LG LHB725 review

LG’s eminently powerful LHB725 5.1 home cinema system has a combined speaker output of 1,200W, but that doesn’t come at the expense of a sleek design. Each of the five speakers use aramid fibre speaker grilles that are designed to minimise distortion. The fact that they come in a shade of gold that contrasts nicely with the glossy black cabinets is an added bonus.

None of the components are particularly large, and the Blu-ray player in particular is very compact. Naturally, the largest part of the system is the subwoofer, which at 191×388.5x318mm will prove trickiest to place. Thankfully it comes with a decent length of speaker wire so you could feasibly hide it behind a sofa.

Similarly, the five speakers use conventional speaker wire and there’s plenty of cable provided for the rear satellites. Colour-coded wiring makes installation a breeze, as do the spring terminals on the back of the main unit. It’s here you’ll find the Ethernet port for getting the Blu-ray player connected to a network, or you could use the integrated Wi-Fi for a wireless setup instead. The initial setup wizard is straightforward and quickly walks you through the connection process.

Once online, the LHB725 can access on-demand and catch-up services from the likes of Netflix, Amazon Instant Video and YouTube, music streaming from Spotify, although the catalogue isn’t as expansive as LG’s Smart TV range. We had to install an update out of the box before any of these would work, however, and with no progress bar it wasn’t obvious anything was happening. Navigating through services was also a little slow, so you’ll need to be patient while apps open.

You can use Bluetooth to wirelessly send audio directly to the system, or add it to an LG Music Flow multiroom audio setup if you have compatible speakers. This is great for parties, but Private Sound mode is more useful for when it’s time to keep the noise down. Using the iOS or Android companion app, you can use your smartphone and a pair of headphones to listen to the system, similar to how connecting a set of headphones to a Roku player’s remote control redirects the television audio. It’s very useful for when you don’t want to wake the rest of the house while watching late-night movies.

The LHB725 supports HDMI ARC, meaning you won’t need a second cable to output sound from your TV’s integrated tuner through the 5.1 speakers, although a digital optical input is still available for older sets. Two HDMI inputs will let you hook up games consoles or set-top boxes, while the USB port on the front supports flash drives and external hard disks. The LHB725 can handle an array of image, music and video formats including JPG, MP3 and MKV files. 

3D Blu-ray playback looked fantastic, with lots of crisp detail and accurate colours that matched our reference Blu-ray player. The LG LHB725 was, however, lacking in contrast out of the box. Fortunately, you can opt for different picture modes, or tweak the image to your liking with a user defined mode. We would definitely advise turning up the contrast. We were also pleased to see Blu-ray discs start up in under 15 seconds.

Sound quality was equally excellent, with plenty of detail and separation. There was a genuine sense of directionality to the sound while watching an action-packed movie like Avatar, with arrows that felt they were zipping past us. The delivery of the lower frequencies from the subwoofer was well controlled and added some nice weight to more intense action scenes. A comprehensive equalizer lets you make more granular adjustments to the treble and bass of each speaker.

We were slightly annoyed with how difficult it was to get audio properly synced to our reference TV; you have to exit out of a Blu-ray to access the settings menu to adjust the delay, then start the Blu-ray from the very beginning to see if you’ve adjusted enough. It requires a lot of trial and error, but fortunately it’s a process you’ll likely only do once. It’s also worth adjusting the distance between your viewing position and each individual speaker, which ensures you get the best spatial sound representation from surround sound films and games. 

The LG LHB725 is competitively priced for a 3D-capable Blu-ray home cinema system – especially considering its raft of extra features such as multiroom audio. The Teufel Concept E costs £50 less, but the Smart TV functionality and multitude of inputs easily makes this worth the extra.