Need help with connection!

[tiny3315]

I have an Onkyo receiver that I have always used with floor speakers. I just moved into a smaller house, and wanted more space in the living room, so I thought I would try a sound bar instead of the larger floor speakers. Of course, I want the ability to not only hear the TV, I want to hear my CD's and tuner which run out of the Onkyo receiver. When I purchased the sound bar, I asked the guy at BB how to connect it and if it would work...he said yes, but it's not proving to be as easy as he thought. Anyway, the Polk sound bar has one optical port in as well as a standard analog port (for headphones). The audio comes is fine from the TV, but I can't get it to play audio from the Onkyo. I purchased the optical splitter (2 out/1 in), and have the TV optical out connected to the sound bar optical in, and also have the TV optical out connected to the Onkyo optical in via the splitter. I have read that both the receiver and sound bar are amplifiers and have in ports, so you shouldn't have them working together, but I didn't read that it's impossible. My receiver is a TX-SR501 and does not have bluetooth capability, but the sound bar does, so I really don't want to have to return it because I like also listening to music from my iPhone via Pandora, etc. Please help!

 

[Guest]

All AV sources should be routed to the receiver first. The receiver then drives the speaker(s). As far as I can make out this means that you need an output from your TV (do you have HDMI out?) to the Onkyo. The bigger question in my mind is- can your receiver drive a sound bar ? Usually receivers output an amplified signal to speakers, not an un-amplified one. Perhaps your Onkyo has optical out that the sound bar can use.