering.

Our Smart TV came with Netflix built in and I'm re-watching all the old David Attenburgh nature series, Planet Earth etc. You can literally see the pollen grains on the bees' knees.


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## The Skipper (Nov 26, 2014)

Alcalaina said:


> I didn't thnk I'd notice the difference with HD until we got one! It is like cleaning your spectacles after a few weeks not bothering.
> 
> Our Smart TV came with Netflix built in and I'm re-watching all the old David Attenburgh nature series, Planet Earth etc. You can literally see the pollen grains on the bees' knees.


I totally agree! I couldn't see the difference between the two at first but last month we visited our son in the UK and watched a film on his new 4k UHD set. Just amazing! I finally managed to persuade SWMBO that we had to have one so bought an LG 43-inch 4k UHD Smart TV on Black Friday for €397. The difference is staggering, even with non-hd broadcasts. Boys and their toys!


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## chrisnation (Mar 2, 2009)

baldilocks said:


> It is rather like those fanatics who had to have the all singing, all dancing super-stereo umpteen speakers Hi-Fi system and then put it in an ordinary room with all the trappings of an everyday lounge so that anything that might have been gained was lost in the sound-deadening of soft-furnishings, etc,


In the recording industry, these people are known as "the Golden Ear Brigade". They buy speaker cables with solid silver cores and GBP200 gizmos to smooth the mains to a perfect sine wave

One of the silliest Golden Ear spoutings I ever heard was from Ivor Tiefenbrun, the boss of Linn Audio (which does actually make good kit). He said the only real test of speakers was to listen to _it_ - yes! never mind it's half of a stereo pair, only one! - in an anachoic chamber. 

But beware of dissing all who claim to see the improvements in audio and video. A friend of mine who worked as a service engineer at Virgin Records was told by a recording engineer that there was 'a dip' between X KHz and Y Khz in the control room monitor system.

There was a lot of eye rolling and muttering about Golden Ears but out came all the meters and pilot tone tapes to test - and there was! The guys could hear this 'dip' in the frequency curve of the system! And this at playback volumes that would make your ears bleed.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Lots of experts on this thread - so can anyone recommend a solution for those TV series where the sound is really distorted? You can't hear the conversation so you turn up the volume but when a gun is fired it blows your ears out. I think it's something to do with the number of audio channels but I really don't want to buy a "home cinema" set with five different speakers.


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## chrisnation (Mar 2, 2009)

Alcalaina said:


> Lots of experts on this thread - so can anyone recommend a solution for those TV series where the sound is really distorted? You can't hear the conversation so you turn up the volume but when a gun is fired it blows your ears out. I think it's something to do with the number of audio channels but I really don't want to buy a "home cinema" set with five different speakers.


If you get perfect audio on some broadcasts and distorted on others, it must be something about the audio at the broadcast/transmission end. If you _never _get distorted audio whenever you play a DVD or Blu-Ray, that confirms it. 

It is possible that the level on the audio track is so low that you have to turn up the vol at your end and this pushes your TV speakers into 'breaking up' and you hear distortion, especially when the sound track is putting out loud noises - guns, explosions, adverts, Jeremy Clarkson ...

You don't need home cinema. Hardly anybody does.

If you consistently need more volume than your TV's speakers can handle without distortion, the simplest thing to do is to buy a pair of decent but well affordable speakers and a stereo amplifier. Ideally, the speakers are placed either side of your TV and the amp lives with the other boxes, wherever they live. 

This is an area where differences of opinion on interior design/ decor can reach "sleep on the sofa with your beloved boxes, then!" pitch...

I have this set up because I get better audio from the TV and my particular TV has a well known glitch whereby the case/chassis rattles at a particular frequency, roundabout male speaking voice - really annoying.

Apart from dealing with this distortion issue, you will find that audio is _greatly_ improved across the board, especially at the bass end. 

For example, an ideal amp for this sort of rig is the Cambridge Audio Topaz AM1. Cambridge is now retailer Richer Sounds house brand but the quality is good. The next model up, AM5, is slightly more powerful - not important - but _does_ have a 3.5mm socket on the front to connect an MP3/iPod, to use the set-up as a music source. That adds GBP20 to the price of the AM1. 

But being a house brand, this make is GBP70-80 cheaper than the general run of makes, mostly Japanese - Denon, Marantz, Pioneer. 

Whatever amp you choose, you run a pair of leads from the_ audio out_ of your TV - some TVs don't have, so you run out of the headphone socket, which they all do) (via a stereo adapator - 3.5mm to stereo RCA phono, very common adapator) to one of the _audio in_ pairs of sockets on the back of the amp. Use the one marked AUX.

Then speaker cables from the speaker terminals on the back of the amp to your speakers, left and right. Don't use bell wire. That stuff _does_ eat signal.

Speakers. The Wharfedale Diamond is a perennial fave. It's been around for 30 years. Anything by Wharfedale, Tannoy, Mission, Maudant Short - I don't know anything about Cambridge Audio speakers. But the makes I have listed have all been in the speaker biz since Adam was a lad.

The thing about speakers is that, in this case, size matters. As speakers work by buffeting the air in contact with the cones at a rate that turns into audible sound, as a general rule the bigger the speakers, the more air they shift, so the louder they can go and the deeper they can reach down the audio spectrum. 

This is where audio fidelity goes toe to toe with "I'm not having those steaming great boxes in this sitting room!"

If your amp is dedicated to just feeding signal from the TV to the speakers, you can leave the selector switch on the front at AUX. If you link the amp to any other inputs, such as a CD player, you will have to rise out of your seat and turn the selector from CD to AUX or vice versa, depending what you were last listening to.

To get round this, you spend _a lot _more money on an amp with a remote. This will almost certainly have optical audio input which is handy because all TVs now have optical audio out sockets. 

So, establish from my paras 1 and 2 if you always get distortion or only sometimes. Ads are always broadcast at much higher audio levels than programmes, for obvious reasons. If the ads always go into distortion whilst the programmes have been OK, the speakers are being overloaded and are not up to the job. Buy the stereo rig. The above will cost GBP110-130.

Note that I have only mentioned British and Japanese hardware. I know nothing about Spanish or other European stuff.


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## Desiato (Jun 1, 2015)

I also had problems hearing people speak on my Panasonic set and despite changing the audio settings on the TV to 'speech', what solved it for me was running the audio through my hifi. It's pretty much what chrisnation is suggesting but you may not have to spend anything if you have an old hifi system lying around not doing anything.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Thank you both, I will investigate wiring it up to our existing Pioneer speakers. More cables for the cat to play with but probably worth the effort. Sons of Anarchy was the worst, all those Harleys...


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## Rabbitcat (Aug 31, 2014)

Don't get me started re sound on Tv proggys

I have been trying to watch a complete series of Charlie Chaplin movies and have yet been unable to hear a single word he's said


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## chrisnation (Mar 2, 2009)

Rabbitcat said:


> Don't get me started re sound on Tv proggys
> 
> I have been trying to watch a complete series of Charlie Chaplin movies and have yet been unable to hear a single word he's said


Same with Buster Keaton


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

I've been trying to watch Fernandel in Don Camillo but the talk is all gobbledygook and sounds more like Italian, can't make head nor tail of it The music, when there is any, seems all right.


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## Gran Erry-Bredd (Nov 1, 2016)

Sorry, what did you say? You'll have to speak louder.


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