If you bought a new soundbar and connected it to your TV’s optical audio out, you might wonder why you can’t control the soundbar’s volume using your TV’s remote.
Because of this issue, you have to use the soundbar’s remote and the TV’s remote together, which is not that convenient.
In this article, we discuss whether it is possible to control the volume of your TV’s optical out.
Here’s Whether It Is Possible To Control The Volume Of TV Optical Out:
TV optical output uses a TOSLINK connection. TOSLINK doesn’t support sending volume information to a connected AV receiver or soundbar. Therefore, generally, it is not possible to control the volume of TV optical out ports.
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Can You Control The Volume Of TV Optical Out?
You can’t control the volume level of your TV’s optical out. TV optical out uses a TOSLINK connection to send audio. TOSLINK has no standard way to send a volume-level signal to a connected AV receiver.
The optical out of your TV only sends a digital audio stream with no volume level information. Digital audio uses digital pulses with fixed amplitudes. Unlike analog audio, you can’t control the volume of a digital audio signal by attenuating the signal.
The only way to control the volume through an optical cable is to send the volume information along with the digital audio stream. However, no such standard protocol is available for the TOSLINK optical connection.
Because of this limitation, you can’t control the optical out volume using your TV’s remote control. You have to use the remote controller of your AV receiver or soundbar to control the volume level.
On the other hand, the optical audio connection might support volume control when both the TV and the AV receiver are from the same manufacturer. In this case, manufacturers use proprietary protocols to send volume information through the optical connection.
For example, some Samsung TVs and Samsung soundbars allow you to control the soundbar’s volume using the TV’s remote even when you use an optical cable to connect the TV to the soundbar. Similarly, some LG TVs allow volume control of LG soundbars using an optical audio connection.
The lack of volume control of optical audio is one reason why newer HDMI standards are better for audio transmission than optical connections. HDMI ARC with CEC enabled allows you to control the volume of a connected AV receiver or soundbar using your TV’s remote.
Can You Control The Volume Of An Optical To 3.5mm DAC Using The TV Remote?
When you connect an optical to 3.5 mm DAC to your TV’s optical audio out, you can’t control the DAC’s volume using the TV’s remote. This is the same situation as with an AV receiver or a soundbar connected to your TV using optical audio.
As we explained before, optical audio output is fixed, and you can’t control the volume level of the DAC using the optical connection. If you want to change the volume of the DAC remotely, you have to get a DAC with a remote.
How To Control The Volume When A Soundbar Or Home Theater Is Connected To A TV Using Optical Audio
You have a few ways to control the volume of the sound devices connected to your TV’s optical audio output.
You can use the remote controller of the sound device to control its volume. However, in this case, you have to use two remotes—one remote for your TV and another for your sound device.
If you don’t like using two remotes, you can get a universal remote that can control both your TV and sound device.
Conclusion
The optical audio output of your TV has a fixed level and doesn’t support volume control. When you connect a soundbar or an AV receiver to your TV’s optical out, you can’t control its volume using the TV’s remote.
If you want to control the volume of a connected sound device using your TV’s remote, you can use an HDMI connection instead of an optical audio connection. For this to work, your TV and the sound device both should have HDMI ARC ports, and you have to enable the HDMI CEC feature on your TV.