[sahara]

Hello,

after reading some forums I am still confused about which audio settings to use.
Case: LG OLED B7; Philips B5/12; Wetek Core (Android).

Should I enable passthrough or not? With it disabled the soundbar shows PCM. If I enable it (Dolby and DTS capable) movies show corresponding encoding. What I encounter here sometimes is muffled sound, or normal sound but no voices.
I want to move to Atmos in the future. I suppose for that one passthrough MUST be enabled, or?
I want the best possible audio with my current hardware and am not sure what to choose.

Thank you

[jacanuck]

What passthrough options are available on the Wetek Core?

It looks like your soundbar only supports Dolby Digital, so other passthrough options should not be enabled.

If you have all 5 speakers and the sub that are referenced in the soundbar specs, your Kodi Audio settings should be set to channels 5.1, and passthrough enabled for dolby digital.

With these settings, when you playback a video file with AC3 (dolby digital), it will pass through the bitstreamed audio to your soundbar via HDMI arc (if passthrough is supported by your TV).  When you playback a non AC3 file, your player is going to decode the audio (whatever formats the Wetek can decode), and then feed via multi channel input to your TV, which will then somehow deliver this content to your soundbar.

You'll have to try different file types (AAC, AC3, DTS, TrueHD, DTS-HD, Atmos, etc.) to see how each scenario is handled.

The whole HDMI arc / sound bar and unpredictable results are 1 reason I'd like to suggest you get an AVR and proper speakers / sub (unless you are very comfortable with the soundbar / TV arc settings).

[noggin]

What passthrough options are available on the Wetek Core?

It looks like your soundbar only supports Dolby Digital, so other passthrough options should not be enabled.

If you have all 5 speakers and the sub that are referenced in the soundbar specs, your Kodi Audio settings should be set to channels 5.1, and passthrough enabled for dolby digital.

With these settings, when you playback a video file with AC3 (dolby digital), it will pass through the bitstreamed audio to your soundbar via HDMI arc (if passthrough is supported by your TV).  When you playback a non AC3 file, your player is going to decode the audio (whatever formats the Wetek can decode), and then feed via multi channel input to your TV, which will then somehow deliver this content to your soundbar.

You'll have to try different file types (AAC, AC3, DTS, TrueHD, DTS-HD, Atmos, etc.) to see how each scenario is handled.

The whole HDMI arc / sound bar and unpredictable results are 1 reason I'd like to suggest you get an AVR and proper speakers / sub (unless you are very comfortable with the soundbar / TV arc settings).

 This advice will only work if the OP's TV has a Dolby Digital encoder and takes 5.1/7.1PCM as an input and encodes it to 5.1 Dolby Digital to output over ARC to the sound bar (ARC only carries PCM 2.0, DD, DD+ and DTS - though eARC carries more formats)

It might be better to initially try enabling Kodi's 'transcode to AC3/Dolby Digital' option - which will convert all multichannel audio (whatever codec it is in) to 5.1 Dolby Digital.  To do this you set your Kodi Audio channels to 2.0 (I know this is not intuitive - but doing so enables the option of Dolby transcoding in Kodi)  Then enable Dolby Digital passthrough AND Transcode to Dolby Digital/AC3.  This will then ensure all 2.0 audio is output as PCM 2.0, DD 5.1 stuff is passed through, and non-DD 5.1/7.1 stuff is converted to DD 5.1

However if the OP is struggling with decent audio from a soundbar when fed regular DD 5.1 that suggests a problem with the soundbar/TV config not Kodi?

[sahara]

Thank you. I think it knows DTS as well, as it displays it when DTS movies are being played.
It is actually 4.1; 2 speaker are detachable. TV surely is not the issue with only audio with no voices (it happens randomly). I thin the HDMI cables are at fault (in wall and a b**** to change them). I will try your settings, thank you!

[noggin]

Thank you. I think it knows DTS as well, as it displays it when DTS movies are being played.
It is actually 4.1; 2 speaker are detachable. TV surely is not the issue with only audio with no voices (it happens randomly). I thin the HDMI cables are at fault (in wall and a b**** to change them). I will try your settings, thank you!

It's unlikely to be HDMI cables impacting the audio. Regular HDMI audio is carried over the same data lanes, and thus the same pins and wires in the HDMI connector and cable, as the video signals. If you have a picture, your HDMI cable is fine. The audio is sent in 'blanking' (which are the horizontal and vertical 'gaps' in the video signal)  I know this is a bit surprising, lots of of people assume the audio is carried on separate pins and wires, as it was with analogue composite and component, but that's not the case for HDMI.  

HDMI ARC (going 'the wrong way' down an HDMI cable) is carried on its own pair of pins and wires, but it's like SPDIF (a single connection carries PCM 2.0/DD/DTS) - if it works in one set-up with audio, the cable is working.

The most common cause of 'missing audio' in a set-up is a source (like a box running Kodi) decoding 5.1 or 7.1 audio to PCM multichannel and sending it over HDMI to a display that only outputs the Left and Right 2.0 front channels and ignores the Centre (Where dialogue is) and surround/sub channels.  EDID means this shouldn't happen - but I've seen it in the past.