Goose up that TV sound

The LG NB4530A Sound Bar is a 2.1-channel sound system that ensures amazingly good sound quality despite its remarkably thin design.

The sound bar is only 35mm tall and 75mm deep but it really produced large and good-quality sound that filled my large living room during a test run.

The NB4530A could be the perfect companion to a large screen TV and its width of 103.8 centimetres makes it a perfect match to a 47-inch LCD TV.

The sleek and modern-design sound bar unit in black and silver finish allows it to be placed in harmony with an LCD TV. It can be wall-mounted or placed in close proximity to the TV. The sound bar system sounds much better than the poor sound of most slim LCD or Plasma TVs.

And its subwoofer unit is linked to the main unit wirelessly, so it could be placed or hidden in any corner of the room as long as there is an AC outlet. For the first use, you need to link the subwoofer to the sound bar unit by pressing only a few buttons and next time when the two units are turned on they will be linked automatically.

The NB4530A produces big sound because it has total power output of 310 watts – 80 watts x 2 for front speakers and 150 watts for the subwoofer.

It can be linked wirelessly using a Bluetooth connection to latest models of LG TVs to replace the TV’s sound system. Or it can be hooked up with an HDMI cable to the TV’s HDMI port with an ARC (Audio Return Channel) to receive the audio signal from the TV to be amplified by the sound bar system. 

You can also connect it to a movie source, like a Blu-ray disc player, with an HDMI cable to NB4530A’s HDMI-in port and linking its HDMI-out port to the TV. This way will allow the NB4530A to play the sound and pass on the movie signal to the TV.

There is also an optical port for connecting to a satellite TV set-top box for playing big movie sound effects on the sound bar system, for example.

During the test, I connected the NB4530A to True Visions’ satellite set-top box, using an optical cable. Then I selected Dolby Digital output option from the set-top box for the HD movie channels, such as HBO HD, HBO Hits and Fox Movie Premium HD.

The dialogue of the movies sounded very clear, especially when I used the ClearVoice sound effect, which improves the quality of voice sound.

The NB4530A also has 3D Sound effect to simulate immersive and cinematic surround sounds. But during the test I did not feel that the sound effects of the movies were immersive, apparently because my living room is large. The 3D Sound effect should be effective in a small bedroom.

Anyway, the Dolby Digital sounds from the HD movies from True Visions’ set-top box were really enjoyable. I could hear the sound effects from the front speakers of the sound bar with good sound image.

You can also hook your video game player’s sound output to the NB4530A and use the Game sound effect for enjoying more virtual sound. There is also a Night mode that is useful for watching movies at low volume late at night.

Apart from using it to enjoy movies’ sounds, I found that the NB4530A played music with amazingly good quality.

The NB4530A has a USB port for playing music from a flash drive. The system supports MP3 and WMA files of up to 320 and 192kbps respectively.

The sound bar system will play files from folders, so you can organise albums. You can use the remote control to browse the folders. When all songs in a folder are played, the player will move on to the next folder. It can also resume playback of the last song when you turn it off.

When you play music from a USB drive, you can press the Info button on the remote control to display what’s on the MP3. The LCD also displays the elapsed playback time.

When playing MP3s from a flash drive, you can use the Upscaler sound mode to enhance the sound quality.

There is also Bass Blast mode, which reinforces the treble, bass and surround sound effect. I really enjoyed this mode while listening to music because the rock songs sounded really good with powerful bass. Moreover, you can increase or decrease the volume of the subwoofer unit to adjust the bass level to your liking.

I found that the NB4530A really delivers good quality with clarity and powerful bass thanks to the subwoofer. For example, the bass guitar sounded very powerful when I played Sting’s “Live in Berlin” album.

The NB4530A also has Bluetooth connectivity so that you can link it to your smart phone and stream your music files to the sound bar system wirelessly.

There is also a portable-in jack for connecting to a portable MP3 player using a 3.5mm stereo jack.

LG NB4530A Sound Bar retails for Bt12,000.

 

Key specs

_ System: 2.1 channel (sound bar and wireless subwoofer) designed for 47-inch and larger TVs

_ Power output: 310W output (80W x 2 sound bar + 150W x 1 subwoofer)

_ Wireless connectivity: Bluetooth, Wireless Sound Sync with 2013 LG TV

_ Input/Output: Optical-in (x1), Portable-in, USB, HDMI in / out (x1)

_ Main unit dimension: 1038 x 35.4 x 75mm

_ Subwoofer dimension: 221x 351.5x 281mm