THX announces new standard for home entertainment enthusiasts

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The THX Standard will objectively compare TVs and speakers

THX has long been a major player in the home entertainment space. It’s the technology that helped home cinema enthusiasts bring home a theater-like experience in the ’90s and early Aughts, and more recently has taken it upon itself to help manufacturers tune their AV equipment. 

While helping speaker manufacturers get the best sound from their cabinets certainly has its merits, THX has announced that it wants to go back to helping you get the best audiovisual experience you can get in your home.

To do this, THX has announced the THX Standard - a metric that “provides objective and data-driven evaluations of the audio and visual fidelity of consumer electronics to help consumers make informed purchase decisions.”

The THX Standard will be turned into a comprehensive electronics website that will then provide these scores to the general population that you can reference before making a big purchasing decision. 

The THX Standard will start with TVs, amplifiers, and speakers at launch, and the tests will all be conducted by THX engineers.

Sounds a lot like another website I read… 

The THX Standard is an interesting idea - a professional tech website that breaks down difficult-to-parse data for consumers - one that we have a little bit of experience in. But it’s been done before … hundreds if not thousands of times.

THX’s ace in the hole is its THX Certified program, basically a consultation program audiovisual manufacturers can buy into to help them improve their products. 

The thinking here might be that if, say, a product doesn’t score well on the THX Standard, THX can then go to that manufacturer and offer its services to help tune the TV or speaker to match the metrics THX is looking for. 

Could this potentially cause some conflicts of interest? It might. But is it good business sense? You bet.

The THX Standard website is live now if you want to take a look - but, be warned, some of your favorite TVs might not have scored as well as you might’ve liked. 

Nick Pino
Nick Pino

Nick Pino is Managing Editor, TV and AV for TechRadar's sister site, Tom's Guide. Previously, he was the Senior Editor of Home Entertainment at TechRadar, covering TVs, headphones, speakers, video games, VR and streaming devices. He's also written for GamesRadar+, Official Xbox Magazine, PC Gamer and other outlets over the last decade, and he has a degree in computer science he's not using if anyone wants it.