Jvc Th-s3

[Mole69]

I have a JVC TH-S3 Home Cinema Kit, causing me a problem.

When playing DVD's, audio is fine. When listening to anything put through the AUX inputs, there is a 'static clicking' sound on the audio. This happens on TV sound (which is piped back into the TH-S3 down the same scart as the TH-S3 inputs to the TV). Any ideas?

[Contact]

Could try using seperate phono connections for the audio, but you shouldn't have to. Report the fault to your retailer and get it looked at, the HC hasn't been out a year so I can't see it not being under guarentee.

Mole69 - I have the same cinema system and I get the same popping and clicking noises when listening to any device through the aux input. I also get the noise when listening to the TV sound.

Did you ever do anything about this? Please let me know as I don't want to take it back if it isn't a fault (although I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be doing this sort of thing).

Cheers,
Dave

[Mole69]

I haven't done anything about this problem, as I don't actually bother listening to anything connected through the AUX inputs, like TV in Pro-Logic II or anything. The TV has an adequate 3D Phonic effect and that suffices. I do have to listen to the PlayStation sound through it, though, as the way it is connected to the TV through the phono composite input means I am feeding both the analogue and digital audio from the PS2 through the TH-S3. Is this necessary, I discovered that any games not mixed in DD or DTS have no audio when listening via digital AUX?

Let me make sure I understand what you're saying. You have the 3 composite cables from the PS2 plugged into your TV and have the optical out from the PS2 connected to the cinema system? If you're TV is the same as mine, it doesn't feed sound from a games console back to the cinema system (why I don't know), so you can't use the TV Sound mode to listen to the PS2. If you're playing your PS2 with the cinema system in digital aux mode then it will ignore the sound from the TV anyway so no harm will be done.

For my PS2, I have only the video composite plugged into the TV and the sound plugged into the analog AUX of the cinema system but the sound is weak. I will try using the digital out instead.

It seems to me that if you want the sound from the PS2 to come through both the TV and cinema system that you need to have it hooked up the way you do.

The problem I have with this is that I want to have a "spare" optical cable plugged into the cinema system that I can plug into my MP3 player whenever I want. Alas, there is only one digital-in line so if I have my PS2 plugged into it I will have to keep switching the cables Is there any way round this?

I will hook up the PS2 through digital aux tonight and test with non DD/DTS games to see if I have the same problem. Will get back to you about this.

Cheers,
Dave

[Mole69]

Let me try to remember.....

I eventually decided to connect the PS2 to the composite phono input of the TV (for reasons I won't bore you with.) I originally used the phono audio plugs into the appropriate sockets on the TV, but I only actually bothered with the audio from the PS2 via optical digital into the AUX Digital input of the TH-S3. However, I noticed that the non-Dolby Digital and DTS segments of my games (like the intro sequences) had no audio at all. I figured that because they were not DD or DTS, they would probably be processed out via the analogue audio outputs. So I connected those to the AUX analogue inputs of the TH-S3, but the problem still occurs. Still, I'd much rather the sound through the TH-S3 in Pro-Logic II and sacrifice the intro sections, than have ALL the audio in plain stereo through the TV.

I am not aware of a way of getting around your digital input problem though Dave. I thought there may have been a double optical adaptor available, but I'm not aware of one. You might want to check the Maplin catalogue. Sorry I can't be more help.

Okay, I now have my PS2 connected to the digital AUX line of the TH-S3. I have tried several games through the system (both Dolby Digital and plain stereo games) and they all seem to work fine. The sound quality difference between the digital AUX and analog AUX is huge. So I'm afraid I have no idea why you get no sound from non DD/DTS games

I guess this simply isn't a very good quality cinema system. I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised given its price but I would have expected better from JVC. Oh well, I'll just enjoy it as best I can until I either get fed up of the low quality sound or can afford to buy a better one.

Thanks for your help and feel free to discuss this system further if you have any other issues.

[Mole69]

Thanks for trying that Dave, I think I'll tinker round some more with this.

I am increasingly noticing faint vertical lines down the picture on DVD's, particularly noticable on darker scenes. I'm convinced this is because the TH-S3 is a cheapie. It also makes dark scenes very grainy. Have you noticed this?