I’ve wanted a soundbar for a couple years now. Every time I look for one, I don’t find anything that meets all my requirements, or I get overwhelmed looking and just give up.

My setup:

  • We have an SBC hooked up to my dumb TV through HDMI. HDMI handles both audio and video for the computer. We never use any other input to the TV, so this is the only audio concern here. This is currently a Radxa Rock 5b, but I’m considering replacing it with an x86 NUC or mini-PC.
  • We have a cheap little record player nearby. This sounds fine but could really stand to have better speakers attached. It has stereo RCA output.

What I want:

  • All sound to be output through one speaker/set of speakers. Ideally it would be a soundbar, since the TV is mounted above a fireplace and we can run the soundbar along the mantle.
  • If the speakers have to toggle between inputs to get sound between the PC and the record player, so be it, but it would be much nicer if the two were mixed. We’ll never have a record playing and have something on the TV, anyways.
  • I’d prefer not to have any extra cables coming from the PC to the speaker. I’m trying to avoid any wires showing, and so I’d like to keep the PC audio through HDMI if possible.

I’d love to know if such a product exists. Please, internet denizens, give me your recommendations if you have any.

  • @SmoothLiquidationEnglish
    4•2 months ago

    I have a Yamaha YAS-209. We use our tv as a dumb one with a shield tv plugged into it. The Yamaha allows us to either run the shield signal through it or just have one cable going into the bar from the tv. It also has a subwoofer that connects wirelessly and we have it sitting behind the couch.

    It sounds great and works well for what it is. The only problem we have is that when we change volume, there is no visual signal displayed on the screen. We also have a Yamaha receiver for the media room and it does a good job with on screen notifications but the sound bar does not.