TV sound general question

[Ant555]

My old 40" LED TV went faulty and I purchased a Samsung 43inch QLED as a replacement.

Im really disappointed with the new TV however its not 'faulty' so am kind of stuck with it.

I was thinking about a (cheap) soundbar but ive never owned one before.  The TV has optical out so is that the best way to connect a soundbar to a TV?

Thanks

[Anankha]

Yes, an optical out will give digital connection to the sound bar.
With our LG HD TV I’ve just connected a small pair of speakers to the headphone output which has improved the sound immensely.

[Roger_Gooner]

Just about every soundbar supports HDMI ARC, and this is what you'd use to connect the TV. Better soundbars have multiple HDMI inputs.

[Graham_A]

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@Roger_Gooner wrote:

Just about every soundbar supports HDMI ARC, and this is what you'd use to connect the TV. Better soundbars have multiple HDMI inputs.

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The soundbar may support HDMI ARC but not all TVs do.

[Roger_Gooner]

True, but I'm referring to the OP's Samsung QLED which almost certainly supports HDMI ARC.

[Graham_A]

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@Roger_Gooner wrote:

True, but I'm referring to the OP's Samsung QLED which almost certainly supports HDMI ARC.

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Fair point.  Out of interest how do you connect a VM TV box to the TV via HDMI and a soundbar to the HDMI ARC source and use both simultaneously?

[Ant555]

Hi,

Thanks for all the advice - heres an update to my initial post.

I went and purchased a Samsung HW-S50A which was relatively cheap compared to some soundbars and is the same brand as my TV - it has optical, bluetooth and HDMI so I was happy to have all options covered.

My V6 box is connected to the TV using an HDMI cable (of course) and I connected the soundbar HDMI port to the TV eARC HDMI port using a second HDMI cable.

I know many will already know this but...  When I turn on the TV using the V6 remote, the soundbar comes on, switch off TV and the soundbar switches off  - I think this interaction is a standard feature of the eARC hdmi connection.  The V6 remote also controls the volume of the soundbar so its a really simple setup.  The soundbar has its own remote to control some of the settings but for many it wont be required day-to-day.

Sound - an immediate and incredible difference and I don't know why I haven't bought one before!    There are lots of settings and room settings for me to play with (which I may do over the weekend) but out of the box the sound is just miles better and by 'better' I mean I can now hear whats going on without regular rewinds or even subtitles.

Thanks to everybody.

 

[Roger_Gooner]

You've got the correct connections. As your soundbar supports 3.0 I suggest that you set your box's audio to Dolby Digital (for V6) or PCM 5.1 (for 360). I'm hoping that your TV will send through the audio as received from its HDMI cable (as it's HDMI eARC).