Bass Boost on a Panasonic TV

[Chris Hogg]

My new TV is a Panasonic TX-42MZ800B. It gets its input from a Humax PVR. At the moment I route the sound output from the PVR directly to my Hi-Fi unit because I find that the speakers on the TV lack bass and depth. But sometimes I think there is a slight lip-sync problem, which I take to be because I am separating the sound and vision signals early in their passage through the various electronics. I would like to increase the bass from the speakers on the TV so I don't need to use the Hi-Fi unit and so possibly avoid the lip-sync problem.

I see that many Panasonic TV's have a 'bass boost' option in the sound setup routines, but not the TX-42MZ800B AFACT. Am I missing something? Do they call it something else? Surely they wouldn't omit it completely, would they? So where is it?

[Jeff Layman]

The e-Help guide for my Panasonic TX-58GX800B notes: "Some features are not available on all models. Available menu items are displayed on your TV screen."

So it may well be that your TV doesn't have it if it doesn't appear. FWIW I just tried "Bass boost" on mine (with a Radio 3 Beethoven piece) and I couldn't tell any different with the boost on or off. I also tried running the Bass and Treble menu options between their -15 and +15 limits (I set them at 0 several years ago), and couldn't detect any difference. Perhaps it's just my ears! If I want decent sound I use an amp and external speakers.

FWIW while looking through the e-Help guide I also came across the following:

"SPDIF Delay

Adjusts the delay time of the sound output from DIGITAL AUDIO and HDMI2 (ARC function) terminals if the sound does not synchronise the image."

My TV doesn't have an SPDIF Delay setting so I can't tell you if it works or not.

[Paul]

"immersive sound" ???

Dolby Atmos – For immersive sound, thanks to built-in subwoofer

Page 24 "Equalizer Detail" -- that's if "VIVID" doesn't cut it :-) The Equalizer would give something other than the bland choices. And since it pretends to have a Sub... well who knows how you get a sub into a thin TV.

Paul

[David]

Try feeding the sound from the TV and not the PVR?

My TV has an optical out and my speakers have an optical in so they seem to work well together.

Scarily, when I first configured the digital out the TV played a test tone to synchronise with the speakers.

LG43UQ91006LA TV.

Cheers

Dave R

[Tim Streater]

Ditto except I feed the optical into my amp. But I still need the subtitles.

[Chris Hogg]

Hmm - I've long been of the opinion that manuals are written by super-experts, who know all there is to know about a piece of kit, probably because they designed it and have followed it through from prototype to production. What they don't know is how to write manuals in such a way that the average guy can understand it and that are free from jargon, and explain in simple terms how to use the kit, why some features are greyed out and how to switch them back on, etc. My car manual is much the same. Sigh!

[Max Demian]

At least with a manual written by experts you get all the information about the product rather than just what the author understands or cares about.

Mostly you just get a quick start guide that barely tells you how to switch it on.

[Chris J Dixon]

Quite! My soundbar is approaching 4 years old. I recently tried to access the page on their website which the Quick Start Manual claims is the Full User Manual, but had no luck.

Searching for my model, I found an "Archive" page, with no content (besides a photo of the unit) and no links.

Seeking advice from the maker, they originally just emailed a copy of the Quick Start Manual. When I persevered, their final response was:

"Sorry, we do not have anything else on file for this product anymore."

How hard would it be to maintain availability of archive material?

I did try Wayback, but the detail pages were unavailable.

Chris

[Harry Bloomfield Esq]

One way to improve the bass, is to increase the size of the speaker baffle. Modern built-in TV speakers are tiny, lacking in bass, because of their size...

An old trick which can sometimes help, is to bluetack a short section of cardboard tube, a similar size/shape of the speakers, over the speakers.

[Chris Hogg]

Thanks. Got that to work after a bit of fiddling. The rats nest of wiring behind all the kit doesn't help, not does the fact that the Hi-Fi unit only has a single two-channel (L/R) coax input, and I needed a bit of ingenuity to get the DVD player to connect into the system. However, by using the RCA output from the DVD player, via an RCA > HMDI converter and then into the HMDI2 socket on the TV, which in turn feeds the only input on the Hi-Fi unit from the TV headphone socket, everything works, as long as I remember to change the TV input from HMDI1 to HMDI2.

[Max Demian]

I always download PDF versions of user manuals, often before buying the product.

[Jeff Layman]

+1

I always look for the service manual as well, with

and sometimes useful.

[Paul]

Use archive.org .

Post the model of the sound bar and the brand, and someone can give it a try for you.

If your browser is too old, and the front page doesn't work properly, go to this URL.

Go to the question mark in the upper right. Click, so your I-beam is in the box. A menu with five items shows up. Select the bottom one which is "Search Archived web sites". Then paste the URL of the site with the deficient information content into the search rectangle, go back in time and try another date. Further back. Sites vary in how frequently they are archived. Some are only accessed once a year, others are backed up twice a day (which is silly). Archive.org has de-dup software, so even if it backs up twice a day, there is really only one copy of the file, made ten years ago. And all they have to do, is link a pointer to that copy. In that way, archiving each day takes minimal space.

If the URL where the info was located, changed over the years, this can make it hard to find a manual. You will need your best detective tricks then.

Sometimes I find versions of programs that run under Windows 7, by traveling back in time, but I don't really enjoy doing that. There are people who keep asking Windows XP questions, and every problem they've got, requires a solution fetched from archive.org . No web site seems to keep a WinXP era solution, on their web page.

One thing archive.org does not keep, is FTP sites. If the URL was ftp.something.com , forget it. It's gone. But

, those might work.

Paul