Noob question about soundbar set up

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Ok so a year after having my tv I've decided I should splash a little cash on a soundbar. I'm thinking of buying a Samsung HW-F551 to go with my Samsung ES6710 tv. Now here comes the "noob" part I have no idea how to set this up, I was thinking of having a optical cable from the tv to the soundbar, now is that right or should it be something else?

My tv has 3 HDMI ports 1 is the Sky HD box, Xbox 360 and the other will be for the Xbox one. I'm guessing if the soundbar is hooked up to the tv via optical cable I will be able to use the soundbar with all these devices, correct? :confused:
 
Not 100% sure but I think that the Samsung will have ARC HDMI port, so it's as easy as just connecting the arc port on the TV to the sound bar. Otherwise you'll need to use optical port too.
 
I just had a look and the HDMI 2 Port is ARC, but if I plug the soundbar to that one I will lose one of the devices since I was planning on using all three hdmi ports (sky, xbox, xbox one).
 
Looking at it the soundbar does have a pass through and also as mentioned above the xbox one will also have one. Looks like I'm all sorted.

Just had a little read around and I could also use "soundshare" and it would connect to the tv via wireless but somehow my tv model doesn't support it. :(
 
optical should be fine, i have optical to my surround receiver, everything that goes through tv via hdmi goes through receiver no problems.
 
So optical from the soundbar to the tv? That's probably easier for me to set up with the cabling and what not. Do not like seeing any cables on show, I'm too fussy.

I should have the bar on wednesday so will try both optical and hdmi arc. Probably go for optical if it all works fine.
 
Personally I think I'd be looking at another model, after owning a Samsung home theatre kit I don't rate their audio stuff at all. Build quality was abysmal.
 
Keep in mind that if you add anything that uses DTS or Dolby TrueHD audio like a Blu Ray player, the optical will not be able to transmit the HD sound.
 
TheVoice said:
Personally I think I'd be looking at another model, after owning a Samsung home theatre kit I don't rate their audio stuff at all. Build quality was abysmal.
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Any other recommendation? I just thought that £240 for this Samsung one was a steal.

neodude said:
Keep in mind that if you add anything that uses DTS or Dolby TrueHD audio like a Blu Ray player, the optical will not be able to transmit the HD sound.
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Will only have the two xbox's and sky hd box not sure if any of those uses it.
 
Sky uses Dolby Digital, the Xbox One will allow DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD for Blu-rays. Probably doesn't really matter for a simple stereo set-up anyway though, but I think I'd still prefer to have my sources feeding directly into the audio system rather than fed through the TV first.
 
I'd agree, I'd be looking at spending my 300 on an AV receiver then saving for some half decent 5.1 speakers rather than a soundbar. You'd be suprised at what that will get you. I'm looking at buying the Onkyo TXNR626 today hopefully.
 
wez130 said:
I'd agree, I'd be looking at spending my 300 on an AV receiver then saving for some half decent 5.1 speakers rather than a soundbar. You'd be suprised at what that will get you. I'm looking at buying the Onkyo TXNR626 today hopefully.
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he probably had a budget of around £200-£300.

going down your route would end up costing him like 3 times that much minimum, of course it would be better but sometimes people don't care and just want adequate sound for £200.

anyway in the op's case i would depending on how many inputs the soundbar has itself (optical), try and wire everything directly as the tv will only pass on stereo sound.

i have my sky box connected and my tv connected to the soundbar. so for sky it passes dolby digital directly to my soundbar (yamaha which can decode it) and my tv passes my pc, ps3, smart tv onto the soundbar in stereo.

although i do have to switch inputs a lot of the time which can be annoying so you may just want to hook up the tv and be done with it.

although better SQ doing it my way.
 
Yea I definitely want to stick with the soundbar route, especially since this is going to be in my bedroom and not in a living room.

Well I will try the hdmi way and optical and see if I notice any difference, I'm not really a huge audiophile as you can tell I've been using tv speakers :p.

Hopefully the soundbar will be here tomorrow or wednesday haven't checked the tracking status. Anyone ever used or ordered from totaldigital?
 
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