DVD RECEIVER SYSTEMS

LG HT762TZ

Stylish

ome theatre means different things to different people. Some, like me, envision a large cinema-style theatre complete with video projector and popcorn machine, and other simply see a surround sound system with decent television. There are far more of the latter then the former, and it is for these people that the likes of LG build and sell home theatre systems that are easy to set up and use. Typically, your average theatre owner is concerned with looks too they dont necessarily want huge stacks of equipment and large speakers cluttering up their designer lounges. Here too, the likes of LG offer solutions, one of which is looked at here. The main unit of the HT762TZ is sleek, good looking and packs all the processing power for both audio and video that pretty much any of its target market audience would want. This includes built in amplification for all full range speakers and the supplied passive subwoofer, and video up scaling through its HDMI and component video outputs. As pretty as the main unit may be, it is overshadowed in the looks department by the systems champagne flute-like speakers.These, once assembled, are certainly modern looking, boasting chrome and gloss black finishes, feature cable management so that you dont have to spoil their design by showing ugly speaker cables, and their bases are nice and solid so they wont fall over when a breeze blows past them. Fortunately the supplied speaker cables were long enough for the speaker placement in the Audio Video studio (and they should be long enough for most smallish rooms), as you do need to use them when setting the system up.Thicker speaker cables wont fit into the small clips on the speakers or on the main unit. The supplied cables also have coloured tags on them that match the colours on the main unit, and this helps ensure that you connect the correct cable to the corresponding speaker. Once youve assembled your speakers and connected them to the DVD player/processor, and youve powered everything up, you would need to do a little bit of system calibration.This shouldnt take too long as some parameters are fixed.

VITAL STATS

Formats supported. DVD Audio/ video DVDR, DVDRW, SVCD, CD-R, CD-RW, MP3,WMA, JPEG, and DivX. Channels.. 5.1 Surround formats. DTS, Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro logic, 2Ch Stereo, XTS Power output. 100 watts per channel Frequency response. 240 Hz to 20 kHz Signal-to-noise ratio.. 75 dB HDMI inputs/outputs. 1 AV inputs/outputs. Speaker, sub, Composite, Component, S-Video, and HDMI Digital inputs/output.Optical in, USB PRICE.. RVERDICT The LG system should suit those who have a smallish room and who want a stylish system. Power does however seem less powerful than the claimed 100 watts per channel? LG Electronics SUPPLIED BY www.lge.co.za WEBSITE
Once I had set speaker levels, I moved on to listen to audio and look at the video performance of the system. These, Im glad to say, exceeded my expectations, with video in particular being good to look at. I checked to see that the built in scaler worked, which it did, although I did prefer using the scaler built into a projector that the system was connected to for a while. Sonically the LG system was pleasing to listen to and once I had the balance between the sub and the main speakers sorted out, these speakers integrated rather well. The subwoofer as is the case with most such systems didnt play that low, and should perhaps be more correctly labelled as an effects speaker, but it did do its job of playing said effects well enough. Moving to the rest of the speakers in the system, these sounded good too.They could sound a little bright at times, and could have done with a little more detail in the vocal range, but overall they did sound good enough top be able to convey most of the nuances in music and movies. One area where I was just a little disappointed was in the overall power delivery of the system as here I felt that despite high rated power, the system could have done with a little more oomph.

Joel Kopping

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