Dac or something else to sync hdmi audio devices?

Audio Hardware & Software
1

I am trying to combine two audio soundbars (expensive 1000 dollar ones) for wider sound stage. I have it down to probably 10ms. That is done by the actual lip sync correction on the soundbar. My question is there a better way of doing this with a dac or something for even more minor offsets?

It seems to be synced when watching dts or dolby true hd (lossless and passed through), but opus mainly seems to be out of sync.

2

Yes, a real AV receiver with however many speakers you want. Trying to hack together multiple sound bars is way more trouble than its worth just to have the equipment designed for what your goal is in the first place. Sound bars have two use cases, those who want cheap sound that is an upgrade from built in TV speakers, and those who have no room for anything bigger but still want good sound and are willing to spend for it.

3

I am not gonna spend that much money as over the years I have ended up with a few 800 dollar + soundbars. All of which I did not pay a penny for. So ideally without spending more than 100 dollars I would like another solution than a reciever and speaker setup. Literally I am within 20ms. If a dac can push it to 10 or less that would be ideal.

4

Any speaker-management-system can do this, two issues with that though:

  1. These things are expensive
  2. Most of them are XLR for input and output

For example one of these babys:

Edit: My brain kicked in after I hit send…
MiniDSP probably has the problem-solver that is appropriate for home use :wink:

5

If your soundbars have analog inputs that’s probably going to be your best bet, keeping a single HDMI audio device in sync is hard enough. I’m not sure exactly what you’re trying to do but if your sending the same signal to both then maybe a HDMI splitter will work, you could still have sync issues caused by the reclocking in each soundbar.

10ms is a lot of delay in audio, it’s going to be close enough that they will sound like they are in sync but it will cause phase issues and cancellations. Of course just having a bunch of horizontally arranged speakers will also cause phase problems and cancellations so :person_shrugging:

Personally I wouldn’t persue this. I know you don’t want to spend any money but if you want soundstage a nice pair of bookshelf speakers would be my choice.