Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Connecting A Soundbar

By Bob Jones


Plenty of folks are baffled with the different methods of hooking up a Soundbar, and this is unsurprising - every make appears to have different choices and methods for getting this done! In this post we set down the principal methods. Clearly we cannot be really specific since the options differ a great deal, however we will give you a basic overview of the main approaches and strategys.

The most simple of Soundbars use a straightforward 3.5mm stereo jack input. You merely hook up the headset output from the Tv set to the input on the Soundbar; possibly modify certain volume/tone functions on the Soundbar and you're done. All of your cool gadgets (Wii, Xbox etc) connect in to the TV like normal. The bonus utilizing this is definitely the convenience and the fact that typically you don't have to have yet another remote control - you keep using your Tv set remote control normally. You probably won't get the finest audio from this kind of system yet it will still be excellent when compared to the TV alone!

Shifting up the Soundbar level of quality hierarchy the next big connection option which you are likely to come across is optical. With this situation you usually connect all of your devices to the Television and next the optical out from the Television to the Soundbar. An optical cable can transport much more data and may offer superior audio when compared to a 3.5mm type connector. You might also need optical to reinforce a non HDMI ARC link. (see later paragraph!)

Some Soundbars in the Mid-Range will come with an HDMI input and possibly an HDMI ARC output. This means you can connect HDMI devices(Such as a BluRay player) directly to the Soundbar. Video signal will then be passed through to the TV. If the HDMI on the Soundbar and the TV is ARC compliant then you won't need any more cabling between the Soundbar and the TV as the single HDMI cable will not only pass video signal to the TV but sound from the TV back to the Soundbar also. If it's a non ARC HDMI connection then you will need to add an optical cable to the mix.

The best Soundbar often has all of the connection choices from the midrange and a pile of new ones on as well! There are also likely to be many more of them! Some models may have RCA, Optical, coaxial, wireless iPod connection as well as multiple HDMI inputs! With one of these top of the line models it's frequently possible to attach all of your gadgets to the Soundbar and then pass through any video signal (BluRay disk for example) to the Television.

Do not overlook that Soundbars as well as other gadgets vary tremendously. This post is no more than a top level view of the type of strategies that could be practical. It's important for you to check the guide book for your specific models prior to linking everything together!




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