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Phonak Tv Connector?

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Can I use the Phonak TV connector in conjuction with my current tv soundbar?

I’m just guessing that most tvs only have one sound output, so would I have to ditch the soundbar and rely solely on the internal tv speakers plus the phonak tv connector?

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I have a Samsung QN90C.
I have three sound outputs going.
TV speakers, Bluetooth and sound bar.
The sound bar is connected via toslink.
I can listen to all three at the same time.

OK. This is bit more involved than just “DO THIS, THEN THAT.”

It depends on the source of your video: is it the TV or a separate receiver?
What is the audio input and output on your soundbar?

Back in the day, I used to route the TV audio through a Mac mini. I think there was a TOSLINK port from TV that connects to the Phonak TV Connector box (which streams the audio to your aids across the room, once they are paired + connected). Now I just have my Roger mic connected to a separate receiver that’s connected to our home theatre. I can swap the Roger streamer with the older Phonak TV Connector, so they’re both on a credenza by our TV.

There are a LOT of techie DIYers here, so perhaps if you can fill in some blanks, you’ll get the roadmap to make this work.

@Longhorngary said:

only have one sound output, so would I have to ditch the soundbar and rely solely on the internal tv speakers plus the phonak tv connector

There are splitters (both active and passive which people have used to send audio to both external speakers/system and the TV Connector. They are discussed on the forum somewhere.

WH

Edited

@Longhorngary
take a look at this thread :

Audio from TV and Hearing Aid Transmitter at the same time
I have a LG TV and LG soundbar, which work fine together. I want to connect my Phonak Roger On base station so that I can listen at one volume and my wife at another. The base station takes an optical cable and the TV outputs only one sound type at a time. If I set the TV to HDMI eARC I can connect the soundbar but not the base station. If I output Optical from the TV I cannot connect the sound bar. I have not found a device that will pass through the HDMI eArc sound and split off an optical si…

I have the same setup and have purchesed two different devices for several hundred dollars each and neither worked. I suggest insuring you have a free return policy on anything you try as I think you will be sending the device back. You can purchase an optical splitter and set the LG TV to optical output with one line from the optical splitter going to yoiur Phonak TV connector and the other to the optical input on the sound bar. You lose some functionaly with this approach and need two controllers. If you find a better solution, please post it - there are a lot of us with the same issue.

I share the output from my Sony TV with a Phonak TV Connector and a Bose Soundbar using a 1x2 Toslink Optical splitter cable from Amazon and it’s $17.

Works perfectly…

https://a.co/d/ek2Ipbp27

I use a TOSLINK splitter cable (Amazon) plugged into the back of my Sony TV. One side of the splitter goes to the sound bar (for the family). The other side goes to a cheap Digital Analog Converter (DAC) that I picked up on Amazon, which in turn feeds my Phonak TV connector. The DAC gives me a separate volume control. When I watch TV alone, the sound bar is configured to not come on automatically. It has its own remote.

After many tries at getting a suitable (understandable) sound out of my TV I finially bought a Phonak TV connector. What a great improvement! I used the optical input on the connector. My TV has a sound out setting for “Optical Out Device”. Using that setting I can listen to the TV without any sound coming to the room. If I want to have the TV sound on for the room there’s another sound out setting for “Optical Out Device + TV Speakers” that makes that happen. If I don’t want sound to my hearing aids I can use the “TV Speakers” setting.

I was having trouble understanding any speech before. Now it’s crystal clear. Even better that my headphones.

It’s an awesome doodad.

Try the setting for both outputs and then turn down the tv volume (or mute). Does that turn down the TVC volume? Mine does not. I can turn down or mute the tv speakers and use the TVC and aids as basically headphones. Unmute or turn it back up for others to be able to hear the tv.

I’m so happy to have a solution that works that I don’t really want to do any more experimenting.

That said I think I remember that muting the TV didn’t mute the sound to my hearing aids. Since we nearly always are watching recorded shows I found that pausing the playback did the trick.

I’m 85 years old, have had a recent stroke and am very easy to confuse. When I get more comfortable with the device I may explore other options.

Sounds like you got it figured. Leave it all as is and you both can enjoy the sound or one or the other as needed using the tv as normal and you as like headphones.

In reply to @wdgowen

@wdgowen said:

muting the TV didn’t mute the sound to my hearing aids

Yes, this is terribly annoying. Remote “mute” buttons generally only kill sound that comes off the TV speaker, not other sound outputs (e.g. optical). A design error imho.

In our household we have the optical TV output feeding a cheap digital-analog converter with output that is split to my Phonak streamer and amplified speakers (for the rest of my household). That converter came with an remote, so I could teach/integrate its mute command to my Harmony universal remote.

In order to fine-tune the sound of the streamer I use a nearby rotary knob, far easier than pushbuttons.

All the best with your recovery.

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