Teacher's Pet wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 10:13 am

Teacher's Pet wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 8:10 am A few years ago I bought a cheap flat screen TV, not a huge one. Very basic.

I guess, like most new TVs and computers (?) it has rear-mounted speakers that face the wall, and not toward my ears.

The combination of increased dynamic range in new TV content, rear-facing speakers, and my battered, aging eardrums can make basic dialogue hard to discern.

I thought about getting a cheap secondhand 'soundbar' thing, just to have some speaker volume aiming out towards my face instead of rattling around behind the TV.
The TV is also mounted in a recessed nook type of thing which isn't helping, but there's no other place for it to go.

I DON'T want or need a beefy couch-rattling "home theater" surround sound set-up, none of that. Just a smallish front facing speaker.

I can't find any "audio out" jack on the TV set. Streaming content comes in via a little Roku HDMI thumb drive looking thingy that's plugged into the back of the set and there's no "audio out" on that either.

Is there any way to hook up an external speaker using this gear?

Update: I got a little HDMI audio extractor from Parts Express. I had no idea these existed (FM brephophagist was correct).
I also got a small, cheap, used soundbar from eBay. It works.
Will give it a proper test this weekend.

Oh wow I think I totally need this. Otherwise I have to watch with closed captioning on.

twelvepoint wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:05 am

Teacher's Pet wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 10:13 am

Teacher's Pet wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 8:10 am A few years ago I bought a cheap flat screen TV, not a huge one. Very basic.

I guess, like most new TVs and computers (?) it has rear-mounted speakers that face the wall, and not toward my ears.

The combination of increased dynamic range in new TV content, rear-facing speakers, and my battered, aging eardrums can make basic dialogue hard to discern.

I thought about getting a cheap secondhand 'soundbar' thing, just to have some speaker volume aiming out towards my face instead of rattling around behind the TV.
The TV is also mounted in a recessed nook type of thing which isn't helping, but there's no other place for it to go.

I DON'T want or need a beefy couch-rattling "home theater" surround sound set-up, none of that. Just a smallish front facing speaker.

I can't find any "audio out" jack on the TV set. Streaming content comes in via a little Roku HDMI thumb drive looking thingy that's plugged into the back of the set and there's no "audio out" on that either.

Is there any way to hook up an external speaker using this gear?

Update: I got a little HDMI audio extractor from Parts Express. I had no idea these existed (FM brephophagist was correct).
I also got a small, cheap, used soundbar from eBay. It works.
Will give it a proper test this weekend.

Oh wow I think I totally need this. Otherwise I have to watch with closed captioning on.

HDMI audio de-embedding is something I use pretty often in AV designs. De-embed with downmixing surround to stereo or mono out is a bit pricier.

HDCP key exchange doesn't care about audio protection, which is nice. You'll never get an HDCP block from using a de-embedder so long as the 'sink' unit can exchange the key with the source device.

Geiginni wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 12:08 pm

HDMI audio de-embedding is something I use pretty often in AV designs. De-embed with downmixing surround to stereo or mono out is a bit pricier.

HDCP key exchange doesn't care about audio protection, which is nice. You'll never get an HDCP block from using a de-embedder so long as the 'sink' unit can exchange the key with the source device.

Thanks!

I route all my HDMI sources to my TV, then run optical audio out to my 2 channel receiver. What would be cool I guess is to use an optical splitter (do these exist) and grab center channel for a soundbar. Is that a reasonable thing?

twelvepoint wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 12:14 pm

Geiginni wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 12:08 pm

HDMI audio de-embedding is something I use pretty often in AV designs. De-embed with downmixing surround to stereo or mono out is a bit pricier.

HDCP key exchange doesn't care about audio protection, which is nice. You'll never get an HDCP block from using a de-embedder so long as the 'sink' unit can exchange the key with the source device.

Thanks!

I route all my HDMI sources to my TV, then run optical audio out to my 2 channel receiver. What would be cool I guess is to use an optical splitter (do these exist) and grab center channel for a soundbar. Is that a reasonable thing?

It appears that TOSLINK passive optical splitters do exist. I'm not sure how good they are. I've always avoided using TOSLINK for commercial projects as the optical fiber used is plastic and has very limited performance over any distances more than 1-2 meters. There will likely not be a center channel de-embed, unless the soundbar has processing built-in. You would, with luck get a summed mono or localized stereo output instead.

Teacher's Pet wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 10:13 am Update: I got a little HDMI audio extractor from Parts Express. I had no idea these existed (FM brephophagist was correct).
I also got a small, cheap, used soundbar from eBay. It works.
Will give it a proper test this weekend.

Sounds OK, the small (12") cheapo soundbar I got is not super duper but it works as intended.
If you turn up volume on both TV & soundbar it sounds spacey so I guess there's some latency.
No big deal, soundbar sounds fine on its own and it's plenty good for Youtube videos of Swedish off-grid cabin families & Boba Fett.

Thinking of putting something like AirTags in some my cases once shows start going again (HA!); any other suggestions you'd recommend instead? Probably don't need more than a couple.

tallchris wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:05 pm Thinking of putting something like AirTags in some my cases once shows start going again (HA!); any other suggestions you'd recommend instead? Probably don't need more than a couple.

I saw someone post about that on Twitter recently, and I'm into the idea! I was thinking it could also be neat to try to stash them under the pickguard for any guitars that have a wide enough space in the routing. That way, if someone splits the case and guitar, you can still find the instrument.

Kniferide wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:20 pm

Adam_I_III wrote: Sat Jan 15, 2022 4:39 am Anybody have any tips on either DIY overhead mic stand for a stereo bar, or a cheap proper one?

About to ask the same thing. both of mine suck

Bought one of those heavyweight k and m ones. It is certainly very heavy and can hold two sdc mics on a stereo bar, but I don't think it's and ideal option for 2 mics. Great for one up high though.

four_oclocker_2.2 wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:09 pm

tallchris wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:05 pm Thinking of putting something like AirTags in some my cases once shows start going again (HA!); any other suggestions you'd recommend instead? Probably don't need more than a couple.

I saw someone post about that on Twitter recently, and I'm into the idea! I was thinking it could also be neat to try to stash them under the pickguard for any guitars that have a wide enough space in the routing. That way, if someone splits the case and guitar, you can still find the instrument.

I'd wonder if you'd get any audible interference in the pickups, but honestly have no idea how those are different than like your phone being on top of an amp and interference noise getting picked up.

Hey, i'm posting this as a small question but it's no so small, sorry.

I am trying to repair an Audio-Technica RMX64 cassette recorder, especially the mixer section (I don't really care about the cassette part, although it would be nice to try it, I mainly bought this for the mixer section). Some tracks worked well, others didn't have any signal, others had very low signal some tracks didn't send audio to the subs, etc... I took the channel strips out and contact cleaned everything, and it worked a bit better, but still quite a lot of troubles.

So yesterday i took it apart more thoroughly, took out the channel strips, unplugged all the cables from the two motherboards, etc. But i forgot to take any picture of how the this was wired before I unplugged everything. Now i put it back up together, but I must have mixed up some stuff. All i can hear when i turn the mixer on and plug headphone is a buzz, which wobbles when I turn some buttons randomly.

I guess i could use it as a sort of synthesizer then, but if anyone has one and could open it and take a picture of how the mother board on the mixer section is wired, that would be awesome.

And also i am looking for schematics / parts list for the RMX64. I found the user manual and some block diagram thing, but no real service manual (eventhough I asked directly audio-technica but they didn't have it).

I know that's a long shot, but you never know !