Is KD43XH9196 connectable to Ht-XT3 soundbase

[wasnidgea]

I have just bought the KD43XH9196 tv which has Dolby Atmos and I also have the Sony HT-XT3 Sound base. Can the Dolby Atmos feature be used on the Sound base? and would it be possible to post instructions on connecting tv, dvd and soundbase together.

[royabrown2 · Accepted solution]

@wasnidgea 

It depends on what you hope for from ‘used’.

This soundbase is a 2.1 device, which means it has a left front speaker, a right front speaker, and a subwoofer for the bass..

To experience Dolby Atmos you need a 7.1 device, in which the five extra speakers are a centre one, two rear ones, left and right, and two height (upward-firing) speakers, left and right.

So physically, this soundbase can’t do Atmos, not even virtual Atmos with sound processing tricks.

What it can do though is accept an incoming signal via ARC, from the HDMI cable linking it to the TV, which is Linear PCM that is either 2.1, 5,1, or 7.1 (Atmos).

So if you send Atmos from the TV to the soundbase, it will understand it, and do the best it can with it, given it only has 2.1 speakers, rather than ignoring it, or going silent, or whatever.

And the LPCM has to be sent compressed by the TV, to go over ARC, since only eARC can handle it uncompressed, and the soundbase hasn’t got eARC.

So, the bad news is that you will never hear Atmos from this soundbase; but the good news is that if you send it Atmos, you will at least hear something, even if it’s just the original sound squashed and shoe-horned into stereo, with a bit of extra bass.

As regards instructions for connecting it all up, including a DVD player perhaps, why, these are in the excellent Startup Guide and Operating Instructions manual that came with your soundbase,

So I suggest that you study these, and then come back with any further questions you might have.

But the short answer is that you can connect a DVD player, via HDMI, to either the TV or the soundbase, and get the same picture and sound quality either way, So it comes down to whichever way you find more convenient to setup and to use.

For a UHD BluRay player, and maybe even an HD one, I would plug it into the soundbase rather than the TV; but only at this level does it matter which, and with a 2.1 soundbase, it hardly matters at all.

[wasnidgea]

I have only just bought tv from Currys but have had my XT3 soundbase for a few years now and was looking at what my best option for configuring the sound would be. The tv has Dolby Atmos but the reviews state it is better to pair it with a sound bar but maybe the XT3 is a little old now. Is it possible for it to be setup so it used tv speakers as well as soundbase speakers or is it one or the other? Looking for hest option other than buying another sound base.

[wasnidgea]

I have only just bought tv from Currys but have had my XT3 soundbase for a few years now and was looking at what my best option for configuring the sound would be. The tv has Dolby Atmos but the reviews state it is better to pair it with a sound bar but maybe the XT3 is a little old now. Is it possible for it to be setup so it used tv speakers as well as soundbase speakers or is it one or the other? Looking for best option other than buying another sound base.

[royabrown2]

@wasnidgea 

By all means use the reviews as a guide, but trust your ears.

To use both TV speakers and soundbase at the same time, you will need to feed the soundbase from the optical out of the TV; anything else will mute the TV speakers.

You may have to deal with sync issues where the sound from the TV leads or lags the sound from the soundbase by a few milliseconds, or phase issues where the TV speaker cones move out while the soundbase speaker cones move in; either will cause a hollow, echo-y sound that you may not enjoy.

But even if the sound is OK, you may find you need to control the volume on each unit separately, as they won’t move together from a single remote.

And alas, this TV has no subwoofer out connection. If it did, then the best way to use the soundbase might have been to connect it to that, which could have added a bit of extra welly at the bottom end while still letting the TV speakers handle the top end.

But maybe the optical setup will be OK when you try it, and maximise your investment in the kit you have. The sound still won’t be Atmos, from either source, but if you are satisfied with it why go further?

However, if you aren’t, nothing less than a new, Atmos-capable, soundbar will do. If you go this route, though, be sure to get a Sony one for the assurance of compatibility.

Perhaps one of these:-

https://www.t3.com/features/best-soundbar

[wasnidgea]

@royabrown2 

Thank you so much for the information.  The new TV is due to arrive Thursday but I have just had a look at the manual for the set online and the tv only has two speakers but it must do some technology magic to simulate Atmos.  It does indeed have an optical connection but didn't see anything for the subwoofer. 

Audio:In eARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel) modeRefer to the Help Guide for details.Except eARC mode5.1 channel linear PCM: 32/44.1/48/88.2/96/176.4/192 kHz 16/20/24 bits, Dolby Audio, Dolby Atmos, DTSeARC/ARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel/Audio Return Channel) (HDMI IN 3 only)*5In eARC modeRefer to the Help Guide for details.In ARC modeTwo channel linear PCM: 48 kHz 16 bits, Dolby Audio, Dolby Atmos, DTS DIGITAL AUDIO OUT (OPTICAL)Digital optical jack (Two channel linear PCM: 48 kHz 16 bits, Dolby Audio, DTS)

[royabrown2]

Hi @wasnidgea 

Think cube, square, line.

Atmos isn’t just about height speakers; it is also about object-oriented sound, where it can track up to 118 objects in that cubic space (width, depth, height), though these are normally rendered down to as few as 11 ‘tracks’ for home theatre, with the 118 aggregated into these 11 objects.

The Atmos-supporting device then has to decide what to do with these 11 tracks; pass them unchanged over eARC, compress them to go over ARC, or render them itself?

If the rendering device is your 2.0 (left and right speakers, no sub) TV, then a track whose location is x,y,z (left to right, front to back, floor to ceiling) can only be placed on a line between those two speakers using the x coordinate.

So it drops to stereo only; but maybe marginally better stereo than the conventional panpotting (look it up) that non-Atmos systems use.

If the rendering device is your 2.1 soundbase, then the 5.1 Atmos track is busted down to 2.1, again by flattening the height and depth positions to zero, but at least the bass goes over intact, rather than being smerged across 2.0 speakers. (The human ear doesn’t much care where the bass is located, as long as there is plenty of it).

So that’s the ‘magic’ of Atmos on 2.x systems.

Feed the Atmos to a 5.1 system, though, and it only has to throw away the height information z, and can spread the sound over the flat square that you are sitting in, including, now, front to back sound presentation.

Go up to 7.1, with a couple of height speakers, and the z information can now be used. Though as the sound space you are sitting in is actually shaped like a bar of Toblerone held crosswise, coming to a point where the two height speakers are, the y (depth) coordinate still has to be compressed a bit, the higher you go.

Get up to 9.1, and at last you have your cube; 11.1 just adds a bit of refinement to this.

So that is ‘no-tricks’ Atmos; in practice, the ear can be fooled by sound processing tricks the TV or soundbase might be able to do, usually called Spatial Sound, or Virtual sound, or some such; my Yamaha Soundbar can ‘throw’ sounds out from its position under the TV that sound like they are coming from beside me, sitting ten feet back from it. But it can’t quite manage to throw sound behind me, and it can’t manage to throw sound above me at all.

Though my brain still puts the helicopters above and behind me, as it knows they must be behind me if it can’t see them on the screen, and it hopes they aren’t coming along the road 😛

Tricky things, soundstages, a combination of where the speakers actually are, sound processing tricks, and what your brain knows about the real world.

All hail the foley editors of Hollywood and beyond!