Ok, decided to buy a 4K tv to be delivered next week. After searching around for some hdmi cables I started reading about the best way to hook up my old Yamaha -D30 soundbar.

This has confused the carp out of me ……. I’m now in a world of 4K pass through and other stuff I don’t really understand.

In my mind, the soundbar is a speaker, so just takes the source, TiVo,Xbox etc and makes it louder?

Apparently the d30 supports up to 1080p so this is where I get confused. Why would image/ definition have anything to do with a sound bar capability?

Any help would be appreciated

It is common for the soundbar or amplifier to also manage access to multiple HDMI sources. This allows a direct connection from a Blu Ray player to a sound device so as it can auto detect the correct codec and settings etc to get the best out of the sound.

It’s not essential, mine does it but I just have an optical lead out of the TV into the amp. This limits its ability somewhat but that’s fine by me.

Does it have a pass through HDMI connection then – so you connect to it, and then feed to the TV?

In which case it might not be able to cope with newer signal.

It is probably best, imho, to connect the soundbar to an output from the TV, like an optical output, as it is less likely to have lipsync issues – if the TV spends has to upscale then it will take some time to do this and taking the sound output from after this has happened, i.e. the TV, is better – although I think technically keeping the audio and video in sync is an issue.

4k is picture only, for sound there is no need for it to be compatible with anything. Your old soundbar presumably was connected via a digital output from your TV before? if so connect in the same way. You will be limited to the codec on your soundbar which might not be the latest but the later audio signals are backwards compatible. Alternatively i’m sure it has analogue inputs which you can use from your TV’s analogue audio outputs – probably phono cables.

4k passthrough basically allows the 4k picture signal to pass through a device, like a surround sound amp e.g., without being modified so it goes straight through to your TV.

Unless that feed is 4K/UHD content it doesn’t matter. Your TV will accept 1080p content and upscale it for you anyway. The only thing UHD our TV does is the native Netflix app, everything else is 1080p connected boxes like the BluRay and the Apple TV.

Your sound bar is a YSP-30D (educated guess as the D30 is a piano) which has two inputs and a common out. I can’t work out if the new telly will be able to control control the volume of the sound bar so lets just assume it doesn’t.

You have two options, with similar results:

Connect everything to the TV via it’s HDMI ports (if it has enough), they’ll all do 1080p and let the TV upscale it for you. Connect your sound bar via an optical audio cable (about £15 max) to the port marked TV in this pic Clicky Then anything on the TV will come out of the sound bar as long as it’s set to TV. You’ll have to control the volume of the bar with it’s own remote which isn’t a big problem but it’ll work cheaply. It’ll also work while the sound bar is off when you just want to use the TV speakers.

Alternatively, if you’re short of HDMI ports or it’s all nicely integrated in the wall for example and you only want one input on the tv, connect the aux boxes, tivo/xbox or whatever to the HDMI in on the sound bar and connect the TV to HDMI out and use the Sound bar to switch inputs. You’ll still have to control the volume with the sound bar remote but you’ll also have to switch the inputs with it too. I’d choose the first as this costs extra for HDMI cables and isn’t as nice to use, nor does it help if you end up connecting 4K content in future.

Finally, I have a Sony X85 series UHD TV, it has a nice feature to control sound bars with an integrated IR blaster, it’s something you should look into if you connect it via option 1 or even option 2 as you can control everything through one remote. I expect other TVs have this function but i’m not sure what you have.

Hope that helps and isn’t a load of jargon!

Appreciate the help everyone.
Wozza, I think you nailed it and the optical connection looks to be the better bet.
Current tv is a 9 year old plasma which isn’t even 1080 so this was never a concern when setting it all up previously.

In time, I’ll probably buy a new sound bar but the current one does such a good job that I’d like to keep it for the moment.
New tv is a Samsung ue48ju7000 so I’ll have enough HDMI ports for a TiVo box and Xbox. All 4K content will be streamed direct from Netflix by the TVs app.

Tivo is 1080p max I expect and so is xbox, so you’re fine whichever way you connect it. I’d go for option 1 as it’ll work a bit nicer without having to involve the sound bar in the input chain. The TV will make it look great anyway.

Page 22 of your manual shows you how to connect the sound bar optically, all be it just a picture!

There’s another section later on about controlling other devices with “the universal remote” you might get lucky in there and be able to control both the sound bar and the TV off the same remote, but it’ll work for you just fine as it is.

Download for the manual

In future, if you change your sound bar, maybe look for one that has ARC, it should make everything integrate with each other with one remote doing everything… at least thats the plan!

ARC Info

Wozza, I think you nailed it and the optical connection looks to be the better bet.

Yes, Wozza did make the optical connection suggestion first, if you read from the bottom of the page upwards…

The main reason why this is best is the better chance of avoiding lipsync issues – try connecting to the audio out of your Tivo and you will probably notice the synching issues.

Apparently the Tivo works best at 720P and also has issues with some TVs not recognising its 1080P output.