Think Outside the Bar
Oct 22, 2013
The latest thing in wire free surround sound is a “Sound Bar”. It’s a wide, skinny tube with a whole bunch of small speakers in it that sits right under (or over) the TV, and a subwoofer that works wirelessly with it through a Bluetooth connection. It’s not really surround sound, but the better ones are a respectable substitute.
My client wanted to install a big screen above the mantle and put a Sound Bar right under it. I recommended a Samsung for its superior Smart functionality and excellent picture at his price point. For the Sound Bar, I went with Harman Kardon’s innovative SB16. One of the innovations turned out to be an aggravation: instead of coming with its own remote, the SB16 “learns” the remote commands from the TV remote. One aggravation I read about was that with the TV speakers turned off, when you press the volume buttons on the TV remote, an annoying message pops up on the TV reminding you that the speakers are turned off. But, I read, the newer Samsungs don’t do that.
Wrong! Once I had everything in place and the TV speakers turned off, I got the annoying message every time I touched the volume buttons on the remote. Worse, I couldn’t get the Sound Bar to respond to the TV remote. I struggled with that for a half hour before it dawned on me that the Bar was looking for an infrared signal but the TV remote was so smart, it was a Bluetooth remote!
What to do? What to do? And then, Eureka! Who says you have to use the TV remote to work the Sound Bar??? Any old remote would do! I asked the client to dig up some old remote he didn’t use any more. He came up with a CD player remote. I “taught” the Sound Bar that “Skip Fwd” was the “volume up” function, “Skip Back” was “volume down”, and “Stop” was mute.
Voila: problem solved. Moral of the story: think outside the bar!
