I have a TCL 49S517 Roku TV, and its a great TV except for the mediocre speakers, which I wanted to upgrade with a soundbar. I got the Vizio SB362An-F6 with optical and 3.5mm in (no HDMI ARC)
I would like to be able to watch TV with audio in one of two ways:
- Audio from the TV (soundbar or TV)
- Wireless headphones with no sound from the TV.
I know of the headphone option from the roku app, but I would rather not use my phone just for the sake of audio, which is why I got a bluetooth transmitter and headphones, which is far more convenient than fiddling with my phone everytime I want to use headphones.
I plugged the bluetooth transmitter into the optical out and it was working great. I can use the headphones whenever I wanted or the TV speakers controlled by the roku TV remote.
The problem is when adding a soundbar. If I connect the soundbar to the headphone out, the Roku disconnects the audio from the optical out and I can't use my wireless headphones anymore. If I setup a optical splitter and connect both the headphones and soundbar to optical I can no longer control the audio coming from the soundbar with the roku TV remote. If I connect both to the headphone jack then muting the TV will also disable audio to the bluetooth transmitter.
Is there a way to either
- Don't disconnect optical audio when a sound source is plugged into the headphone out.
- Use the Roku TV to control the volume of my soundbar.
