Not something these days I'm very clued up on. However my house mate has asked to help him improve the sound quality on the TV. If it had a headphone socket I'd be saying hook up the PC speakers to that, but alas it has no such socket.
My first thought was indeed a soundbar as that's pretty much simple enough, straight forward to install and get going.
He does connect his computer to the TV a lot to watch movies etc on. The TV is a 55 inch LG Plasma which has a plethora of connections such as phono out, HDMI and it even has optical. Does a TV with optical out automatically feed its sound signal to a connected device and if so I'm assuming whatever sound is being fed from the TV (PC, Games Console of PVR Box) will come through the soundbar ?
If thats the case what soundbar would you recommend ?
Pardon the ignorance but I'm used to connecting all my stuff via phono connections to my AV receiver.
Thanks for your help gents.
A soundbar should give you a decent boost to audio quality compared to the built-in speakers.
They generally come in at three different levels regarding the audio connections. The cheap stuff relies on the TV having a headphone socket or audio out connection. Since very few TVs have been made in the last 5-6 years with a dedicated audio out (Red and white phono sockets, labelled
Audio OUT....
not Audio IN) then you are relying mostly on having a headphone jack with these entry level sound bars. Headphone jack is also a rapidly disappearing feature as manufacturers struggle to cut costs.
The next step up are the sound bars with an Optical input. This is a better bet for quality audio. Digital Optical can carry basic stereo audio but without the background hiss from a headphone connection. It is also technically capable of carrying DD and DTS but there's a catch.
First off, you need to read your TV manual very
very carefully to see what it's capable of doing. TVs that have a HD TV tuner (Freeview HD and Freesat HD) can receive transmissions of HD channels that include DD5.1 audio. Often you'll find that the TV will pass that digital signal to the Optical out. The manufacturer's spec will then say that the TV does DD5.1, but what they won't say is that it's restricted to the TV tuner output and streaming app/USB playback if fitted. Any source connected by HDMI won't pass DD5.1 to the Optical out. There are some TVs that will, but it's by no means universal.
DTS is rarely supported, or if it is then only in 2.0 mode and not the full 5.1 version. Again the tide is starting to turn on this with some LG 4K top end sets starting to support it. Check your manual carefully.
The other catch with multi-channel is what the sound bar will make of the signal. If it's a basic stereo sound bar (stereo / stereo with sub / simulated-but-not-real-surround) then all the effort of trying to figure out DD5.1 goes to waste. The soundb bar works with PCM stereo and that's your lot. Those sound bars that do handle 5.1 properly will have the additional speaker in them to try to bounce rear channel sound off adjacent walls. Yamaha is a good choice for this with their mid and high-end sound bars.
At the top of the tree connection-wise are the sound bars with HDMI ARC and, you hope, some extra inputs too.
HDMI ARC relies on the TV being similarly equipped. If it is, then you'll get sound via the HDMI connection and also control too. This is where your TV remote will operate the sound bar instead of the TVs internal speakers when the sound bar is switched on. ARC also support DD and DTS subject to the sound bar's and TV's functionality.
As in most things, price dictates features and to some degree the audio performance too. Have you a budget in mind?
