Using an active soundbar in another room via pre-outs

[Graeme Williamson]

Hi folks. I'm a bit of an amateur with all of this so go easy on me ;-)

I have a Yamaha DSP-AX763 receiver and a 5.1 surround system in my living room. I want the option of having sound in my kitchen and have purchased a soundbar for this purpose. The difficulty was that I also wanted to use the soundbar on occasion independently of the living room kit as a stand-alone bluetooth speaker for streaming music in my kitchen. The soundbar has the following inputs: 3.5mm jack, coaxial, RCA, and optical as well as bluetooth. I had hoped to simply connect the soundbar to my optical output on the receiver but I didn't realise I couldn't do this because it's active not passive. Having done a bit of research, I think it may be possible to use my pre-outs on my receiver to send a signal to the soundbar but I can't get it to work. Is this because I also am using the regular speaker terminals for my 5.1 living room set up? Is there any way to make this work without changing my hardware? The end goal is to be able to have anything that's playing through the receiver also coming into the kitchen, but also being able to use the kitchen soundbar separately.

I non-standard set up I know, but please humour me and help if you can. Thanks!

 

[WaynePflughaupt]

If the Yamaha DSP-AX763 is sending the signal to the soundbar, then you will not be able to use the soundbar if the Yamaha is not on.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[markw]

To augment what Wayne said, which is true, if you just want to hear the sound bar, you will need to have the receiver on, but you should have the ability on it to turn off the speakers while the outputs to the sound bar should still be active.

Of course, this will only work if you use the analog pre outs, unless you have an A/B speaker switch on the yammie, a feature which is becoming rare.

 

[Graeme Williamson]

Hi guys. Thanks. I'm aware that the receiver will need to be on while using the pre-outs. When I've tried it though, I don't get any sound from the soundbar. Any idea why?

 

[TLS Guy]

Hi guys. Thanks. I'm aware that the receiver will need to be on while using the pre-outs. When I've tried it though, I don't get any sound from the soundbar. Any idea why?

No, because you did not tell us what sound bar you have, nor give us a link to the user manual. Without that no one will have a clue.

 

[Graeme Williamson]

Ok, did try to upload manuals but file size too big. I also can't save links because I'm a new user and it doesn't let you to prevent spam, but if you paste the following into your browser and add .com hopefully that will work! Thanks

Yamaha DSP-AX763 receiver manual:
dl.dropboxusercontent[INSERT DOT COM]/u/5490401/Yamaha%20receiver.pdf
Kitsound Chorus soundbar manual
dl.dropboxusercontent[INSERT DOT COM]/u/5490401/KITSD3722_Chorus-soundbar_Manual.pdf

 

[TLS Guy]

Ok, did try to upload manuals but file size too big. I also can't save links because I'm a new user and it doesn't let you to prevent spam, but if you paste the following into your browser and add .com hopefully that will work! Thanks

Yamaha DSP-AX763 receiver manual:
dl.dropboxusercontent[INSERT DOT COM]/u/5490401/Yamaha%20receiver.pdf
Kitsound Chorus soundbar manual
dl.dropboxusercontent[INSERT DOT COM]/u/5490401/KITSD3722_Chorus-soundbar_Manual.pdf

I think I have the site, but it does not load. Last time I tried to help someone with a junk sound bar, I got a boat load of corrupt spyware. I'm done helping people with junk purchases. I have seen enough to know that sound bar is unmitigated junk and a complete waste of money.

 

[Graeme Williamson]

Ok, if anyone has anything more constructive to say that would be appreciated...

 

[markw]

All I've got is that if your sound bar has multiple input settings, make sure the correct one is selected.

 

[Graeme Williamson]

Yeah, that's not the issue. Definitely the right input selected. Thanks though

 

[markw]

If you plug in another analog source to the analog inputs (like a CD or MP3 player) does it work?

 

[Graeme Williamson]

If you mean attaching a component direct to the soundbar via analog, yes it works. Anything connected direct to the soundbar works - via optical or analog inputs. It's just when I'm trying to connect via the receiver's pre-outs that it doesn't work.

 

[markw]

At least that isolates the problem .I can't offer any more than the fact the there seems to be something amiss with the yammie. You might want to scour your manual for some obscure setting somewhere in the multitude of it's menus.

 

[TLS Guy]

If you mean attaching a component direct to the soundbar via analog, yes it works. Anything connected direct to the soundbar works - via optical or analog inputs. It's just when I'm trying to connect via the receiver's pre-outs that it doesn't work.

After a lot of searching, I managed to find a user manual on line for your Yamaha receiver.

Much to my surprise the manual clearly states that if you want to use the preouts you can not connect speakers. How it knows there are speakers connected is beyond me. The manual clearly states that the prepouts only work if no speakers are connected.

So that is check mate for using the sound bar off the Yamaha.

The only way this would work would be to use an external amp to power your speakers, via a Y connections, with one end going to the external amps and the other going to the sound bar.

 

[Graeme Williamson]

Thanks for getting back to me TLS guy. I thought I read something along those lines but I wasn't sure I understood it right or why that would be the case. Plan B (a lot messier) would be to connect all of my components direct to the receiver AND the soundbar. Will see if this works.