Basic question on soundbar with additional HDMI

[Wiresandmore]

Hi

I have an old 42” Panasonic Plasma - from around 2011. It’s still going strong and the picture is much better than any normal LED I’ve seen, only recently surpassed by a Panasonic OLED we bought.

The TV is limited to PCM stereo via ARC.

I’d like to add a soundbar to it, and while we have Sonos everywhere else in the house, I am considering getting a Denon or Yamaha soundbar with an additional HDMI input and routing the AppleTV box through there so we’d get the Atmos sound. Question is: how easy is it for non-techie members of the family to do this - do they need to use the soundbar remote to select the hdmi input or will turning the Apple box on send a signal to the TV to switch to the input (assume this would be the HDMI2/ARC as an input). I know we could use an HDFury Arcana but that’s too much money for what I want to do here (the soundbar will only be around 250).

I’m loathe to change the TV as I live in Ireland and selling it will be hard.

Advice welcome!

 

[next010]

It depends on the HDMI-CEC implementation on the Panasonic, assuming it works fine with no issues, what you can expect.

1) soundbar will auto power on/off with TV and auto select the ARC input.

2) For soundbar with HDMI input you will have to manually select the HDMI input on the TV and then cycle to the HDMI input via soundbar remote.

3) For the scenario you describe were waking the ATV causes the soundbar and TV to power on and correctly select the HDMI input depends entirely on the chain of hardware, very difficult to say if it will do that but you will get 1 and 2 for sure.

For 250 euros your unlikely to get a real Atmos soundbar, it will probably perform better as a stereo bar, in which case I would leave the ATV direct to the TV with it pushing stereo via ARC.

 

[Joe Fernand]

‘the soundbar will only be around 250’ - even with an ideal room/room layout you budget is never going to achieve anything close to an immersive audio experience.

As @next010 says your budget will just about cover a stereo Soundbar or how about a second hand S1 Zone player plus a pair of bookshelf speakers if folk are already familiar with using SONOS?

Joe

 

[Wiresandmore]

Thanks, very helpful - I wasn’t expecting much in the way of surround, just something a little better than 2ch stereo. Perhaps that’s wishful thinking and I’d be better off with a s/hand Beam 1?

 

[Joe Fernand]

Your Room, Room acoustics and seating Layout play a huge part in what you can achieve with any form of Surround sound or Immersive audio, no matter the budget or hardware you employ.

Approx. 90% of what you listen to with Movies and TV is output from the Front speakers so always best when working to a tight budget to concentrate on that area rather than diluting the front soundstage quality by trying to add in poor quality surround and immersive channels.

Another option to look out for would be a S/H SONOS Playbase, if you can accommodate the additional 'depth' of the unit you gain a fair amount of additional bass output.

Joe