New soundbar : HDMI vs 3.5mm audio quality

[noobj]

Hi I recently got a new soundbar to use with my PC and im using a HDMI cable to get audio to it at the moment.

Setup: PC -> soundbar -> ARC to monitor

Sound is working great and everything. However the problem with this setup is that the soundbar stops playing sound when the monitor is switched off. Sometimes I like to leave some music on and turn off my monitor while I do other stuff.

I was thinking of going direct 3.5mm from my PC to the soundbar so it can continue playing my music even with monitor turned off. I jsut want to know if there will be loss of quality going from HDMI cable to 3.5mm or are they all the same.

[Lessthanzer0]

Honestly, even if there was a loss of quality, a soundbar is one of the lowest quality audio products out there, you will not hear the difference.

not true at all. i'm not sure how much the OP spent but there are sound bars that are made by very good speaker companies like Bowers and Wilkins that sound amazing.

[DeltrusDisc]

Okay, perhaps there's some merit in some sound bars having decent quality, so I guess we can wait to hear from the OP which he invested in.

[Barnabas]

You could use 3.55 jack or you could update your bios on your computer. It could also be one of your drivers audio or video.

[noobj]

What has the soundbar I got have to do with the issue im asking here?

Im asking about hdmi vs 3.5mm audio quality. Not whether a soundbar is a good way to spend my money.

If you really must know it is a sony ht-ct370. I only got it cos it was half price on boxing day.

Anyway back to the question : hdmi vs 3.5mm audio quality. Not whether or not a soundbar is worth buying / wasting money on etc.

Simple yes / no answer would suffice.

E.g yes 3.5mm jack would not give as good a sound as hdmi cable or NO 3.5mm cable will give same audio as hdmi cable. Cos apparently my question was too difficult to comprehend that we have to start a debate on whether or not soundbars are worth buying

[DeltrusDisc]

It amazes me that someone who spent $150 (at half off... or so) on a soundbar would not understand the significance of that fact alone, much less the significance of the quality of an audio product to even be able to show the difference between HDMI vs 3.5mm, because yes, there typically will be a difference, especially if your 3.5mm jack is, say, directly connected to your motherboard and not some high quality sound card like an ASUS Xonar DX or Xonar Essence STX.

The fact that you got so defensive in this regard and didn't seem to pay attention to what marcackermann86 and I were trying to discuss, making very clear how important it is which bar you invested in, I have little reason to bother continuing to try and help, so I hope you got the info you need. I'll be damned though, you'd probably be just as happy with a $20 soundbar, by the sounds of it...

[noobj]

So a simple "yes there will be a difference" was all I needed. Dont need to come here with your superiority complex and tell me how I should be better spending my money.

What is it with people these days. Ask a simple question and they go on about how they would spend their money on something else instead of answering the damn question

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Again, the soundbar i bought has nothing to do with the question. Unless you are saying a better soundbar will somehow change which cable would provide better audio quality.

I did not ask for your opinion on my soundbar. I asked abt the audio quality between 2 cables

[DeltrusDisc]

I never said what I would spend my money on.

In fact, we simply said that depending on the quality of the sound bar, which is inherently affected by price, you may or may not even be able to hear the difference.

Are you so daft you cannot comprehend this?

[Xar226]

You'll find people who will tell you everything matters; who will spend $1000 on a cable because they feel it produces a richer sound. If that makes them happy, that's fine -- but I'm not one of them. Nor am I an audio expert, so take all of this for what you will.

To me, no, you're not going to notice an audio difference for listening to music through 3.5" stereo cable versus HDMI. If you also use your PC to play movies you should be aware that the 3.5" connection isn't going to provide HD audio streams that are encoded in some discs and will end up downsampling to a 2-channel PCM and you might notice some difference there. For music that's probably already coming from a compressed source, nah.

[noobj]

Are you so dense that you can not understand a simple question?

Ok take the soundbar out of the equation. Hdmi vs 3.5mm jack. Which provides better audio or are they the same. If you still cant understand it so simply. You should not be giving out any of your opinions to anyone. Much less advice lol

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You'll find people who will tell you everything matters; who will spend $1000 on a cable because they feel it produces a richer sound. If that makes them happy, that's fine -- but I'm not one of them. Nor am I an audio expert, so take all of this for what you will.

To me, no, you're not going to notice an audio difference for listening to music through 3.5" stereo cable versus HDMI. If you also use your PC to play movies you should be aware that the 3.5" connection isn't going to provide HD audio streams that are encoded in some discs and will end up downsampling to a 2-channel PCM and you might notice some difference there. For music that's probably already coming from a compressed source, nah.

Thank you! That answers what I wanted to know in its full capacity

[Doradodb]

Hi I recently got a new soundbar to use with my PC and im using a HDMI cable to get audio to it at the moment.

Setup: PC -> soundbar -> ARC to monitor

Sound is working great and everything. However the problem with this setup is that the soundbar stops playing sound when the monitor is switched off. Sometimes I like to leave some music on and turn off my monitor while I do other stuff.

I was thinking of going direct 3.5mm from my PC to the soundbar so it can continue playing my music even with monitor turned off. I jsut want to know if there will be loss of quality going from HDMI cable to 3.5mm or are they all the same.

Why not just go with Optical from PC to Soundbar? that way you can still use the hdmi link to your tv if you dont want to use the soundbar, and you can use the soundbar from your pc without having the tv on that way your not losing sound quality either.

[Vash The Stampede]

You'll find people who will tell you everything matters; who will spend $1000 on a cable because they feel it produces a richer sound. If that makes them happy, that's fine -- but I'm not one of them. Nor am I an audio expert, so take all of this for what you will.

Those are people who work at BestBuy selling Monster cables. Audiophiles will laugh at these people.

To me, no, you're not going to notice an audio difference for listening to music through 3.5" stereo cable versus HDMI. If you also use your PC to play movies you should be aware that the 3.5" connection isn't going to provide HD audio streams that are encoded in some discs and will end up downsampling to a 2-channel PCM and you might notice some difference there. For music that's probably already coming from a compressed source, nah.

Generally, no. HDMI carries digital sound but for that sound to work would be determined by the audio decoding device, like a receiver, or in this case a sound bar. But really a sound bar is a cheap speaker+receiver combo that does the job. The 3.5" connection provided by your PC would likely produce better quality than the sound bars internal Sound Audio Decoder. It's likely PCM stereo which isn't bad but nothing special to want to use HDMI.

If you have a quality sound card like an Asus Xonar or Creative Sound Blaster, the 3.5" jack would likely produce better quality sound. It's literally between the DAC's of the sound card vs your Sound bars DACs. HDMI is equivalent to Digital Coax, to optical. The whole point of digital sound is to prevent degradation of audio quality through the cable but if it's digital which all these cables are, then use whatever is convenient. HDMI is usually the least convenient of any audio cable you could be using.

If the sound card was cheap then HDMI would produce better quality. If you use a sound card then chances are even more expensive sound bars won't surpass it's DAC capabilities. And if your PC uses Realtek audio on the motherboard then using the optical or coax sound output would be equivalent to HDMI, cause it's all digital PCM stereo. That way you wouldn't be dependent on your monitor if using digital coax and optical.

When it comes to sound there's two things done primarily to get good audio quality. One is preventing noise and audio degrading in the sound signal, and this is where digital comes in strong. The second is the audio processing itself done by DACs. Not all DACs are created equal.

[Cyanotical]

actually, a $1000 cable does sound better than a $10 cable, not because its better quality, but because your brain makes it sound better because you just spent $1k on a cable, it's the result of a recognized cognitive bias known as loss aversion combined with some distinction bias, selective perception, and subjective validation

spending more on something does make you percieve it as better, even though scientific measurements would show otherwise

[fableman]

There's no difference. Speakers (e.g. floor standing etc.) still use the analog way of transporting the sound signal and no one ever asks a question about the quality. Yeah, there are some things which the digital cables excel at, but you shouldn't be bothered by it at home as you're not dealing with ultra-long lengths and etc.

[fixx]

Real answer to OP's question depends entirely on one thing. Where is the better DAC, on motherboard or in the soundbar.

Without in-depth knowledge of the DAC chips and op-amps used in motherboard and the soundbar nobody can give definite answer and all you have to work with is your ears.

[DeltrusDisc]

Real answer to OP's question depends entirely on one thing. Where is the better DAC, on motherboard or in the soundbar.

Without in-depth knowledge of the DAC chips and op-amps used in motherboard and the soundbar nobody can give definite answer and all you have to work with is your ears.

Sigh, that's basically what myself and the other first commentator were trying to say, but OP jumped down our throats for trying to be as specific as possible about details, so it becomes tough to want to help.

[noobj]

Real answer to OP's question depends entirely on one thing. Where is the better DAC, on motherboard or in the soundbar.

Without in-depth knowledge of the DAC chips and op-amps used in motherboard and the soundbar nobody can give definite answer and all you have to work with is your ears.

That sounds logical and to the point. Thank You

Sigh, that's basically what myself and the other first commentator were trying to say, but OP jumped down our throats for trying to be as specific as possible about details, so it becomes tough to want to help.

IF you didnt come off like a jackass by saying shit like " OH a soundbar is one of the lowest quality audio products you can buy" and go through alot of mumbo jumbo trying to make yourself look like some superior being and instead just said what the poster above said, I would have understood and got it right away.

It was hard to read between your pretentious and condescending attitude.

[Cyanotical]

The thing though is that sound bars do sound like crap, they are better that the built in tv speakers, but not better than anything else, no amount of money spent will get you a sound bar that sounds as good as a set of monitors.

And considering you can get an okay DAC and set of monitors for the price of a sound bar, a sound bar is a foolish investment

[noobj]

That has nothing to do with my question though. Comparing a soundbar with monitors when the question asked was which cable would be better.

There seems to be a trend between folks like you who feel you have to put down other people with your opinions without actually andwering the question and people who like to post your computer specs in your sigs like anyone besides you actually gives a damn about it.
Is your life so sad that you find fulfilment by trying to belittle others and showing random people on internet forums?

imagine you have a question about your quad sli gtx 690 card and instead of people goving you answers they instead comment on how quad sli 690's are such a poor choice cos you can get better performance from another card at the same price. Does that help you at all?

Does it make the other person look like an idiot and a condescending douche?

[Cyanotical]

That has nothing to do with my question though. Comparing a soundbar with monitors when the question asked was which cable would be better.

There seems to be a trend between folks like you who feel you have to put down other people with your opinions without actually andwering the question and people who like to post your computer specs in your sigs like anyone besides you actually gives a damn about it.
Is your life so sad that you find fulfilment by trying to belittle others and showing random people on internet forums?

imagine you have a question about your quad sli gtx 690 card and instead of people goving you answers they instead comment on how quad sli 690's are such a poor choice cos you can get better performance from another card at the same price. Does that help you at all?

Does it make the other person look like an idiot and a condescending douche?

your question was answered already, but in case you missed it: HDMI > 3.5mm

and i base monitors sounding better than soundbars on experience with sound equipment and knowledge of physics

sound bars produce a lower quality sound and audio than stereo monitors of similar cost, this is a fact of life

you can't take all criticism as condescending douchebagery, even though it is rampant within all audiophile communities


and no, i don't ask questions about my 690s, its pretty rare that i ask questions about hardware