The Bose soundbar is one of many soundbar types available that allow you to listen to whatever movie, TV show, music video, or Internet streaming video you wish to watch at the comfort of your own personal home theater. In fact, it’s one of the higher quality speakers out there.
With that said, how does one connect your Bose soundbar to your projector? Does it work with an HDMI cable, optical or TOSLINK cable, or with Bluetooth? What’s the deal with it?
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How to Connect Bose Soundbar to Projector
The Bose Soundbar is designed to connect to projectors, HDTVs, monitors, and other modern displays with an optical connection (TOSLINK) or HDMI (High Definition Media Interface) ARC (Audio Return Channel) as the audio output available. The problem or hassle comes from incompatible projectors.
Certain projectors only have VGA or A/V connections available. Others, like Epson 3LCD 1060, only have HDMI alone (not ARC). In such instances, it’s best to connect the soundbar directly to the source device instead of the display device. It might be Blu-Ray, an online streaming stick, or a cable box.
In particular, try to find one with an optical output. If this can’t be an option, it’s best to search for an alternative projector. Trying to find ways to split the video and audio from each other via HDMI splitter or A/V receiver is a potential solution but the simpler the better.
When daisy-chaining adapters or splitters or switchers to your projector in order to establish a solid Bose Soundbar link to a particular projector, the more adapters are involved the less viable the whole thing ends up being. Avoid spaghetti-wiring or octopus-connecting these devices together.
A Direct Connection to the Source Media
If your projector lacks optical connections or ARC technology for its HDMI or you wish to connect a Bose Soundbar to a display that’s mostly of the VGA or A/V variety, your best bet is to make a direct connection to your source media.
You might as well link up your Bose to your Blu-ray Disc Player or cable/satellite box directly to your Bose Soundbar (preferably if they have TOSLINK ports included) to allow high-fidelity sound for whatever you’re watching. Hopefully, you won’t run into latency issues.
As long as your audio connection runs as fast or as synched-up as with your video connection, this should not be a problem. You can also try plugging your Roku streaming device to an HDMI into your Blu-Ray Player for the sake of having Bose as a speaker while watching Netflix or something.
Again, if all else fails, then purchasing a more capable projector that has HDMI ARC and/or TOSLINK connectivity remains the best option for a streamlined Bose Soundbar connection.
What Is the HDMI ARC Anyway?
HDMI ARC is a tech used to reduce the number of cables between your external home theater system or soundbar and a display device (HDTV, computer monitor, or projector). The audio signal on HDMI ARC systems tends to travel on a two-way street. They can go to and from the speakers, in other words.
If you’ve set up your media device or projector together, you might be curious about what the Audio Return Channel is and how it works with a Bose Soundbar. HDMI inputs labeled eARC or ARC offer you the feature of connecting everything to your soundbar without needing separate optical or TOSLINK cables.
Without HDMI ARC, you’ll need the audio cable to link up to your soundbar. With the HDMI ARC, the HDMI cable is all you need for both the audio and video feed. Link the media player to your projector and then the Boase Soundbar and you’re good to go. No need for extra audio cables.
Otherwise, you’ll have to bypass the projector and link directly to your Blu-Ray Player or cable box to access their audio for your soundbar speaker from Bose.
What About Going Optical with TOSLINK?
The TOSLINK or optical cable for audio is probably the second best audio connection currently available next to outright getting audio straight from your HDMI cable. It’s your alternative way to connect your Bose Soundbar to your projector for audio purposes.
Projectors with an audio output serve as HDMI signal splitters by themselves, actually. Rather than invest in a splitter so that you can link up video to your projector and audio to your Boseman Soundbar, a good projector with a TOSLINK port can separate or split the audio for you.
A good Blu-Ray Player or cable/satellite box also offers optical outputs as well. This allows you to attach your Bose Soundbar directly to the media sources themselves so that you won’t have to daisy-chain the soundbar to your projector.
When using optical tech, beware of needing to use multiple remotes for the ultimate in CEC functionality. If both your projector and your source media device lack optical ports then you can go back and do the HDMI splitter thing with your source media device’s HDMI output.
How About a Wireless Audio Connection?
The best solution to any connection is to have a simple connection scheme. The more links, adapters, splitters, switches, and so forth involved, the more chances of connection failure there are.
However, like when establishing a wireless video connection, it’s also possible to turn your Bose Soundbar and your projector into Bluetooth devices. You’ll need something like the TaoTronics Bluetooth 5.0 Transmitter and Receiver.
This device connects to the projector’s 3.5mm jack (if it lacks TOSLINK) and converts the audio signal to Bluetooth. The transmitter works with either non-Bluetooth soundbars like Bose Soundbar or with actual Bluetooth soundbars alike.
When Push Comes to Shove
When push comes to shove, the Bose Soundbar is made to connect to displays like the projector via TOSLINk and HDMI ARC for audio output purposes. Therefore, when dealing with Epson 1060 or other projectors that lack HDMI ARC or TOSLINK, you’re left with several other connection options.
You can either split the signal from your source media to allow a separate audio connection for the soundbar or you can split the signal from your projector for the same results. It’s recommended that you directly interface your Bose Soundbar with your media player or source for optimum benefits.
If this isn’t a viable option, then it’s time to search for a projector that actually has HDMI ARC tech or even optical cable connectivity.
References:
- James Core, “Can You Connect a Bluetooth Speaker to a Projector?“, projectorninja.com, Retrieved May 19, 2021
- “Connecting my Bose Soundbar 500 to a projector“, Bose.com Community Forum, May 28, 2019
- Brian Westover, “What Is HDMI ARC?“, Tom’s Guide, April 15, 2021