[spoiler]

I'm a bit on the fence about this.

If someone buys a TV (y'know, a device that's supposed to reproduce sound and moving pictures), it should at least be decent at both. But if people want a high-end 5.1/7.1/whatever.1 sound then by all means they should be able to upgrade.

My mum? She doesn't want or need that, nor does she realistically have the space to have a high-end home-cinema entertainment setup (much less a dedicated room for it).

It's just a TV in her living room surrounded by cat toys and some furniture.

So, if she buys a nearly €1000 TV (she called it a "stupid star trek TV") it should at least be decent—although at that price tag you'd reasonably expect more than just decent—at everything it's meant to do of the box. She shouldn't need to constantly adjust sound volume or settings, or spend another thousand on equipment and refurbishment to access to decent sound.

In contrast, they say the old TV that's now at nan's house has much better sound (even if the screen is smaller) and are thinking of swapping the TVs since nan moved back in with my mum.

[Hikikomori]

Good speakers isn't really compatible with flatness of modern tv's. You can certainly make one with good speakers, but it would look weird mounted on the wall. Buying external speakers seems like a decent tradeoff for that.

[umanwizard]

Sure, it would be nice if TVs could have good sound out of the box if that meant no other tradeoffs. But if it means making the TV thicker (and, as other comments have pointed out, it probably would) then I'd be against it, since I never use the built-in TV speaker and frankly don't think anyone should.

Honestly I think high-end TVs should just not include speakers at all, similar to how high-end speakers don't contain built-in amplifiers. Then you could spend the money saved on whatever speakers you want.

> She shouldn't need to constantly adjust sound volume or settings, or spend another thousand on equipment and refurbishment to access to decent sound.

How about €100 on a soundbar?