How To Fix Your Sound Bar: Common Problems Explained

There’s nothing worse than calling your crew up for a Saturday Night Football session only to realize that your sound bar is not working. Just like any other electronics, sound bars also experience issues every once in a while, and this is just one out of many.

But what do you do when you realize your home audio system isn’t functioning as expected? In this post, we tell you about the common problems that are likely to affect your soundbar and how to troubleshoot them!

Sound Bar Problems

There are a few niggles you are likely to come across in a sound bar review. If left unattended, these can easily mess up the whole movie-watching experience. Some of the issues include:

My Sound Bar Sounds No Better than the TV

The reason why people get sound bars is to improve the audio quality of whatever they’re watching on TV; so, there’s no value in having a sound bar that sounds the same as the TV it’s connected to. This is a common problem, even among the best sound bar brands on the market. 

A possible reason for this is that the sound bar is in reality not producing any sound at all. Instead, all the burden has been left to the TV speakers and that’s why the audio is practically the same. This may happen when you’re watching the TV using a set-top box like Freeview or Skybox.

If the set-top box is not connected directly to the sound bar, this is the kind of result you might notice. Depending on how current your set-top box is, you might have to connect RCA cables to the sound bar directly. Alternatively, you can use digital optic cables to connect it to the sound bar so that the sound issue is addressed.

However, you’ll still need to use an HDMI or Scart cable to connect to your TV for the video to be seen!

My Sound Bar Goes to Sleep Mode on its Own

Sometimes when you’re watching your favorite movie, your sound bar can go to sleep mode and turn off without warning just as you’re getting to the climax. If you’ve ever experienced such an incident, the likely explanation is that you erroneously activated a sleep timer. 

To fix this, you want to go to the settings and turn off or deactivate the “sleep timer”. This allows you to watch your movies uninterruptedly. Another thing, make sure your speaker isn’t set to “Automatic Power Off” upon switching off the TV. 

My Sound Bar Doesn’t Power On

Many at times, people experience recurring power issues with their speakers! You try powering on your sound bar but nothing seems to happen. If this is the case for your home audio system, then a possible explanation is that something is wrong with the power connection. 

Perhaps it’s not getting enough power or the internal power system could have collapsed. First, you want to confirm that the power socket is on just to be sure. If it is, proceed to turn on your soundbar using the on-board power button or even the remote. 

Still nothing? Well, try another power socket in the room; the first one could be faulty. If you’re still getting the same results, inspect the power cable for any dents and other signs of damage. Ensure that it’s been firmly plugged to both the power socket and the soundbar. 

If you’ve connected the soundbar through a power extension, try connecting it directly to the main wall socket and see what happens. Finally, try another cable as the last resort. If you’ve done all the things above but nothing is working, there might be bigger underlying problems; contact the manufacturer for help!

My Picture and Sound are Out of Sync

If your disc player or Set-top box is connected directly to the sound bar, there’s a possibility that your sound will be ahead of the video on your TV. Luckily, many modern TV boxes have a feature that prevents this. 

Just go to the audio settings on the menu and locate “Audio Delay”. Try adjusting one notch after the other until you’re satisfied that there is no more lag and that audio and video are perfectly in-sync. If changing the audio settings doesn’t fix the problem, here's how you could fix soundbar delay.

Conclusion

These are just some of the various soundbar issues that you may experience when watching or listening to music. Luckily, they are relatively easy to solve! So, before you decide to contact a technician; try the above tips and see if they work!