Although the connections between the different types of video and audio devices have been simplified in recent times thanks to HDMI, many people still do not know this type of thing.

From the team of HDMI website one find that the most repeated query is about how to connect a soundbar to TV with HDMI, and this is what are been tired of answering with this article, in which you will explain the most frequent types of connections. In a sound bar and the advantages and disadvantages of each one of them.

Using the TV as a hub

With modern televisions and the arrival of Smart TVs, it is normal that you will see more and more HDMI ports on the back of the television. This greatly facilitates the task of interconnection between all the A/V devices that you have.

HDMI ARC

 

The recommended configuration for those who have several audio devices in the living room is to use the TV as a hub. This means that you connect all the devices, such as a BluRay player, a console, a pay TV decoder, an Apple TV or the Chromecast directly to the TV.

Then it would be simply to get the audio from the TV through the optical digital audio output, or through HDMI ARC.

This configuration is the most logical, and ultimately the most practical, since it is the one that will give you the least trouble. Nevertheless, you must concentrate to the following:

Using the bar as hub

This configuration is highly recommended if, for example, you have the TV mounted on the wall with some VESA support, since the HDMI ports of the TV are inaccessible.

In this way, you connect a soundbar to TV with HDMI vs Bluetooth to send all the video signals connected to a single HDMI port of the TV.

It is for these complications and limitations that the configuration of TV as a hub is more recommended; however, in some cases it is inevitable to use this configuration, such as televisions that do not have HDMI ARC or when you want to hear Atmos or DTS: X audio with televisions without eARC. In this case make sure of the following:

You can connect both the bar and the TV using the HDMI ARC port on both devices, since it is both an input and an output port.

HDMI ARC

The ARC ( Audio Return Channel ) is a provision of the HDMI 1.4 specification, standardized as of 2009. What an HDMI ARC connection does is, roughly explained, transmit the audio signal back to the connected device.

Bluetooth

Although less recommendable, you can connect a soundbar to TV with Bluetooth, which use to have the benefit of saving us a lot of cable hassle.

It can be said that it is less recommendable because the audio through Bluetooth suffers from a great compression and is reproduced at a lower bit rate than if it were through cable. This will give many people the same, but if you like to listen to the sound with maximum fidelity, Bluetooth is disposable.