[stofer]

I have just purchased a Sharp LS20S1E LCD television and I am attempting to connect a Panasonic Freeview box, a Toshiba S330E DVD player and a Philips Nicam Video player to the TV using it's single scart socket.

I have purchased a scart expansion box. Using the expansion box the TV will not recognise the units as stereo and insists on playing them in mono.

Even when I connect the items individually to the TV's scart socket, it does not recognise a stereo signal. Is there anything I can do to get stereo through the scart socket or will I always have to rely on separate audio cables?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

[chrisjr]

Have a look in your manual. There is a section in there about the various sound options. It seems you can select whether you hear Stereo, Mono, Left only or Right only. Or Sound 1 (Left only?), Sound 2 (Right only?), Sound 1+2 (stereo) for the AV ins.

Check these out and make sure they are in Stereo (there appear to be several options). If they are set to Stereo then it suggests either you have a faulty SCART cable, (only likely if you have been using the same SCART lead to connect to the expansion box then to each bit of kit individually), or the TV is dodgy. If you have been using the same lead try another one just to make sure.

You may have a dodgy SCART socket, or a duff speaker? By MONO do you mean only one speaker working or both outputing the same signal (there is a difference ) or the balance control is set all left or all right Depends if you get the same effect on analogue TV.

The other thing to try is to connect a stereo phono lead, (that you know works OK), from your Freeview box to the AV2 inputs and select that on the TV. No picture probably but you should get sound and if that is normal and the sound settings in the menus seem OK and you've tried all your SCART leads then it has to be the socket on the telly.