Polk Soundbar's with HDMI?

Gadabout

Just curious if any of the Polk Soundbars have an HDMI input so I can use the Audio return channel from the TV?

Took a quick look at the specs and didn't see any, but thought I should ask. (I have been wrong before, just ask the gal friend.) Would prefer to get one of the Polk's, but since it is just a replacement for the TV speakers I could live with another brand.

Scott

Gadabout

I guess that all the crickets playing here means that none of Polk Soundbars have HDMI inputs.

I'll order up something reasonable, from another brand, and see how it works out.
Scott

Gadabout

Scott,

That's one of the STUPIDEST comments you could make. We are not Polk salesmen here. You can pretty much go out there and buy what you want. We just happen to like some Polk speakers. I have the Gen 1 Surroundbars... they run with any receiver, so you can hook up an HDMI capable one

Maybe my first post wasn't clear.

So, from my original post.
- I'm looking specifically for a surroundbar with HDMI input and output on the surroundbar itself. The reason is the audio return channel (ARC) that is now available.
- I made the post here because, sometimes web information isn't up to date, I miss things when scanning things and I thought that some owners of the surroundbars would know better than I do.
- The desire for the surround bar, is not for watching movies but mainly as a replacement for the TV speakers.

I'm assuming you took offense to the word "reasonable". In the meaning that Polk's are overpriced. So, lets see if I can clarify one of the STUPIDEST comments I could make.

I have a decent 7.1 system at the house that goes on when I watch movies. I usually find it overkill to watch regular TV with the HT system. I also don't really care for the sound of TV speakers they all seem to be on the cheap side now-a-days. Hence, I thought a surroundbar would be a fair solution to this. I would prefer to have a Polk surroundbar. (I demoed the SDA IHT and liked the sound OK. I expect the newer or larger ones to sound even better.) However, in this case, the requirement for HDMI on the surround bar is the most important thing to have on it. It even takes precedence over sound quality for this particular need.

The reason for this is I just bought a new TV. It is going to be wall mounted with extending & articulating arms. The surround bar, is going to mount to the TV using Soundbar Brackets. Using this method, the surround bar will extend and swivel with the TV. By having a surroundbar with HDMI inputs/outputs and a TV that supports ARC, I can run one less cable to the extending / swiveling TV.

So, I would rather have a Polk surroundbar. Since, it seems that none of them meet "my" requirement of HDMI ports. I'm going to buy another brand. This is a bit of an experiment so I'm unwilling to pay a lot of money for trying out something to see if I like it and if it works well in this situation. One might even say that I'm going to buy a reasonably priced surround bar for this application (experiment).

Scott

Gadabout

No worries...

I knew I hadn't explained myself very well. TV is due here next week and I needed to get something headed this way.

For this application I decided I would just go with something light weight (hopefully it won;t flop around on the brackets), that I knew would work with the TV - Panasonic's SC-HTB10. I'm guessing it won't sound great, but if it is better than the TV speakers I won't mind the extra expense. If I hate it, I can always put it on one of the other TV's.

I too might also get rid of the extending mount. It was mainly bought in case I needed to move the TV forward for the 3D glasses to work properly (guaranteed viewing distance is only 10.5 feet, which seems kind of close for a 60" TV).

I'm hoping that in the future, Polk will look into doing something similar with their surround bars for TV's with ARC.

Scott

disneyjoe7

Why not just use the optical feed out from TV to Soundbar, assuming Soundbar has this input. I can't see why HDMI input would be any different sound over an optical input.

RuSsMaN

Or standard RCA......

Gadabout

I could be wrong, but I didn't think the TosLink output from the TV would pass on a 5.1 signal to the soundbar for processing. If it does, then it wouldn't matter. The 5.1 signal doesn't matter as much with the cheap-o soundbar I did get. It might make a difference in the future, if I upgrade this one.

From what I can determine for the manuals, the normal way to hook up an Audio Return Channel device is to run the source (cable box, BR/DVD player, etc ....) to the surround bar through an HDMI cable. The surround bar processes all the sound and passes the video signal through to the TV.

I had also assumed that the Digital Audio Out (DAO) from the TV couldn't be set up with the Viera Link function. I went back to read the manual, and was wrong about that. I can set up profiles Viera link profiles with the DAO. I don't know if I can power the surround bar off and on through the DAO, but I know you can through an HDMI cable.

Am I wrong about the Optical out from a TV supplying a 5.1 signal?

Scott

BeefJerky

Gadabout wrote: »

Am I wrong about the Optical out from a TV supplying a 5.1 signal?

Scott

Yes and no. Nearly all LCD/plasma TV's will pass the 5.1 audio from its built-in tuner through the optical/coax digital audio out. However, they will not pass through 5.1 from another source plugged into the TV (i.e. a blu-ray player hooked up with HDMI directly to the TV).

Gadabout

Thanks for the clarification. Another good tidbit to know.

Scott

BeefJerky

anonymouse wrote: »

MY TV passes through 5.1 from any source, including HDMI sources. So this must be set dependent. I have a 47" Philips.

It is set dependent. It seems that the majority of sets do not pass it through, however, there are exceptions as you have shown here. I should have been more clear on that in my previous post, sorry.