Thanks @ChrisMann , I’ll take a look at the Sonos set up, but I’m probably spending enough already
If you like the idea of Sonos, one option could be a Beam Gen2 soundbar, which supports Atmos and has speakers that fire sound around the room, and then add the rear speakers and subwoofer later on when funds allow.
That’s what I did (though my Beam is a Gen1 which doesn’t do Atmos) - I built the system up in stages rather than getting a cheaper surround system in one go.
It doesn’t bother me too much but you should probably be aware that Samsung TVs do not support Dolby Vision for HDR content (they offer the “competing” HDR10+), they will display content using DV, but won’t use the additional HDR information encoded within the DV stream.
They also don’t support the DTS audio, which is rather common on Blu-ray discs (as of 2018).
In layman’s terms (me) will dvd, blueray etc still play and sound ok on the TV ?
No, not if they have DTS audio.
Edit - or rather if they *only* have DTS audio - I don’t have a Blu-ray player (never saw the point, once download and streaming became easy) so I’m not sure how common it is to be stuck with a disk where no audio track will play.
Yes this may be an important point if you have or intend to buy BluRay discs.
With my Samsung it not only did not decode DTS but it would not pass it through to the Sonos soundbar.
I had to use a workaround which was to connect the audio HDMI output on my Panasonic Blu-ray player directly to the soundbar when I wanted to watch Blu-rays with a DTS soundtrack.
My current LG TV does all this correctly and also supports Dolby Vision.
Another reason why I am not a big fan of Samsung TVs.
Googling a bit it might be possible to set the Blu-ray player output to 2-channel PCM as a “lowest common denominator”. You lose surround sound, of course but if playing through the TV speaker that’s probably no great loss.
That’s the real problem really, they reject DTS so firmly that they won’t pass it through to other devices.
Yes that works - or sometimes there is a stereo or Dolby 5.1 option for audio in the disc menu.
But it’s pretty naff in comparison to full surround if you are watching a movie, or a live concert disc.
I would never have bought my Samsung 7100 TV had I realised it was so crippled.
Fortunately (in a way) it did me a favour by packing up after 2 years, hence I now have the LG C3 OLED.
It caught me out with some ripped material - but it was easy to re-encode the audio to something the TV was happy with.
As we do watch a fair few Bluray discs, just wondering if a way around is to use a surround sound AV receiver instead of a soundbar (I’ve got a Pioneer one currently unused) everything plugs into it, think mine has 5 HDMI inputs and TV out. Downside is lack of wireless rear speakers though🤔 unless there’s a gizmo…
Never tried but a bluetooth transmitter/receiver option?
Yes you could do that if you have the necessary speakers - although it also depends what vintage the receiver is, as older ones won’t decode the newer audio formats such as Dolby Atmos or DTS:X.
As you are probably aware you’ll need two front speakers, a centre speaker, two rears, and maybe a sub, to give you standard 5.1 surround. Atmos I think needs a 7 or 9 speaker rig?
Personally, on the grounds of simplicity, I would just run wires to rear speakers (they needn’t be massive) rather than using some sort of transmitter-receiver gadget, though I have to confess I have no personal experience of using such a thing, so it might be a viable option.
I have a pair of active edifier speakers and connected a blue tooth receiver to them very successfully. Whether you can use the rear line level outputs to feed a bluetooth transmitter would take experimentaion.
Yes that’s the other thing, if you want to go wireless with the rears they will need to be powered, so you still have some wires - in fact bigger mains ones.
Powering the rears isn’t a problem, its running speaker cables to the rears thats difficult (and unsightly). I need to check the AV receiver when I get back home in a few days, but its not that old c.2020.
This is getting far more complicated than I’d imagined
Haha, that’s always the case!
After much deliberation I’ve gone for the LG C3 and an LG dolby Atmos soundbar .
Don’t tell the missus🤐
Good choice - that’s the one I have - I’m sure it will work well for you.
Ok so not needing dolby atmos, what then would be a recommendation for a new tv?
LG OLED. I think the C4 is the latest but a C3 if it’s on offer could be worth going for.
And/or have a read here:
Having had a budget Samsung which didn’t do HDR properly or pass-through DTS audio to my soundbar, and which died after 18 months, I would suggest avoiding the budget end of the market, unless you’re just looking for a really basic TV for the bedroom or to put in a gite for example.
PS: re Dolby Atmos, any TV that claims to provide it is really only offering an approximation - for decent surround sound you need a fairly good soundbar with rear speakers, or a proper separates-based audio system.