Psi

I have a LG 50" TV, and I just hooked it up to a LG sound bar (via optical cable). When I turn the TV speakers off, the sound from the sound bar is very low, even at max volume. I have tried connecting the sound bar directly to the U-Verse set-top box (thinking there is something wrong with my TV optical output), but same results with the low volume.

I thought maybe the sound bar is bad, but I used it to play music from my phone using Bluetooth, and the volume seems reasonably loud at normal setting.

At this point, I don't know if there is something wrong with the TV, the sound bar, or the way I set them up. Is it normal to leave the TV speakers on, and use the sound bar to supplement only?

dfmaverick2

Is your TV volume set at maximum?

Many devices will start with the set volume of the original source as the max and go from there.

Psi

Volume adjustment on the TV has no effect on the sound bar, whether I have the TV speakers on or off.

The sound bar at its maximum volume, sounds barely half as loud as the TV speakers which are not very loud to begin with.

I have tried 2 different optical cables, and I have tried plugging into both optical ports on the sound bar - same results.

The TV model is 55LV5500 and the sound bar is NB3520.

mndtrp

Is there an input source level adjustment?

Psi

No input source level adjustment. This was supposed to be a simple set-up, and it's driving me nuts . One optical cable, and that's it.

dfmaverick2

Didn't see much in the manuals.

Looking at the manual for the soundbar, the only mention of low sound is in a boxed Note on page 19:
___________________________
! Note

-In some of surround modes, some speakers, there's no sound or low sound. It depends on the mode of surround and the source of audio, it is not defective.

-You may need to reset the surround mode, after switching the input, sometimes even after the sound file changed.
___________________________

Otherwise?

Psi

Thanks for looking it up. I did cycle through the various surround sound modes yesterday, but the volume was low in all modes. I will do a complete power-down tonight to see if that resets things.

This sound bar was previously used with a Samsung TV at a friend's house and it worked fine. Maybe it went bad when we moved it. We will try putting it back with the previous TV to see if it's a TV problem or sound bar problem.

I thought LG TV and LG sound bar - one cable, should be easy, right?

Spiky

Did you try Stereo instead of surround? In the TV settings.

Psi

After a lot of TV swapping, we finally determined there was nothing wrong with the TV or the sound bar, but we had to adjust some sound settings in the AT&T U-Verse box. The sound bar was a lot louder when we changed the U-Verse setting from stereo (default) to surround sound. There is still an echo that we need to fix, but for today that was enough.

That was why the problem persisted even when we connected directly from the set-top box to the sound bar, bypassing the TV, and why every other input source (Bluetooth, DVD) sounded fine. As long as the signal didn't come from the set-top box, there was no problem.

What a relief. Thanks for all your advice.

Dogg

Does the UVerse box have seperate volume control?

I know that with my cable box, the TV volume and cable box volume can be independant. So I can have the cable box volume at max, and the TV volume very low and have low audio (or vice versa).

The echo is likely a by product of having surround enabled.

Psi

There are 3 places where I can adjust the volume: TV, sound bar, and U-Verse box. TV volume works only when I have the TV speakers on, sound bar volume works only when I have the sound bar speakers on, and U-Verse volume works for all speakers.

When I have the U-Verse box on stereo, I get low sound output from the sound bar even when I set the U-Verse box at max and the sound bar at max. Now I have the U-Verse box on surround sound, and the sound output is high with sound bar volume at medium and U-Verse volume at medium. I can't explain why.

The echo was coming from the sub-woofer. I moved it and the echo is now gone.

william273

Had a similar situation with my Philips 3110B Soundbar. Sound was VERY low but noticed it was set to night mode and when I turned that off the sound came through like I wanted it....sometimes we just have to check out all the settings.

Psi

I know the Night mode you are referring to, but that's not the problem on my system. On my U-Verse, for some reason the audio output is low when I have it set to stereo, so I needed to adjust the U-Verse box. The problem was not with the soundbar settings.

LukeBlake

If you have ARC in the TV and soundbar you should only have one HDMI connection. ARC is a sound return channel. Your TV doesn't have a HDMI output so a second connection is possible. You should turn ARC on in the TV menu for it to work.