8 thoughts on “20 TVs tested: Which sets can pass surround sound to a sound bar?”
I would have been impressed had they found the opposite of
“That means you that you won’t be able to get true “high-res” TrueHD when using your TV as a switcher”
given that optical output doesn’t have the bandwidth and therefore is no capable of handing TrueHD.
So does this mean I should not get a soundbar to go along with my nice Pany Plasma?
It depends how many devices you’re hooking up… Both the Sonos Playbar and Vizio 5.1 soundbars suffer from the same flaw of limited inputs. My Vizio has one optical, one coax, and no HDMI. I invested in an optical switch to try and expand its capabilities, but it’s a bit of kludge (and I’m waiting for a Monoprice replacement).
Ideally, you’d hook all your devices to the TV via HDMI and then pass the 5.1 from box thru TV to soundbar, letting the TV act as your switch. But it’s mostly the Sonys that do it. :/
From my experience if you have a high end Sony or Samsung TV, you will have no problem with pass through or limited inputs. I love my sonos playbar and my sony tv has 4 hdmi inputs which is more then I currently need to pass to the sonos
What about Soundbars that have HDMI inputs? Not sure I would use optical in that scenario, especially with ARC.
This Cnet article by Ty Pendlebury researched 20 TVs from their lab and here’s what he found. “If you’re looking for a TV that can pass a true 5.1 signal, then based on our results you’d be smart to stick to Sony, Toshiba, and Vizio models. Regardless of cost, all of the televisions from these three manufacturers that we examined were able to pass-through Dolby Digital 5.1 signals via their optical output.”
Ben, our very nice brand new Samsung does not do surround pass through, just PCM stereo. Our five year-old Sony does. Both have ARC. I have no idea why Samsung and some of the other brands do not bother to support surround pass through from external HDMI sources, yet Sony has for years.
The new Samsung has lots of bells and whistles, just not that.
Thanks, Jim. FYI Jim handles PR for Vizio and we’ve communicated for years. While I’ve been quite pleased with my Vizio 5.1 soundbar, I haven’t been so fond of my Vizio “blog project” TV – which gives me some pause in this area.
Regarding ARC, it’s a strange thing… more soundbars in 2012 shipped with this feature than 2013. Not sure what that’s about. But, as Joel said, it’s just another connection… what’s processed and passed over it is still up to the television manufacturer.
I would have been impressed had they found the opposite of
“That means you that you won’t be able to get true “high-res” TrueHD when using your TV as a switcher”
given that optical output doesn’t have the bandwidth and therefore is no capable of handing TrueHD.
So does this mean I should not get a soundbar to go along with my nice Pany Plasma?
It depends how many devices you’re hooking up… Both the Sonos Playbar and Vizio 5.1 soundbars suffer from the same flaw of limited inputs. My Vizio has one optical, one coax, and no HDMI. I invested in an optical switch to try and expand its capabilities, but it’s a bit of kludge (and I’m waiting for a Monoprice replacement).
Ideally, you’d hook all your devices to the TV via HDMI and then pass the 5.1 from box thru TV to soundbar, letting the TV act as your switch. But it’s mostly the Sonys that do it. :/
From my experience if you have a high end Sony or Samsung TV, you will have no problem with pass through or limited inputs. I love my sonos playbar and my sony tv has 4 hdmi inputs which is more then I currently need to pass to the sonos
What about Soundbars that have HDMI inputs? Not sure I would use optical in that scenario, especially with ARC.
This Cnet article by Ty Pendlebury researched 20 TVs from their lab and here’s what he found. “If you’re looking for a TV that can pass a true 5.1 signal, then based on our results you’d be smart to stick to Sony, Toshiba, and Vizio models. Regardless of cost, all of the televisions from these three manufacturers that we examined were able to pass-through Dolby Digital 5.1 signals via their optical output.”
Ben, our very nice brand new Samsung does not do surround pass through, just PCM stereo. Our five year-old Sony does. Both have ARC. I have no idea why Samsung and some of the other brands do not bother to support surround pass through from external HDMI sources, yet Sony has for years.
The new Samsung has lots of bells and whistles, just not that.
Thanks, Jim. FYI Jim handles PR for Vizio and we’ve communicated for years. While I’ve been quite pleased with my Vizio 5.1 soundbar, I haven’t been so fond of my Vizio “blog project” TV – which gives me some pause in this area.
By the by, a tweet inquiry of mine based on limitations of my Panasonic and a Sony television on sale at Costco is what inspired Ty’s article:
https://twitter.com/dkatzmaier/status/412575882868699136
Regarding ARC, it’s a strange thing… more soundbars in 2012 shipped with this feature than 2013. Not sure what that’s about. But, as Joel said, it’s just another connection… what’s processed and passed over it is still up to the television manufacturer.