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Best Way to Connect External Speakers and Headphones Simultaneously

(Topic created on: 07-12-2021 06:59 PM)
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Fred McKinnon
Apprentice
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Hi,

I just purchased a new 65" Samsung UN65TU7000 from Walmart.Com on Cyber Monday.   We've finally upgraded our main TV.   The picture is good but the audio is just terrible.    The biggest disappointment is the lack of traditional analog audio outputs.   From my research, it seems that analog audio outputs are rare on the new TVs these days.

 

I have a significant hearing impairment (can't hear in left ear, and not great hearing in right ear) and have always satisfied that with simple TV listening headphones.  My old TV allowed me to connect to the headphone transmitter via analog audio (the yellow RCA-style output) or digital/optical.   This never impacted our ability to also use the regular TV speakers, though.

 

On the new UN65TU7000, you have 3 audio choices:
1:  TV Speakers (they sound terrible, even if you don't have a hearing problem)

2:  Digital Optical
3:  Bluetooth

 

Currently, I'm using Bluetooth to connect to some new bluetooth headphones, and I use the multi-output audio setting so that the TV speakers still work.   It's disappointing though because of having to "connect" them every single time I want to watch TV.


The bigger issue is the poor audio quality of the TV speakers.   Our living room has a vaulted ceiling, and even my wife and kids have trouble understanding the audio, it's just not a good sounding speaker.

I talked to local AV guys here, and they said that most of the new TVs are like this, crappy internal speakers because they are really meant to be connected to a soundbar or a home entertainment system.

From what I can understand, if we connected a new sound bar to the optical out, that would prevent me from continuing to use the bluetooth headphones, since multi-output audio ONLY works for internal speakers/bluetooth.   But ... that may not be the case, which is why I'm here.

 

So this long backstory is there to ask this simple question:


Is there a solution that would allow us to connect to external speakers that sound better (for all the rest of the family) while STILL allowing me to listen through headphones?

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8 REPLIES 8
Pugs1957
Samsung Members Star ★
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If you go into accessibility settings there is a dual audio settings so you can pair Bluetooth headphones from there.
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Fred McKinnon
Apprentice
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From what I have read, and been told my Samsung's online chat support, that only works for bluetooth and the internal speakers.   That's what I'm currently doing --- but the internal speakers suck so bad, my family complains about how bad the audio on the TV speakers is.   

Samsung Support tells me that the multi-output audio setting (which I'm currently using in the Accessibility Settings) ONLY works for Internal TV Speakers with Bluetooth.    Are they wrong?

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xSteveuk
Mastermind
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Hi,
This page maybe helpful

Multi-output Audio on Samsung TVs

https://www.samsung.com/au/support/tv-audio-video/multi-output-audio-on-samsung-tvs/
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Fred McKinnon
Apprentice
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Thanks, but not helpful.   That's what I'm already doing.  Multi-output audio only allows you to use the internal speakers and headphone ... I guess my OP was too long to fully read, I always say too much.   I want to have external speakers (like a soundbar) AND use headphones.

Pugs1957
Samsung Members Star ★
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I've tried various things and there's no way for 2 Bluetooth connections. What should work is an optical splitter. One end to TV, the other 2 should be connected to the soundbar and a Bluetooth transmitter to pair with the headphones.
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Fred McKinnon
Apprentice
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Update:
Bought the recommended Vizio Sound Bar.   Not impressed w/ the sound at all, but then again, our living room has always had terrible acoustics, making it hard to hear the TV.  I think it's the vaulted ceiling.   Connected it via HDMI ARC - loved that, because both the Samsung remote and our Xfinity remote controlled the volume, but using HDMI ARC output completely terminated the ability to use multi-output audio .. making my bluetooth headphones useless.

Bought the optical splitter and Bluetooth transmitter.    I can't get the bluetooth transmitter to work, it's some Chinese cheap thing off amazon.   It says that you push the bluetooth button to pair, but I'm not hearing any audio, and there is no screen or visual way to confirm what you are pairing to, which seems a bit odd.  I've never paired any bluetooth device to another device without SOME sort of visual dialog to verify that you want to pair Device A with Device B, etc.

The other issue is, when you use Optical out, you can no longer use the Samsung or Xfinity remote .. only the soundbar remote.   Another hassle.

I'm so frustrated, I am not a technically challenged person, I'm usually the guy who connects all the gadgets, etc.   But this has been a real frustrating experience.

Last resort, I may get a HDMI splitter that simply splits HDMI to analog RCA.  That way, my wife can have her wired speaker on her side table, and I can use my old wireless headphones.  (we had an old RCA splitter plugged into the RCA output of our old TV).


My question there, is this:
If going HDMI ARC into an analog splitter (RCA) that goes to headphones and a wired speaker ... will the sound in the headphones and speaker also be controlled by TV volume?  My guess is YES - which once again, puts me back to square one.   We want to be able to have the TV speakers muted, or turned down low, and have a separate, full audio feed to our headphones, side speakers, etc.

IT SHOULDN'T BE THIS HARD!

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Alasta2259
First Poster
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Hello everyone. I have similar hearing difficulties to the OP and all we both the need is the Sound bar output and headphone output to be separately adjustable.  It's looking like theres no way to do this. Does anyone know, is this a Bluetooth limitation or is it just a poor design?

I am a hobbyist music producer, in a recording studio his would be easily addressed with a separate monitoring mix, which is what I do .

 

Best regards

 

Alastair 

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808JavaBean
First Poster
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I’ve set up several 7000 series Samsung TVs. The only one that sounded great used the newest AppleTV to send audio to HomePods. Very nice. I have the Samsung sound bar, it’s ok.

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