Zenith (LG) DTT900 CECB - Page 28

i noticed out of sync audio last week when i was watching Earl on NBC. it was only about 1/2 second out of sync. noticable, but i could deal with it. i haven't noticed OOS issues with any other channels.

I wish they would solve the issue with the audio problem on the Zenith & LG clones. I'd like to pick one up with my second coupon. I was at circuit city yesterday talking to there salesman about the Zenith, He had no idea what I was talking about with an audio problem. I have my Magnavox hooked up to my Yamaha HTR and have perfect audio on DD 5.1 shows from it. I know the Zenith would drive me nuts with the audio problems.

It may be okay for Grandma with her 20 year old 19" tv but not for us high end users.

Same here. I would really like it for it's reception and picture quality, and it's ability to be controlled by an IR blaster, but not with that audio issue. Especially since it's looking more and more everyday like I'll be paying full price for any box I buy, because I applied for the coupons on Jan. 2, and I never got them (plus, the Zenith is now $10.00 more on top of it). I'm a little over 50 too, but my hearing is still very good.

It's truly a shame, as the Zenith is a marvelous product otherwise.

An online merchant definitely stands behind the DTT 900: "Zenith has said it for years, The Quality Goes In Before The Name Goes On® This product is proof of it"

Alas, the problem remains: for those using good-quality sound systems, the LG/Zenith/Insignia boxes leave something to be desired in terms of high fidelity audio and strange distortion noises.

I don't know how these manufactures can put out a product on the market with flaws and continue to sell it. It seems that they figure most people are too dumb or won't care. LG (Zenith/Goldstar) is not the only one, quite a few companies do this these days. Unless they solve this issue by June when my second coupon runs out I will look elsewhere to spend mine & the governments money.

But that was Zenith.

Now it's LG!!!!

Zenith was a US company now it's LG= Lucky Goldstar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG

Well today I made arrangements to send back the Zenith DTT900 for repair (hopefully) of the hiss in the TV speakers. LG pays DHL shipping both ways with house pick-up. I had an extensive email conversation with tech customer service before doing this to make sure they were not just going send me another box with the same problem or the same box that said "found no problem". It appears they can fix this, soooo, I'm thinking they know about the problem but are fixing it for only those who complain as if your hearing is not that good it's hard to detect over the program sound unless the TV volume is turned way up. This is annoying but right now the turnaround is about 14 days including the mailing of the shipping label. I will buy another brand converter box on my next coupon as I don't want to be their QC and spend the time trying to fix what appears to be a design flaw. I'll post back.

Good luck with sending the box back. I think it would be more fun to go thru the entire stock of boxes at the local retail store myself. Heck, you could try all of them right there in the store. haha

Just got my Zenith, and caught a few minutes of Nightly News. The chirp appeared to be a station problem, or at least is aggravated by it. First thing I caught was a recorded interview, and when the audio switched back and forth between narrator and interviewee, the chirp came and went with it. It became completely horrid when Brian Williams came on a bit later. My ears are still ringing. I could greatly reduce the problem if I put my Sony receiver (10 year old pro-logic) on dolby. When it was in Stadium or Hall mode, it was quite noticeable. The Zenith volume needs to be twice what it usually is. I'll have to warn everyone to cut the volume before they switch to DVD, or we will all go deaf.

The audio problem isn't just on high end audio systems. I'm using my Insignia with a 5 year old Orion "Walmart Special" 27 inch TV, and the audio chirping was unbearable until I bypassed the left audio channel.

I posted a lengthy comparison of these two on the DS thread at:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0#post13594220

Agreed! Every post that I read saying "it's not that bad" or "I don't even notice" makes me wonder....that's why I posted the mosquito buzz thing.

Even the CNET review downplayed the audio defect.

IT'S HORRIBLE and quite a deal breaker!!!! I tell everyone DO NOT buy it until it is fixed in a future revision and *confirmed* fixed by this forum.

It's interesting that that same online merchant points this out on that same page as well:

This unit is brand new and covered by the MFG warranty only. We can't replace it since we are not purchasing any more of them. If you use your $40 coupon to purchase this and it fails or you ship it back requesting a refund within 30 days, we can only refund your $1 purchase price and any sales tax paid. Once you use your coupon, we can't refund your $40 (that is part of the Government rules).

That is a very stupid rule!!! In other words, why should Best Buy, Circuit City, Insignia, Zenith, LG or any other company for that matter CARE if the product works or not? They are still going to get their $40 from the government!!!

Did you notice it in both channels when using the Stadium or Hall mode? I have a similar Sony unit, and when using the synthesized modes the chirping was evident in both channels.

I had to switch to standard stereo mode to hear it in left channel only. I didn't try the standard Dolby or Theater mode settings, as the center channel is steadily going bad on this receiver.

I lost a lot of respect for CNET reviews several years ago, when they gave a rousing recommendation to the RealOne player.

A couple of years back, they absolutely loved the Epson CX4600 inkjet all-in-one printer, which, among other issues, consumed ink as if it was chocolate candy. If you can still access the user reviews to either of these products, they're 180 degrees opposite of the CNET reviews, for the most part.

Glossing over this issue with the Zenith is absolutely beyond belief, and I wonder if LG will ever correct it?

In this particular instance, the merchant was referring to another brand of converter (Sansonic) that he had tested, yet had issues with two samples failing. The manufacturer's rep sent him a third unit, which he elected not to open or test. Instead, he's offering it at his site at a very cheap $41.00 price, to anyone who wishes to take a chance on the product.

Discovered another problem:

While watching the FOX broadcast of a NASCAR race, the video momentarily glitched.

When it came back, the audio was severely distorted. At first I thought it would go away, but it just continued for another 5 minutes, so I had to turn-off the Zenith box and turn it back on.

It's looking more and more that a the Zenith or LG knockoffs will not be in my future. Really wanted to try one of these. Oh well on with the search for the best box for my second coupon.

For what it's worth, I just spent some time testing the sound on all 36 digital stations I receive with the Zenith DTT900. Not one single station exhibited the sound problem (chirping) that others have posted about. The TV is a SONY Model KV-27HFR about 20 years old. I used the built-in stereo speakers. The Zenith box is dated Dec. 2007.

As far as the problem rrrrrroger posted, that's a broadcast problem. If it does it again just up-channel then down-channel and the signal will fix itself. It's actually a somewhat common problem especially with stations who have not perfected their digital OTA feed. Right now I'm working with a local PBS station to resolve a much more serious problem which is a scrambling or shrinking of the video when transitioning the closed caption during a resolution change. Sometimes the video will go all blocky and green and other times the video will shrink to the upper left corner to about 1/4 size. Up-channel followed by down-channel corrects it. I've found this to work with three different HDTV tuners. I would not expect all digital OTA feeds to work perfectly even after the Feb. 2009 changeover much less now. It's going to take a while.

Larry

I have one DTT900 (Nov 2007) connected to a 27 year old Sony 13" Trinitron. For experimentation last night I played with every combination I could imagine to try and discover the audio bug.

On this TV I was unable to detect any problem with the audio. It could well be this little TV with its 3" speaker just can't replicate the problem.

The Zenith DTT900 serves its designed purpose perfectly in keeping this little 13" gem out of the landfill and it now shows TV reception better than anytime in its 27 year life.

All ends well for me !!

The audio issue resides in the upper frequencies, above 11,000 Hz. This, no doubt, is probably well beyond the capability of the 13 inch Sony.

Hearing loss can also make the anomaly difficult or impossible to hear, even with the Zenith connected to an external stereo receiver.

At this point, I find it difficult to believe that any converter containing the LG chip is devoid of this issue. Folks are also experiencing it with the Digital Stream converter, which also contains the LG chip.

The key to remember this doesn't happen on all broadcasts. Only certain ones employing DD 5.1 with possibly center channel issues. The one that every seems to point to as being consistent is NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. Particularily it affects when he is talking in the studio--not usually a taped segment 'from the field'. At least that's what I gather from reading the posts. I do not own an LG box so I haven't heard it myself. But since I can still hear the flyback frequency of a TV when I walk by someone's home (15.75 KHz) I'm pretty sure I could detect the LG issue

From what I gather from previous posts, one solution is to switch the box to Mono. One person was saying he then took the right channel out and split that to the TV's (or VCR's?) RCA inputs. The thing is, if decoding a 5.1 program was the source of the problem, wouldn't switching to Mono also remove the audio glitch from the left channel? And, does Mono eliminate the audio glitch from the RF out?

Sorry to push the issue. My Dad's coupons expire next month and I'm trying to find something for him that's easy to use and can pull in a decent signal.

It wasn't supposed to be this tough to find a good converter.

If my TV's capable of doing stereo, then I don't want to listen to TV in mono.

Initially, I thought that switching the audio to mono was eliminating the issue. I was wrong, unfortunately--it's still there when the receiver is set for mono audio (even via the RF output), though it's definitely not as audible.

The only way, it seems, to totally bypass this problem is to feed the audio to a stereo receiver or TV via right channel only.

I just purchased a Zenith of February manufacture at Circuit City. It is used with a RCA mono CRT TV in a bedroom with an inexpensive RCA ANT111 indoor antenna. I set the Zenith for mono. So far I'm pleased with the Zenith.

That's exactly what I got, February date, Radio Shack. UBA00AL tuner so I guess it's a Sanyo, Lot DUL and some smaller font character that looks like a B or an 8. I can't see the Sanyo name on the metal, but ID and Lot# were printed on a sticker, visible through the vents. Just one stupid setup moment; I had it set for channel 3 but it needed to be on Video 1 as well. I may just go get another one and call it done. There is something to be said for having identical setups on tvs.

Those added features will probably end up costing more, and be ten times better in another year, or maybe I could get a DVD recorder, or even an HDTV --with all the money Comcast is not getting. I only got the chirp on NBC Nightly News, it didn't bug me for anything else so far. Sound and picture are better than with Comcast. I have a few breakups, but it's a difficult room, and the signal goes through three walls. The remote is too lightweight, I am thinking of adding some weight to it. By the end of this year, maybe universal remotes will have caught up with this and control everything again.

I just purchased a Zenith of February manufacture at H H Gregg. Used my first coupon and got it for $13.47. It is used with a 20 year old RCA 26" mono CRT TV with a very old set of rabbit ears. I set it for mono. Very easy to set up, easy auto program and picked up 22 digital signals, was lucky to get 8 or 9 analog signals. The picture is great and I have not been able to detect the audio problem on any channel. So far I am very pleased with this box. I do have a question for anyone who might care to respond.....
I have a VCR player that was attached to the TV that I use to record over the air broadcasts. Can the Zenith be hooked up to run through the VCR and then into the TV making it possible to still record programs? I don't want to ruin anything in the new box if I try this and there is no mention of this type of hookup in the instructions. If anyone has done this or knows the answer, I would like to know.

Thanks in advance for any response.