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Soundbar question please

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Hi All
I got a nice soundbar for my birthday and its great, but…
I have a HDMI running thru the eARC output to the sound bar to get Dolby Atmos. This cancels the optical out that goes to my TV streamer. Sound will output through both cables, but not at the same time. I dont really need the streamer as much but there are times when I would like to have the soundbar outputting while also streaming to my aids. Does anyone know if this is possible? I have seen optical cables that split, but then i lose Atmos, which sounds amazing with the up firing speakers in this bar. Tnx

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I have the same problem … all works well until I play a 4k blueray disk then I lose the optical out … so I can’t get the tv link to output sound.
I just ordered a splitter from Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B73P5VX4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=137

I will post again after I get it and try it :grinning:

There are a lot of other for less money … but I thought this one had the best chance of working

Thank you for asking this question. I have the same problem with an LG TV and Phonak TV Connector and Roku Soundbar, but I just gave up and don’t even use the TV Connector at all now. The good news is I can understand the TV better now with the soundbar, but there are times that I’d rather use the TV streamer. I’ll be interested in the responses here.

Edited

Thanks for the replies so far. I did quickly look at the Amazon link and i dont see where those support eARC or Dolby Atmos. I will keep looking.
Not sure why so few soundbars offer an output. Maybe a soundbar output would need its own processor to down-convert eARC to optical?

Edited

I was reading your owners manual and am wondering why it turns off the output to optical when the earc is connected. Maybe that’s a new tv thing. My old plasma outputs to its own speakers and also optical. A more current tv I used in a hotel was even able to adjust volume coming out of the optical after muting the tv speakers.
Although, also, the owners manual was somewhat vague in all this as well.

I may have misspoke on the volume thing. I’m thinking now that it doesn’t make sense. There was something different but I can’t seem to remember now.

I think the TV maybe cant output both thru HDMI and optical due to the different processing that takes place for each of those outputs, but im going to play around with all of my tv sound options today and see if maybe i just dont have my settings correct. Tnx

Thanks for asking. I have the same problem using a Sonos sound bar and LG smart tv. I cannot use the sound bar with my Phonak Paradise 90 through the optical sound while Sonos bar is connected to hdr. Wish I could do both at the same time. My wife and I like movies and I have the option for on screen words.

@Bonaprof said:

I cannot use the sound bar with my Phonak Paradise 90 through the optical sound while Sonos bar is connected to hdr. Wish I could do both at the same time. My wife and I like movies and I have the option for on screen words.

Would a powered Toslink optical splitter do the trick for this?

I have figured out my problem …with some DVD I have optical and HDMI output … some don’t … I looked into the Sony DVD player setup and found a setting to turn on second audio output, now I have optical and HDMI from the Hitachi TV with all DVD disks :grinning:

I couldnt find a solution in my case. I also could not fully sync voices to screen. At first the mismatch didnt seem to bother us but it quickly became frustrating. My TV offers sync adjustment, but not enough to overcome the delay. Since others in my family dont really care about a soundbar, and my TV streamer works amazingly, i returned the soundbar. I could live without Atmos, but not with sync issues. My 10 year old Sony soundbar doesnt seem to have sync issues nor does my streamer, so not sure if its the new soundbar or what but definitely not worth the price tag or frustration. Thanks for the replies

Well that’s unfortunate for a birthday present and all. Interesting that the older soundbar has no delay. I wonder if it’s something to do with the Atmos. But then how do others get along with possible delay with that unit? Maybe it was a bad unit. Maybe you could give another model or brand a try and see if it’s an Atmos issue. Could also be the tv.

Well, sure, I was assuming things. I assume he has an Atmos source wire-connected to the tv or perhaps using the smart tv as the source and then wire connected (or fiber) to the soundbar and then listening to it ambiently and not via bluetooth to the aids. But sure yes he could be using bluetooth in the new set up and maybe the old soundbar doesn’t use bluetooth anywhere. Assumptions galore.
And I know my KS10’s (Phonak Paradise) don’t have the aptx codec for no latency and they have lip sync issues.

I encountered the same issue, as others described. My solution was to use the Oticon streamer’s input/output optical ports, with the optical cable feeding from the tv to the streamer and from it to the bar. The audio is simultaneous this way, with my open dome ha’s I can hear the sound bar and I get the bass/trebele/volume controls of the streamer, together. Works very well and creates a multi-speaker kind of effect. It should also work with a bar that has both in/out ports, i.e., tv to bar to streamer.

Atmos is the wrinkle, many tv’s don’t support it and a lot of streaming content loses it. I do have a multi-port box that can take an Atmos hdmi feed from dvd/br player and pipe the video to the tv and the audio separately to the streamer or soundbar as described above, but again, that requires in/out on either streamer or bar… If I tried to pipe the audio/video signal from the box thru the tv and have the audio pass thru to the streamer or bar as described above, I expect there would be sync issues, but I haven’t tried that.

The TV is only 4 months old, OLED LG C2 (amazing picture quality). Was wired to soundbar using HDMI 2. Even using optical the sound was out of sync, so probably not an Atmos issue but likely some processing incompatibility since Bose offers there own surround sound processing when no Atmos. Both soundbars offer input but i only used that to stream music from my phone. Guess I might try a Sonos Beam 2. I do see some reviews where LG TV’s are having issues with some soundbar mfg’s. so at least my streamer works great. Thanks all

Edited

Just a note here to clarify that the optical Toslink/SDIF format can only carry digital PCM or Dolby Digital or (plain) DTS. Basically your 5.1 channel original digital audio format varieties. The Toslink support on the Oticon TV Adapter is even a little bit more limited that it only either supports digital PCM or Dolby Digital. Its manual does not say that it supports the (plain) DTS format even though Toslink can support it.

So newer digital audio formats like Dolby Digital Plus or Dolby Atmos or DTS X, or any of the 7.1 channel digital audio variety can not be carried and supported by Toslink due to the Toslink’s limited bandwidth.

So if you have video content with one of the newer formats like Dolby Atmos, it’s not going to be able to output to Toslink to the TV Adapter anyway from your TV. Unless your TV has an option to “dumb down” the Dolby Atmos content to just digital PCM or Dolby Digital before sending out to the TV’s Toslink output connector, the TV Adapter is not going to see any signal other than PCM and Dolby Digital.

If you buy a third party box that intercepts the HDMI output from the TV and passes it through to the Dolby Atmos supported soundbar, and if this box has the ability to convert the Dolby Atmos audio into PCM or Dolby Digital to its Toslink output IN PARALLEL with passing through the Dolby Atmos HDMI to the sound bar, then you’re golden. But if this box, in the process of dumbing down the Dolby Atmos audio to PCM or Dolby Digital for the Toslink out to the TV Adapter, also has to send this dumbed down digital audio to its HDMI output port, then your soundbar is not going to get the original Dolby Atmos audio from HDMI that you want. So it really depends on the box. So if/when you buy a third party box to get a Toslink split out for the TV Adapter, make sure that the Dolby Atmos is intact in the HDMI passthrough output from the box, if the box can dumb down the Dolby Atmos to Dolby Digital or digital PCM to split that audio out to its Toslink output for the TV Adapter.

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