By Nurene Jassiem
Staff Reporter
South African soccer fans who prefer their matches to be vuvuzela-free can now take three easy steps to sonic freedom.
A user on social networking site Twitter has posted simple instructions for resetting your television's sound equaliser - a move that will drown out the drone of vuvuzelas without muting other sounds.
The instructions are:
- Enter the sound settings for your TV and find the equaliser.
- Drop the 300Hz channel (which Samsung TVs have, second from left), and raise the adjacent levels.
- Save as a custom set-up (if you can).
Eric Smit, the assistant manager at Samsung Store in Canal Walk, did a spot test and found that it worked on both low-end and high-end TVs.
"I can relate to the people who are saying the equaliser can lower the sound of the vuvuzela on your TV because vuvuzelas are blown at a specific frequency. On the TV you can set the frequencies at high, mid and low level," he said.
Meanwhile, the BBC has said it is considering offering "vuvuzela-free" coverage via its red button after hundreds of complaints.
Fans say the droning sound of the plastic horns, which has been likened to the buzzing of millions of angry bees, is drowning out coverage and leaving them with aching eardrums.
Now the BBC is looking into providing "clean" coverage, which would strip out most crowd noise.
A BBC spokesman told Britain's Daily Mail on Monday night: "We have already taken steps to minimise the noise and are continuing to monitor the situation. If the vuvuzela continues to have an impact on audience enjoyment, we will look at what other options we can take."