After a long day of work, you may just want to spend your free time chilling and relaxing. You’ve decided to catch up on some TV series or maybe watch a movie or two. Everything is going swell till you notice the sound doesn’t sync with the characters’ lips movements, that’s when you realize the audio delay of your LG sound bar. That milliseconds of delay is enough to ruin your movie experience, making it unwatchable.
Don’t feel frustrated, for we are here to help you fix this issue. There are a few causes and fixes, and probably it wasn’t your LG sound bar’s fault in the first place. We will be listing out the common issues that lead to your LG sound bar delay and then provide you with the solutions.
Table of Contents
Turning off and back on again
Trying turning off your soundbar along with other connected devices such as your TV, Blu-ray player, etc. Wait for about 15-30 seconds before turning them back on again. If this doesn’t work then you will need to start checking each device.
Television not in sync
There is a high probability is your television that is causing the ruckus. The syncing issue between the video you see on the television and the audio reproduced from your sound bar could be easily solved by adjusting your TV’s AV sync setting. If you are using LG Smart TV, please follow the below steps.
If your LG TV is using webOS as the operating software, please proceed with the following steps:
- Step 1. Push the home button on your remote controller, it will look like a house icon.
- Step 2. There will be a pop-up menu on your television screen, select the settings, which look like a gear icon in the top-right corner.
- Step 3. A new menu selection panel will appear, select the sound then choose the AV sync adjustment.
- Step 4. Activate AV sync adjustment, a slider will appear, then adjust the slider accordingly to either speed up or delay the audio so that it will be in sync with the video.
If your LG TV is using Netcast as the operating software, please proceed with the following steps:
- Step 1. Push the home button on your remote controller, it should look like a house icon on your remote.
- Step 2. When the menu appears on your TV screen, select the settings then choose sound.
- Step 3. Select the AV Sync Adjust and turn it on.
- Step 4. An external speaker slider will appear, then simply adjust the slider accordingly to either speed up or delay the audio so that it syncs up with the video.
You should also ensure your televisions are updated with the latest firmware to avoid any issues.
Checking your connections
There is a possibility that your cables are not connected securely, try to check all the cables to see if there are any loose ends or just reconnect all of them firmly (just in case). The connecting cables could be damaged due to wear and tear or due to external force such as been stepped on, been crushed by the cabinet, or got damaged during a move. If the cables are damaged, it may cause issues such as audio delay and more. If the TV and LG soundbar is connected by ARC, you may want to switch to optical. I will further elaborate more on this in the next section.
Do not use ARC
If you are facing an audio delay issue and you are using ARC as the connection between your TV and LG sound bar. You should change the connection to either HDMI or optical. As there are reports from other users that ARC connection is giving them problems.
Entertainment Hub
This is to keep your setup simple by having your soundbar take the role of the entertainment hub instead of your TV. All AV sources like streaming devices, Blu-ray players, and others, should be connected to the sound bar. The sound bar should connect to your TV using either HDMI or optical but not ARC.
Turning off the EQ settings
If you are facing audio delays, it is wise to turn off all EQ presets such as “Gaming”, “Movie”, “Sports” etc., from all devices as these settings may interfere and disrupt the flow of audio signals. Once you have turned them off, try again to see if the problem still persists.
Check your Blu-ray audio settings
If the audio delay issue only happens when you are playing back movies via your Blu-ray player. You may have accidentally adjusted the audio delay settings in the player. You should check and adjust the settings accordingly. Switch off all EQ presets/settings as well.
Slow Internet Connection
A slow internet connection can lead to all sorts of problems especially if you are using streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime. I remember watching a movie halfway via Netflix and start to notice the lip-sync issue as the audio is been delayed. I kept playing back the video at a certain timestamp so that the stream will restart as this will also resync the video and audio. The worst ever latency experience I had on Netflix is my video freezing but the audio kept going (I digressed). You probably need to restart your internet and router. If the problem persists, contact your internet service provider for assistance.
Slow internet connectivity goes both ways if your internet is working fine but the other party is not. You will still get delays and latency issues. For example, it could be a certain show on Netflix that are been watched by too many people at once in your region and so the streaming platform couldn’t cope. It could also be a coding error. Usually, there’s an error code that you can use and double-check online to see what exactly is the issue.
Contact LG Customer Support
There could be some common issues that only happen to a specific LG sound bar model. You could contact their support and check with them. They could advise you accordingly as they may have collected enough data by then from customers who have reported the same issue and possibly came out with a solution.
Send it for repair
If you have exhausted all your methods of solving the issue and your LG soundbar is still under warranty, why not just send it back to their service center for repair. It could possibly be a bad batch and they may change to a new one for you. If your warranty has already expired, you should check with their support on how much it may cost to repair your soundbar and see if is worth the repair costs.
In Conclusion
Fortunately, most common causes can be solved quite immediately, others may cost you some money and require more time/effort to troubleshoot. It is always worth spending some time to try and find a solution yourself before sending your LG sound bar for repair, especially if the warranty has expired. As sending in your sound bar for repair may take some time which means you will not have a sound system and you’ll be using your TV speakers instead. We all know TV speakers are not really good in terms of sound quality so it could be an excruciating wait for your sound bar to return home.
I am not trying to scare you but without doing some troubleshooting, you may not know if it is the other devices that are causing the problem. So even if you send your LG sound bar for repair and when it returns to you ‘repaired’, you may encounter the same issue again.
