Modern soundbar without an eARC TV

[kriegalex]

As the title suggests, this means plugging the TV with the soundbar without using eARC, which means that the sounbar receives most of the inputs and must perform video passthrough properly (especially 4K HDR).

• Any red flags on doing that ?
• Added latency for gaming ? (something breaking couch gaming, not competitive gaming)
• Any issues with Plex and 4K HDR (nvidia shield or similar) ?

Also bonus questions for the enthusiasts around here:

• LG vs SONY vs SAMSUNG high end sound bars?
• The Sony HT-A9 is really interesting, but I don't plan on buying a Sony TV just to get back the center channel. Any thoughts on that ?

Thanks for your time !

[191x7]

Most soundbars have multiple input options. You can use optical.

[jaslion]

Get a soundbar with an optical or 3.5mm in. That solves the issue and keeps it also functional without the need for a tv if you ever wish to use it on its own as a speaker.

 

Instead of buying soundbars I just buy a pair of decent bookshelf speakers with the needed connectors and call it a day. about 100$ works with every normal audio interface and they arent bound to just tv use. Just make sure they can be remote controlled.

[seanondemand]

Most soundbars don’t have hdmi inputs like a receiver (aside from an arc/earc hdmi input). They’ll use optical instead, which your tv will almost certainly have (but you’ll probably have to buy a cable). All your hdmi sources will get plugged into your tv. So, latency isn’t an issue but with some soundbar/tv combinations you may run into a few ms of audio delay (but usually not enough to notice). With optical, you’ll miss out on the full uncompressed signal and atmos/dts-x support you get with earc.
 

The HT A9 is having some pretty serious user feedback about interference with 5ghz wifi (Linus mentioned it on a video recent) that sounds infuriating. There’s a lot of soundbars out there and no real reason to look at one brand over another - look for reviews from sources like rtings and digital trends and find something that works for your price point. 

[cmndr]

On 11/30/2022 at 3:03 AM, kriegalex said:

As the title suggests, this means plugging the TV with the soundbar without using eARC, which means that the sounbar receives most of the inputs and must perform video passthrough properly (especially 4K HDR).

• Any red flags on doing that ?
• Added latency for gaming ? (something breaking couch gaming, not competitive gaming)
• Any issues with Plex and 4K HDR (nvidia shield or similar) ?

Also bonus questions for the enthusiasts around here:

• LG vs SONY vs SAMSUNG high end sound bars?
• The Sony HT-A9 is really interesting, but I don't plan on buying a Sony TV just to get back the center channel. Any thoughts on that ?

Thanks for your time !

 

1. Speakers often work better than sound bars but an AVR set up can cost more $$$ and be harder to set up. 
2. Center channels mostly matter if you have people who are off to the side. For one or two people close to the center of the room, it doesn't matter a ton. 

 

[sm1th5]

On 12/1/2022 at 12:23 AM, 191x7 said:

Most soundbars have multiple input options. You can use optical.

This is significantly worse than regular hdmi arc.

 

To the op.

Can you run hdmi ARC instead?

You will lose lossless/uncompressed multichannel audio by not having EARC or plugging directly into soundbar. 

 

And answer to your bonus question. None of the above. 

Use an av receiver with speakers. (Extremely recommend)

 

Hope this helps! 

 

[kriegalex]

Thanks everyone for taking the time to answer.

54 minutes ago, sm1th5 said:

This is significantly worse than regular hdmi arc.

 

To the op.

Can you run hdmi ARC instead?

You will lose lossless/uncompressed multichannel audio by not having EARC or plugging directly into soundbar. 

 

And answer to your bonus question. None of the above. 

Use an av receiver with speakers. (Extremely recommend)

 

Hope this helps! 

 

Yeah, I had in mind that eARC > ARC > optical, if you look at the bandwidth available.

 

Maybe I forgot a crucial point in my explanation: I already have a cheap entry level soundbar, so upgrading is only valid to get more audio channels & "fake" Dolby Atmos.

 

So, if I don't have eARC and use ARC instead of passing video through the soundbar, will the downgrade to lossy codecs defeat the whole point of upgrading? I'm not an audiophile. The soundbar is aimed at movies, not music.

 

I feel like if I plug the SHIELD to the soundbar and passthrough video to the TV, it would work great, and I don't mind a few more millisec if playing AAA type games (non competitive). Also the gaming part wouldn't be affected that much by ARC vs eARC, so I could plug the SHIELD to a eARC soundbar directly but plug the rest to the TV that would use then ARC for gaming, which is fine for regular "gaming" DD5.1.

[seanondemand]

Arc is totally fine. Use that. 
 

A sound bar will typically not have an option to handle inputs. You'll plug your shield into your tv which will hand the audio to the sound bar through the hdmi arc port. 

[dalekphalm]

On 11/30/2022 at 6:03 AM, kriegalex said:

As the title suggests, this means plugging the TV with the soundbar without using eARC, which means that the sounbar receives most of the inputs and must perform video passthrough properly (especially 4K HDR).

• Any red flags on doing that ?
• Added latency for gaming ? (something breaking couch gaming, not competitive gaming)
• Any issues with Plex and 4K HDR (nvidia shield or similar) ?

If you can find a Soundbar with multiple HDMI inputs and HDMI passthrough that supports the features you want, yes of course that's an option.

 

Latency? Should be no different than when using an AVR - for couch gaming, it's not gonna be an issue. I game using an Xbox One S connected to a Yamaha RX-V385 without any noticeable input lag.

 

Plex and 4K HDR should also be no problem - I do the exact same thing w/ my Xbox One S and play 4K HDR content on the Plex App without issue.

On 11/30/2022 at 6:03 AM, kriegalex said:

Also bonus questions for the enthusiasts around here:

• LG vs SONY vs SAMSUNG high end sound bars?
• The Sony HT-A9 is really interesting, but I don't plan on buying a Sony TV just to get back the center channel. Any thoughts on that ?

Thanks for your time !

They should all be fairly comparable.

 

I would check out each of their reviews on RTings.com - it's basically the best Home Theatre review site I've ever come across. You can also do side by side comparisons of different products.