SONY TA-AN1000 Day to Day Usability Compared with Samsung Q800A Soundbar

[Davey Boyo]

My current set up is an LG65NANO916NA TV with a Manhattan 4T-R Freeview STB as main source and a Samsung Q800A soundbar. The STB and sound bar are connected to the TV by HDMI (eARC for Samsung). I’m thinking of replacing the soundbar with an Sony TA-AN1000 amplifier.

Currently, I only use the TV remote to switch the TV on/stand by and to change source. I only use the soundbar remote to adjust volume when the source is not the STB eg BBC iplayer TV app, Apple TV app. It’s the STB remote for everything else. I love the simplicity of my current set up so there are scenarios where I’d like to confirm if the amp will behave in a similar way to the soundbar.

These scenarios are
1 Switching the TV to standby, automatically puts the soundbar to standby.
2 Switching the TV on, automatically switches the soundbar on.
3 The soundbar remembers the previous volume setting when it switches on from stand by.
4 The soundbar remembers the previous sound mode when it switches on from standby.

These don't appear to be a big deal but I'm wondering if I'm missing others? Any thoughts on this?

My previous limited amp experience was with a friend's ten/fifteen year old Onkyo. It seemed to not integrate well with the TV and Sky box. In general, has day to day amp usability improved in recent years eg by the use of eARC, by the increased number of TV HDMI slots allowing the use of the TV as a 'hub' etc

Thanks for your help.

 

[abacus]

All modern receivers have CEC control, so you should be alright there.
You will also need to buy a set of speakers, as well as finding suitable positions to put them.
Separates will give you a better sound then a soundbar ever can.

Bill

 

[Davey Boyo]

Thanks for the info Bill. That’s good to know. Yes I’ve been looking into speakers as well. I don’t have much space, so I’m thinking of getting the Wharfedale DX-3 5.1 speaker package. There are a couple of other small speaker packages (eg Cambridge Audio Minx) but the Wharfedale’s received the best reviews and seems good value. I really like that it got an excellent review in What Hi Fi when used in combination with the Sony TA-AN1000 so I can buy the exact amp/speakers that were tested.