Sound bar connection

I've just brought a sound bar with 4 slots. 2 RCA (Red & White), Coaxial and an AUX. At the moment i have my xbox connected to my TV via HDMI and then the sound bar connected to the TV via the RCA slots. I was wondering if this system is the best
option for sound quality from my xbox or whether i should change the setup slightly. i see that there is a S-PDIF slot on the xbox and whether i should use that. if so what cable do i need in order for this to work. do i need a cable with two different ends
(e.g. one end S/PDIF and the other end RCA / AUX). Or is this entire post pointless and it in fact makes no real difference. Thanks for any help in advance.

:)

 

Connection Sound Bar Using HDMI

For reference, HDMI ARC is meant for a TV to send the sound it receives from something like its digital TV tuner "upstream" to your soundbar.

The way you have it set up physically is correct, just that its not depending on ARC (Xbox One audio gets stripped from the HDMI cable by your soundbar and sends the video onto your TV).

Try changing the audio setting on the Xbox One to Stereo Uncompressed, make sure the soundbar isn't muted, etc. Maybe your Soundbar doesn't support 5.1 uncompressed, but 5.1 compressed Dolby Digital or DTS.

 

Connection Sound Bar Using HDMI

I want to connect my Vizio sound bar using HDMI ARC. My sound bar has this option (two HDMI ports). I tried the optical connection first and it worked fine, but hooking everything up using HDMI is not working for sound, only for video. Here's my setup...I
have a UHD Samsung TV, Cisco cable box, Xbox One, and a Vizio S5451w-C2 sound bar. Again, the Vizio sound bar has a HDMI ARC connection option. I have my connections set up as follows ALL WITH HDMI CONNECTIONS::

Cable box --> Xbox One --> Vizio sound bar (HDMI Input) --> Vizio sound bar (HDMI Output)--> Samsung UHD TV (HDMI ARC port)

I can get video just fine using this connection, but NO sound. My TV settings are good to go, but I'm wondering if there is some Xbox audio setting that is the final piece to this puzzle. Currently, my "HDMI audio" is set to "5.1 uncompressed" and "Bitstream
format" is set to "DTS Digital Surround". Are these correct?

 

Optical is by far the best audio connection method. I think you may be confusing this with what you have called "coaxial" as this is the primary input method for most modern sound bars. I could be wrong, but it seems more likely.

As for the AUX, that's only really added so people can plug in iPods and phones etc. Of course, there's nothing to stop you using that method for your TV but it's not usually the reason it's implemented.