What speaker set up for games room with room for extras elsewhere?

[paulwilson]

Hi guys,

Sorry if this is long winded but here goes.

I am currently building a games room, in it there is a pool table, I was going to be buying a tv but my parents have decided to get one and they have promised me their Sony Bravia 55" tv with sound bar and I believe an amplifier.

I bought a digital jukebox last year for my 40th and I am only just getting the finishing touches to the room sorted electric wise, now onto the plastering then painting etc.

The tv will be central to the main wall, the juke box is going far right of the same wall.

I believe the amp connects to the tv with a hdmi lead so if that is the case I will need that hiding in the wall.

So to the main point, I am wanting speakers for the jukebox but what do I go for, I dont want to be spending mega money but at the end of the day you get what you pay for.

Just been in Currys looking at the Sonos range but getting any info out of the guy was a waste of time.

I was looking at possible putting 2 Sonos One in the top corners of the room, would I be right in thinking that the two systems will not work with each other?

Would I be better off buying the Sonos sound bar and amp too so that the system works as one and can then therefore be switched easily from the tv when watching football etc to then listening to music.

I would obviously rather use the Sony soundbar and amp as that then frees up more money for extra speakers.

I can add photos if anyone needs anything in perticular.

Really need some helpful advice if anyone has the time, thank you

 

[Lucid]

Pictures and model names would be very helpful at this stage,. You see, 99% of the time, maybe even 99.5% of the time, a soundbar is a self-contained unit with its own in-built amplifier - no external amplifier required. That doesn't mean to say that passive soundbars with an external amplifier don't exist. They do, but not generally from Sony.

Coming back to the problem at hand, unless your jukebox transmits by Bluetooth then you're going to need (a) some way to get sound out of it, and then (b) some way to get that signal into a sound system. You're going to have to have a look at the jukebox and its manual to see what the options are for (a).

As for the Sonos speakers, they're good, and yes they will work as a stereo pair or as two monos, but if your only option is a wired signal connection from the jukebox then the Sonos One/1/Play 1 speakers on their own are not going to work for you. They have no signal input connection.

A better solution would be to look at integrating the signals for the TV and the jukebox and any other sources so that they come from the Sony soundbar or a better quality sound system. To do that though means knowing exactly the models of gear you have. There are just too many options with ways to connect and run things, and I haven't time myself to detail everything on the off-chance that one of them comes close to the mark. This post is already long enough as it stands, and so you definitely don't want to be reading pages of stuff that mostly doesn't apply to you. Let us know what you have, and do it quickly because it may involve running cables so these could be hidden in-wall for a neater finish.

 

[paulwilson]

Thanks for your reply, I’m just going to upload the images of what I have. I now know that it isn’t an amp at all, it’s a sub

 

[Lucid]

Your sound bar is a Sony HT-CT370. It has 3x HDMI inputs, and an Optical and a stereo analogue in. There's also Bluetooth. The HDMI out to the TV supports ARC which means that if the TV has arc too then the sound from its TV tuners and apps and any sources connected to the TV directly will get picked up by the soundbar too.

The speaker set inside the soundbar is stereo plus sub rather than pseudo-surround, but the kit understands audio formatted in a wide range of standard and high-def surround formats. It supports multichannel PCM too which is useful for console connections. Other features include AV Sync adjustment (lip sync), 3D pass-through, and 1080p 24Hz compatibility which is useful if you have a streamer or Blu-ray player and want the clearest images from from.


Your TV picture...What am I supposed to do with that? That's about as much use as a chocolate teapot. It doesn't even lead to anything useful if I reverse image search it. It's a generic Sony TV shot with no helpful details. Please try again. Either write down the model number down or take a clear picture of the back panel showing the model number. I'm probably your best shot at getting something good from the gear you have, so don't waste my time or yours, thanks.

The Jukebox looks as if there's a PC base unit in there (the fuzzy shot of a grey-looking box; again, not much use) but the instruction sheets were helpful so thanks for posting those. According to them there's an audio out (green jack socket, standard for PC audio out) so that will be stereo 3.5mm jack the same size as the headphone socket on an iPod or smartphone.

For the Jukebox (PC) to soundbar connection you'll need a long cable with 3.5mm stereo jack on each end. Don't just buy any make / cheapest as they'll pick up hum. This is especially true of any cables you might want to hide in-wall. Hum from your music would be annoying through the soundbar. You want something with really good shielding. If you want, I can make a custom length cable for you using good quality cable.


The best audio quality will come from sources connected directly to the soundbar. This is where the HD audio decoding comes in to play. If you choose instead to route the signals to the TV first then you'll limit the sound to basic stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1 (Note: don't bother routing the Jukebox anywhere else other than direct to the soundbar.

Looking now to the future, if the Sony Bravia TV was bought at the same time as the soundbar, then that dates it to around 2014-2015. At that point 1080p and 3D were the mass market for mats. 4K UHD was on the horizon but the standards hadn't yet settled. Product was starting to come through that would support 4K UHD pixel resolution, but it would take another three years or so for the hardware support required to deal with HDR and the other goodies that full-fat 4K has to offer. The big deal was the new version of HDMI combined with the digital content protection called HDCP.

New consoles can play out at 4K UHD pixel resolution with High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Wide Colour Gamut (WCG). However, to tap in to that performance requires a 4K UHD display with HDMI 2.0a and HDCP 2.2 Without these standard supported, the TV will report back to the console that the highest it can go is 1080p resolution. The same applies to any device in the signal path such as a soundbar. That has to support these features too. If it doesn't then the lowest common denominator rules the game so to speak.

At some point in the future you'll change to a TV that is 4K UHD with HDMI 2.0a and HDCP 2.2 It's wise then to plan now for when that will occur. Good planning means having some way in which you can change the wiring to accommodate a different way of connecting.

 

[mattylad]

If those are images of what you have then your a very lucky person.
The guy in the first picture is very good at fixing mechanical stuff

 

[paulwilson]

Thanks so much for the reply, its so helpful, sorry for the images, it was just the best I could do at the time with what I could get from my parents.

I have since found out that the tv is a KD-55X8505B

I will do my best to get some better pictures as soon as I can

Thanks again