I bow to your superior knowledge.
My Bose Soundbar is of an older variety and does not have a HDMI connection but on doing a bit of research up I found out that in the case of the latest Bose 700 soundbar it cannot actually process all of the formats you mention and the HDMI cable included is just future proofing.
Update on purchase of Zvox AV203 soundbar - it is excellent for speech enhancement. I adjusted the settings that sounded the best for speech clarity for me. I have only listened to news type shows and flipping around to other cable channels to get a sense of background sounds. I have not watched / listened to dramas, movies or football - the loudest background crowd noise yet. I am a fan of Live Listen and set the iPhone next to the soundbarâŚthe sound was close to the quality of streaming from my TV Adapter 3, at least on the news shows. So far,I am happy. If I could have connected my Oticon OPN1âs to more than 1 TV Adapter easily, I would have bought another TV Adapter; this combo of soundbar and Live Listen is a good, and very easy solution to stream into my aids.
Thank you to all who recommended it.
My spouse, who has perfect hearing, and watches this TV more than I do, also is happy with it.
The air shockz work well , they are Bluetooth. I can tune tv volume to zero and hear everything in the headset. If you have a good receiver and the bluetooth â senderâ hooked up, this may be an option for some folks. OH Yeah!! I donât even wear my H-aids.
The issue for me has been the poorly designed and placed speakers on two recent Sony TVâs purchased over the past few years. The sound seems âmuffledâ to me so word recognition is worse than usual. With the older TV I have used our existing home entertainment center with center and front main speakers; that works well with no other devices between speaker and HAâs.
The newer TV is a 55 inch model in the dining area. We use a Yamaha YAS 107 sound bar (entry model) connected to that TV with an optical cable. For me the sound bar approach improves my TV watching/listening experience although I think an upscale Yamaha model with front firing speakers and an external woofer could further improve the experience. BTW no additional devices between sound bar out put and HA input
So to answer your question, it has certainly been my experience that a sound bar with a new TV can certainly improve the sound. But its very much a personal experience.
I definitely recommend using retailers who are willing to let you try out soundbars over a few weeks without penalty. Costco have a very helpful return policy with this in mind.
I have a ZVOX soundbar, hooked up to my TV and then plug my TV Connector into the soundbar. I also power the TV Connector via a USB port on my TV, so it comes on automatically whenever the TV is powered on. I find both devices helpful. The ZVOX soundbar greatly improves the sound quality from my TV, as well as voice recognition. But the TV Connector is even better when streaming directly to my KS9s.
The only trouble with streaming from the TV Connector is that it pretty much overwhelms any other noise, so when people are watching with me I canât converse with them unless I drop the connection. So, I find the soundbar helpful for those situations.
Sony A9G has Sound from the screen with Acoustic Surface Audio. It also has a woofer and if you want a subwoofer, put it anywhere with wireless.
Any other TV, I would use a soundbar.
ThomF, I have a ZVOX AV203 soundbar on the way. How did you connect the TV Connector into the soundbar. Thank you
My wife and I have the Sony TVs and they sound great without a sound bar, in fact we tried a sound bar when we first got the TVs and returned the sound bar and saved out money. I wear Oticon OPN1 aids and I use the TV connect to help me hear some of the shows and movies. but mostly I just hear the TV with my aids.
re: ThomF, I have a ZVOX AV203 soundbar on the way. How did you connect the TV Connector into the soundbar.
I use the conventional 3.5mm jack (analog) cable, since my optical (Toslink) port on my TV is already in use to provide the audio signal to the soundbar. Even though I am using an analog cable, I find the fidelity excellent.
Thom
Thank you, I will give that a try when it arrives.
I ended up getting a Toslink splitter rather than use the 3.5 adapter. This has worked well too.
I do not watch TV but do use the TV connecter for movies, video, and computer connections. I hve tried every possible connection, audio splitter, toslink, headphone jack, and more. To me, the quality of the sound is the same regardless of the type of connection.