Please suggest best way to hook up Vero 4K+ to new soundbar

Help and Support Vero 4K / Vero 4K +
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Dear friends,
Santa is going to bring in a new woundbar, the Sony HT-A7000. My old Yamaha YSP-2200 peacefully died a month ago and my hearing is too bad to use the LG TV speakers :frowning:

My LG is a 4K TV with 3 HDMI ports one of which should be eARC.

Is it better to connect the Vero 4K+ to the TV as it is now and the soundbar to the eARC port or is it better to connect the Vero4K+ to the soundbar HDMI and the soundbar to the TV always via the eARC port?

What I care about is to have the best audio format support from the Vero to the soundbar and also be able to use only the TV remote for both the TV and the soundbar via CEC.

Also, I do have a short fast HDMI 2.1 cable currently between the Vero 4K+ and the TV, while I’m not sure about the specs of a slenderish HDMI cable between the TV and soundbar eARC. Does also this one need to be rated at higher speed?

SONY’s site shows a setup in which the device reproducing sound/video had TWO HDMIs but the Vero only has one.

Thanks for clearing up some of my deep ignorance.

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Thanks Tom, had gone through that but found it confusing :frowning: Maybe it’s geared for someone less ignorant than I am right now.

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From looking at the specification page for the sound bar: The vero4k would be connected to 1 of hdmi ports and labelled in put and the LG is connected to the hdmi port labelled output.

Regards Tom.

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Thanks Tom. And I guess that “passthrough” from both the TV and the Vero 4K+ would be the best configuration and let the soundbar sort out the nature of the audio stream.

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The answer to this depends on information you haven’t given us. :grinning: For example, are there any audio formats that the sound bar’s HDMI inputs can accept but that the television’s HDMI inputs can’t (or vice versa)? Are there any important audio formats the TV cannot output via eARC? How many other source devices besides the Vero 4K+ are you planning to connect? Are you planning to use any of the TV’s built-in apps (e.g. for Netflix, Disney+, etc.)?

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Good point :slight_smile: Will try to make it up :slight_smile:

Peripherals are:

  • TV is LG OLED 55 E9 PLA
  • Vero 4K+
  • Sony HT-A7000 soundbar (new entry)
  • Nintendo Switch
  • Old PS4

Use this 40% for Netflix from TV, 30% Vero 4K+ movies, the rest a mix of game consoles and youtube videos (guess you understand I have a young kid at home :slight_smile: )

From the TV specs I seem to understand it supports (copying without much understanding from 54.6" LG OLED55E9PLA - Specifications):

  • for HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG
  • for Audio: 4.2 CH, Dolby Atmos, DTS Decoder DTS-HD and Wireless Sound Sync

while the soundbar HT-A7000 supports (https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/sound-bars-home-theater-systems-sound-bars-surround-speakers/ht-a7000/specifications):

  • for HDMI: 4K/60P/YUV4:4:4, Dolby vision compatible. HDMI CEC, HLG
  • Bluetooth Audio formats: AAC, SBC, LDAC
  • HDMI INPUT: Dolby digital. Digital plus, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Atmos, Dolby Dual mono, DTS, DTS HD High Resolution Audio, DTS HD Master Audio, DTS ES, DTS 96/24, DTS:X, LPCM
  • Surround funcs: S-Force PRO, Vertical Surround Engine, Dolby Speaker Virtual, Dolby Surround, Neural:X
  • Speaker: 7.1.2ch (Built-in Subwoofer)

Hope this helps you enough to give me some good advice and thanks a bunch

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Hmm, okay.

The most common configuration, if using a full-blown AVR, is to have the Vero connect to the AVR, and the AVR relay the video signal to the TV. The reason that’s the most common way to do it is partly that AVRs often have more HDMI inputs than the TV does, but mostly that there are many TVs which can’t actually accept HD audio formats via HDMI, while the AVR typically can.

But in your case, you won’t always be able to do this, because you’re going to run out of inputs - the sound bar only has two HDMI inputs while the TV probably has four (even if you’re using one for eARC) and from the sound of if you’ll need at least three inputs. Plus, you’ll need to use ARC at least some of the time, when you’re using one of the TV’s apps as a source; and your TV seems fairly flexible about audio input.

So, as a first pass, I would try connecting everything to the TV, and then sending the audio to the sound bar via eARC. This means A: you shouldn’t have to worry about the quality of the HDMI cable you’re connecting the TV to the sound bar with, and B: there will be fewer buttons to press to get everything working when you switch on - the sound bar will always be in eARC mode, and it’s just a question of remembering which device is connected to which TV input.

If you find, further down the line, that there is some audio format that the TV inputs can’t handle, then it’s easy enough to unplug the Vero 4K+ from the TV and plug it into the sound bar instead (and leave it there); but you may find you need to upgrade the HDMI cable connecting the soundbar to the TV at that point, as it will then be carrying video to the TV instead of only audio from the TV.

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Very clear. Thanks a lot (and no I don’t have an AVR)

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For practical purposes your sound bar is an AVR. If you had an older television, or even if you only had two source devices, I would be suggesting that you connect the Vero directly to the sound bar; but hopefully your TV can forward any audio you throw at it via eARC, and you get an extra input and less button-pushing this way. :crossed_fingers:

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