How to Hook Up Surround Sound to an Emerson TV

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How you connect your Emerson TV to your surround sound system depends on the kind of connections your TV has available. While older TVs may feature composite audio output, newer models offered by Emerson only offer audio output using digital coaxial audio cables. You can work around this by using your surround receiver or cable/satellite set-top box as a media hub if you don't have a digital audio cable.

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Digital Audio-Out

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Newer Emerson TV models typically feature only a digital coaxial audio jack for sending TV audio to your surround speakers. As a single cable, setup is simple: Connect one end of the digital coaxial cable to the orange Digital Audio Out (Coaxial) port on your TV and the other end to the Digital Audio-In or Digital Audio-In (Coaxial) port on your surround system.

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Analog Audio

Some older Emerson models may support analog audio output using composite connectors. To find out if your TV supports analog audio-out, check the back panel for the audio connectors. If you see red and white connectors marked Audio-Out, your TV can output to your surround system with a composite cable.

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To connect using composite audio, connect the red and white connectors on one end of the cable to the color-coded Audio-Out ports on your TV. Attach the connectors at the other end to the Audio-In ports on your surround receiver.

Other Devices as Media Hub

If your Emerson TV only supports an audio-out type that you can't or would rather not use, there is a workaround. Instead of connecting your devices to your TV and outputting the TV's audio to the surround system, you can instead connect the devices to your surround receiver or cable/satellite box and connect the receiver or box to your TV's A/V input. This also means you can use an HDMI cable to connect the audio devices to your TV.

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Set up like this, your TV becomes essentially a video display that outputs sound from the receiver or box and connected devices through its own speakers. Your receiver or box, meanwhile, serves as the hub where you switch among your gaming consoles, DVD or Blu-ray players. Because the devices are connected to the receiver or box and not directly to the TV, the audio comes out of your surround speakers as well as your TV speakers.

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HDMI

For HDMI connections, insert one end of the cable into the HDMI-Out port on your receiver and the other end into one of the HDMI ports on your TV.

Composite

Step 1

Connect the red and white connectors to the color-coded Audio-Out ports on the receiver or satellite box and the Audio-In or L and R ports on your TV.

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Step 2

Connect the yellow connector to the color-coded Video-In port on the TV and the corresponding Video-Out port on the receiver or satellite box. If your TV has a green input instead of a yellow one, attach the yellow connector to it instead.

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