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Phonak TV Connector & Soundbar

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I know I can connect my Lumity 90 hearing aids to my TV through the TV connector accessory, but I assume that would provide the same quality of sound as the TV itself. I have a Vizio Soundbar connected to the TV which does a great job. Is there a way to connect the TV connector to the soundbar to permit it to work with the aids, and still allow others to hear the TV directly?

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I believe you’ll get optical output from the TV into the TV streamer - unprocessed digital signal through TOSLink to the streamer’s electronics, then to a Bluetooth signal, then to your aids.

I’m not a fan of digital sound or TOSLink, but I’m even less a fan of soundbars. The sound will be clearer than most speakers used in soundbars.

You’ll probably get more bass from your soundbar, and you can get that perhaps, by not shutting off ambient sound.

I first tried the non powered splitter with bad results.
Then tried the powered toslink splitter and it worked great.

In reply to @philbob57

Thanks. So here’s what I’d really like to be able to do: My soundbar is currently connected to the TV via HDMI EARC. I would like to be able to add the Phonak TV connector using optical. If I do that will the soundbar continue to function of others at the same time as I am streaming through the connector?
On a related note: It would be nice if the My Phonak app could control the TV connector (turn on off, volume control). Seems like that shouldn’t be too hard.

Edited

I connect my Audio-Video Receiver to my TV using HDMi-ARC and then I use the Optical-Out connection to feed the TV-Adapter. That gets a surround-sound signal to my TV-Adapter so I can hear birds tweeting overhead, or helicopters flying overhead from left-to right and such, (in-my-).

If you think of your Vizio-Soundbar as my AV-Receiver then your Soundbar is lacking the Optical-Out connection. However, because you are connected via one single HDMi cable then you are freeing up the Optical-Out on your TV.

So maybe try connecting your TV Optical-Out to the TV Adapter, And leave the HDMi ARC to your soundbar connection as-is.

c1

Right. The soundbar does not have an Opticl-Out port. Your suggestion is exactly what I was thinking I would try. Wasn’t sure if it would work or not. I don’t have the TV Connector yet, but will be getting one soon. Hopefully that will do the trick.

You might want to grab your TV remote and look at your TV settings/options for sound/Audio configurations to determine if it’s possible to send the Audio signal to both outputs?

In reply to @pvc

Do you mean the optical out connector of your TV? I’m not aware of any AVR with optical out connectors; neither of my Denon receivers have that.

If you are using the optical out connector from the TV, how do you get a surround-sound signal to your hearing aids? Seems you would just get the unprocessed TV audio.

Edited

I also use the setup shown by pvc with the TV connector supplied by the TVs optical out and the receiver using the ARC HDMI and it works great. When getting the TV connector look for vers 2 as this supports Dolby Surround while ver 1 and 1.1 do not.
I had to get my ver 2 from ebay as it was not available “new” due to component shortages at Phonak’s suppliers.
Set the TV up for Dolby sound output which then supplies both the Optical and ARC with surround sound - much better for you and everyone else…
The remote idea will not work on the TV connector however I have mine connected to the TV’s USB port so it powers on/off with the TV.

Edited

In reply to @pvc

On Sony Bravias at least I find that if the port itself is illuminated red then it’s pumping sound out.

The only issue I’ve had is using eARC or anything above Dolby 5.1 such as Atmos which can’t be decoded by the TV connector. Having said that I don’t think that those signals are even compatible with Toslink in the first place. Still it’s a shame as a lot of new content is 7.1.

@Raudrive said:

I first tried the non powered splitter with bad results.
Then tried the powered toslink splitter and it worked great.

That’s interesting I’ve had no issues with unpowered splitters: what were the symptoms, a flaky signal?

It’s also worth mentioning that unless any sound effects are turned off on the soundbar then you can hear an echo with the TV connector, probably mild, as the sound will hit your hearing aids milliseconds before it’s been decoded and processed by the sound bar.

When I first bought a sound bar I wore Phonak aids. Using an unpowered toslink splitter the sound bar and Phonak streamer worked great.
Then I got bilateral . The Cochlear TV streamer and sound bar on the unpowered toslink splitter signal was flaky, great description. I then bought the powered toslink splitter and all problems went away.

So it’s possible different TV streamers act differently.

I bought THIS ONE144 for my Samsung TV connected to an AV receiver for the exact same reason you’ve stated.
It works perfectly. I’m using with a V2 Phonak TV connector and my Phonak Paradise P90 . My wife will receive her new Lumity 90 HAs next week so she will get a chance to be connecting to the TV connector as well. Both of us have similar hearing loss at the 2000 Hz and up ranges and use HAs with open domes so we keep the soundbar on at all times. I enjoy the speech boost the TV connector gives me while being able to get the sound from the AV system speakers and sub at the same time.
I can hear everything just fine with the AV receiver off if I need to for any reason. Just not much reason for us to do that.

Great. I use HDMI EARC for the soundbar, and am hoping that that will leave the optical output of the TV free to connect to the Phonak TV connector, allowing both to work.

We have a Vizeo Sound Bar, a set of Sennheiser headphones, and a TV connector all hooked to the TV and computer for Zoom calls.

It was tricky to get it all working, but is just perfect now.

The Sound Bar is better than the built-in TV speakers and is located closer to where we sit to avoid some multipath distortion.

The TV connector is better than the sound bar since it goes directly to the ears and is adjusted to compensate for hearing loss by the audiologist.

I use the Sennheisers when others in the room don’t want to hear the TV (I have normal hearing, my wife has aids). The Sennheisers are so good that my wife can use them without hearing aids after, for example, washing her hair when the aids are impractical.

The extra parts dtook about $30 and some setup time.

@stu said:

I use the Sennheisers when others in the room don’t want to hear the TV

Why not just turn down the TV volume? It doesn’t affect your hearing aid streaming volume.

In reply to @barbshop

Supposedly you can leave the TV Connector on all the time and it will only be working when there’s an input signal from the TV, but I don’t like to leave electronics powered up for no good reason. Not that it takes much electricity, but components on any electronic device can wear out. Of course, there’s an on/off button on the TV Connector, but if you’re too lazy to walk over to it to bend down and switch it off (and on) as I am, get a remote controlled (yes, one more remote) power switch. It plugs into the wall socket or multi outlet strip, the power cord from the TV connector plugs into it, and you then power that on/off with the little remote that has just the two buttons. There’s nothing that will remotely control the volume output of the TV connector. Set it where you want it and then adjustments can be made with the volume up/down buttons on your h/a.

@ericlandau said:

Supposedly you can leave the TV Connector on all the time and it will only be working when

If you power the connector from a USB port on the tv, it should turn off when the tv turns off.

WH

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