Using television screens as loudspeakers

[C C]

https://www.economist.com/science-and-te...udspeakers

EXCERPTS: Although picture quality has improved greatly with the development of flat-screen televisions (see article), sound has taken a dive. The problem is that TVs with slimmed-down screens have insufficient room for decent speakers to be fitted to them...

[...] The loudspeakers of early televisions were as big as the screen ... A conventional speaker produces sound waves using an electromagnet to vibrate a cone-shaped diaphragm, but there are other ways to generate sound, including employing an actuator to vibrate a flexible panel. That raises the question, why not vibrate the TV screen itself? And this is exactly what a couple of television-makers are now doing.

Sony, of Japan, was the first to announce it had developed such a system, which it calls Acoustic Surface. [...] Acoustic Surface employs a pair of rear-mounted actuators to vibrate a screen made with organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Unlike screens that employ regular inorganic LEDs as a backlight, OLEDs emit their light directly. This means OLED screens have few layers—and that, in turn, means they are easier to make flexible and are thus able to vibrate more easily.

This vibration is invisible to the viewer and, Sony says, does not affect picture quality... (MORE - details)

RELATED: Television-makers are pitting rival technologies against each other

[Yazata]

I'm curious about what kind of sound quality they get out of doing that and what effect it has on the long term reliability of the screen.

[C C]

I'm curious about what kind of sound quality they get out of doing that and what effect it has on the long term reliability of the screen.

The guys in this video (different from the one at bottom) consider it superior in quality to ordinary television systems.  They do remark that if the sound is turned up too high on the model they're reviewing, then the screen will noticeably vibrate and patches of glare show up (perhaps where the actuators are located): https://youtu.be/qwQMXTApvR4

It mimics cinema theater screens from the standpoint that it can make a sound seem to come from its particular, corresponding object on the screen (especially demonstrated in the video at bottom).

Since low range vibrations do visibly disrupt the picture quality, these TVs still need a conventional subwoofer or two projecting sound rearward at the back of the set for the bass. The acoustic actuators underlying the screen only deliver high to mid range frequencies. So I guess they're relying on their negligible impact on the materials to not diminish life span.

That and the introduction of HDR imaging to 4K & 8K televisions that will reduce the longevity of OLED. So that people will probably still be dumping their old sets after 5, 8, or 10 years anyway as the brightness or luminosity diminishes (despite claims of 100,000 hour duration for newer light emitting diodes).

One of the following sets adds actuators that vibrate the television frame itself (frame tweeters) and two drivers projecting traditionally from the bottom of the set. (The woofers are located on the rear panel). 

Sony Acoustic Multi-Audio

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/6wlkj6zHv9Q