LG home cinema system problem

by Aaron Hyland
(Galway, Ireland)

I currently have an LG 5.1 system. I have run oxygen free cable around the ceiling for the speakers and plugged the system back in - everything seems fine except the two rear speakers which are very quiet.

Max distance on the run of cable is about 12 metres and the cable is about 3/4 times the thickness as that came with the system.

Any ideas as to why they would be so quiet?

Also I put six ceiling speakers in while I was doing the work and was wondering can these be connected to the system, or would you have to get a new amplifier?

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Hi

It's not clear if you were already using the LG system before you installed the cable in the ceiling, or if everything is newly installed.

The reason I ask is, are you absolutely sure the rear speakers are quieter than they would normally be?

Most people don't realise that the sound from the surround speakers is always lower than that from the fronts. This is because the rear channels are designed to blend into the room sound , rather than be a focal point.

I don't really see that 12m of cable would make that much difference to the signal strength at the speaker.

In most AV receivers, you have individual volume control over the output to each speaker - does the LG system have this in the menu? If so, you can just turn the rear speakers up a bit until you have the balance you like.

As for the ceiling speakers, do you want to run the ceiling speakers in addition to your system speakers, or instead of?

Usually ceiling speakers would replace your ground level speakers, and in this case you could power them off the current amplifier (assuming their specifications are a reasonable match).

If you want to run all the speakers, then this is more difficult. Don't try to power two sets of speakers from your amplifier as this will overload the amp.

If the amp has 'pre-outs', you may be able to use these to power the extra speakers. If not, you may be able to split the feed into a distribution amplifier in the ceiling - but this is more complex and you would need to know exactly what you were doing.

At this point, you may want to consult a local professional installer.

Probably not much help.

Paul (Site Editor)

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