TV Soundbar Thoughts?

I’m not sure if it’s an ongoing issue with age related hearing loss, or a problem with my ageing Sony tv, but lately I’ve been having difficulty hearing dialogue when watching telly. T’was ok until my Logitech 5.1 surround sound system suddenly opted out of it’s duties, so I’m now in need of a solution. Seems that the easy option is a soundbar as I can’t be fucked on with the idea of a separate processor & speakers. I have an idea in mind, but am wondering if anyone has any (constructive :thinking:) thoughts on the subject before I do the usual ignore/buy summat else?
Budget £150 ish … :person_shrugging:

I just ran the optical output on the TV into my DAC. Cost was the price of a cheap cable. Sound now comes through the main hi-fi system.

Fuuk…I didn’t think about that option,and now having thought about it I even have an optical cable long enough to do exactlty that, but sadly only one optical input on my dac, currently occupied by a chromecast audio… :thinking:

I’ve got this one lying spare if you are interested Atmos with wireless subwoofer. Never been used. Won it in a competition but it wouldn’t fit under my telly in the other room. Gave it to my sister who took it out of the box and threw the box away, never used it as they bought a tv with a built in one, then returned it to me. Was £450 when new.
Yours for £150 as its just lying about in the spare room. I’ll need to find a box it will fit in right enough, it’s pretty long so fck knows how much postage will be. Collection from Glasgow area would be far preferable.

Sharp HT-SBW800 Soundbar Review | AVForums

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Optical inputs can be swapped without even switching anything off. :slightly_smiling_face:

Cheers T, I’ll give that some serious thought… :+1:

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Buy another cheapo DAC and use that on a spare RCA input. Sound from your speakers will be far better than a soundbar anyway.

I would suggest a Soundbar is worth it based on recent experience. Our TV recently dropped a bollock so we replaced it with a 75" Samsung and I decided to give a soundbar with an external (sub)woofer a go and found it makes a massive difference. It looks similar to Tony has posted above. Definitely worth it IME.

Due to the thinness of the panels all TV’s inbuilt speakers sound fucking dreadful nowadays. Its like listening through a mobile phone. Last TV I had with a good inbuilt sound was an old Loewe Aconda CRT.

My cheap cable solution has TV sound playing through a pair of speakers the size of filing cabinets. Sounds pretty good.

Yeah, I run my TV into the upscaler (it has a video mode for this because the latency is ‘bad kung fu dub’ if you don’t).

Try the tv as your source instead, digital over toslink should be (deep breath, here comes heresy) identical

I tried the optical cable to my hifi route and it was shit,
For some reason it doesn’t sync properly

I have a sound bar and sub and it works well

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Me too

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:rofl:

You can always check the delay settings on your TV optical out in its settings menu too.

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That usually allows for the sound to be delayed but if the sound is already late there’s rarely an option to delay the video which I’ve needed on occasion when using ARC

Over budget (what did you expect asking here?) but I’m very pleased with my Ray

Also plays tunes, obvs.