tinny

Timo Kurkikangas’s sound design could use some tweaks—the spoken text was sometimes tinny or drowned out by the orchestra.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 8, 2026

Nearly all televisions have small, tinny speakers that make it difficult to hear dialogue, especially for some of us older folk.

From Barron's ● Nov. 26, 2025

“There is not a thing that comes to mind,” was her tinny response, and that gaffe is entirely on the former vice president.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2025

Then he makes this film that looks tinny, like bad TV.

From Salon ● Oct. 24, 2024

His voice was tinny on the radio, but the strength came through.

From "Taste of Salt: A Story of Modern Haiti" by Frances Temple

His voice is clear and energetic but the recording makes it just a little lighter, a little tinnier.

From Slate ● Apr. 9, 2018

Donald’s voice is a little lighter, a little tinnier too, but it is unmistakably Trump.

From Slate ● Apr. 9, 2018

Its sound is mercurial, almost like a synthesizer in its mutability: now a liquid stream of notes, silvery and flowing, and now a tinnier rasping beat.

From Washington Post ● May 31, 2015

But “Nixon by Nixon” is also structured as a brief history of the Nixon presidency, and it alternates the darkness of the tapes with the brighter, tinnier tones of newscasts and interviews.

From New York Times ● Aug. 3, 2014

A fifth of a second’s hesitation in McAlister’s reply; the tinniest sharp note of surprise or protest in his tone.

From Slate ● Jul. 10, 2020

"The tinniest little teapot that was ever introduced into political life."

From Time Magazine Archive

I'm not gold, my dear chap, but the tinniest dross that ever was made.

From The Bars of Iron by Dell, Ethel M. (Ethel May)