Problems with aux and optical sound

[missmorston]

Hi all - I hope someone can stop me tearing my hair out! I have 3 samsung TVs, 2 of which are fine. However, I bought a small one for the bedroom (model UE24N4300AE), and didn't like the tinny sound. My son got me a sound bar for xmas, and the problems started. The bar works fine on optical for normal TV, but I can't use any apps (Netflix, iplayer etc) as all I get is a loud buzz. I tried aux by connecting to what I assumed were the two 3.5mm RCA ports (there are five - red/white at the bottom, and red/blue/yellow at the top so used the bottom 2 red/white). Plugged into the sound bar, and nothing. Then tried plugging into a Bose speaker and nothing again. There is no headphone socket, and no bluetooth on the TV that I can find. There is a setting for wifi, but it is greyed out and no instructions on how to connect my Bose speaker that way. I have audio set to aux/optical and PCM. Most other options are greyed out. I have gone from loving to hating Samsung TVs in five minutes flat! Any ideas what to do to get aux sound working - or indeed, to connect the speaker via wifi? I don't want to throw good money after bad and it's driving me mad, and would rather not start converting the optical setting if I can help it as I might just get the horrid buzzing on apps again! PS: connections on the soundbar are optical, USB, BT and headphone jack.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice

[Robin999]

Is there no HDMI port on the soundbar?

[missmorston]

Sadly, no. I wish there was! I don't think my youngster thought of that ...

[Robin999]

Connect TV to Soundbar using the optical cable as you have. Forget the other cables and connections. On your TV's digital audio out settings...do you have a " bitstream" option if so set it to that. Set the sound output to TV Speaker. Test your TV streaming apps again.

Also check your app settings, for example Netflix, ensure audio is not set to Atmos, 5.1. Usually they default to stereo but worth checking.

[missmorston]

Thanks for trying to help! I have done as you suggest. There is no 'bitstream' option for digital audio output, only for HDMI ARC. Setting back to TV speaker means the soundbar is cut out. The streaming apps work fine on the TV speaker, but not the soundbar. I think I've pretty much run out of options! 

[Robin999]

To be fair there really shouldn't be a problem with optical connection as long as everything is set to PCM. You haven't got an old Xbox one knocking about have you. If you had you could try using the Netflix app (and the others for that matter) embedded in that.

[missmorston]

No Xbox, but I do have an old STB that I could try which has a small selection of apps. I'm wondering if it is to do with the soundbar not having 5.1 sound - it was, I would imagine, pretty cheap. Very frustrating that I can't simply plug and play 😞 My big soundbar in the lounge works via optical with everything including my 50 inch Samsung TV. I'm now considering getting a different soundbar with HDMI input and 5.1 sound to see if that works better (and working out how to disguise it to look like the one my son bought, so he doesn't get upset!) . 

[Robin999]

Hahaha...Optical works fine with 2.1, but yes a soundbar with HDMI would be ideal.

[missmorston]

Thank you for all your help. I finally bit the bullet and got an inexpensive bar with an HDMI port, and it worked like a charm straight out of the box. Conclusion - the even cheaper soundbar my son bought me either doesn't work properly or the TV doesn't like it. I will, however, have to put it somewhere visible so he knows (or thinks he knows) I am using and loving it! 

[Robin999]

Brilliant, glad you got it sorted.