Need To Upgrade TV

My take.

Don't discount the thrift stores. Just get one new enough that it's LED and not plasma. Most have a date coded into the label. If an otherwise good candidate does not have a remote, don't sweat it. You can often get original remotes off ebay. Around here you still see descent TV's for less than a hundred, often 40-50 or so. A cheap external antenna should allow you to be able to test them, if there are local channels

Sound, for me, is the problem. It does not take much of a TV nowadays to have a great picture, but many of these the sound just sucks

On mine, a 48" Samsung, the volume controlled audio had no output jack. It had "digital IR" and you either need a compatible soundbar or an adapter to convert to electrical RCA. It also has line audio out. But both of those ARE NOT volume controlled. They are both fixed "line" output. Very unhandy.

I actually had to tap into the internal speakers, add RCA jacks with blocking caps and then connect them to a pair of matching transformers to provide remote/ volume controlled audio, which I then hooked to a small stereo amp. It works OK but not the best

On mine, has HDMI inputs and they are not particularly exciting, because, EG my external ROKU box hooks to them and for some reason the audio is marginal. I have to use much more volume with the external amp to compensate.

Considering the century we have entered, and the alleged technology advances, "it sucks"