The Creative Stage V2 delivers everything you could want from a budget soundbar. The bar is sleek and compact, making it a great fit for most medium-sized TVs, while the discrete subwoofer adds welcome weight and richness to bass reproduction. You can connect your Samsung TV with your soundbar either through a digital optical connection or an HDMI ARC connection. With both methods, use the respective cables to connect the TV and soundbar, and change your soundbar’s source to ‘D.IN’. When connecting through ARC, your TV may automatically recognize your connection after inserting the cable. Otherwise, use the menu on your VIZIO remote and go to System > CEC, then change the setting to ‘Disabled’, ‘Enabled’, or ‘ARC only’, based on your needs.

If your TV and soundbar have both options, you may be wondering which one you should be using. If so, there’s some more discussion about that in another one of our articles. Once you’ve decided which on to use, keep working through the directions below.

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If you need help setting up your soundbar to work properly with your TV, read our guide on how to set up a soundbar with your TV My soundbar or subwoofer is quiet or sounds unnatural The bar itself is also more compact than the V2 and you get a couple of HDMI inputs instead of an AUX-in and USB-C port, which will probably prove more useful for most people. The 360 also offers a range of sound modes tailored for different types of content and there’s even an option that optimises audio performance based on whether you’re sat within 1m of the bar while using it connected to your PC or further away with it hooked up to your TV.

With an HDMI ARC connection, your soundbar’s source will automatically change to TV ARC, then you can use the TV remote’s right direction on the direction pad to activate/deactivate Anynet+, which only works with an HDMI ARC connection.This is more common when you’re watching TV using a set-top box such as a Sky or Freeview box. Even if your set-top box is connected to your TV and your TV to your soundbar, you may find the audio only gets to your TV's speakers. If you’re on a tight budget and don’t have the room to accommodate a subwoofer, this is the soundbar for you. It won’t win any awards for sound quality, but at this kind of price you wouldn’t expect it to. However, it does offer a decent range of connection options – Bluetooth, HDMI and optical are all supported (though no connection cables are included) – along with three sound modes designed for different content types. Start by turning the volume of the soundbar all the way down, using your soundbar remote. Then play around with the volume settings to find the optimal volumes on each device to produce the best sound for your system. If this doesn’t solve the problem, make sure your TV volume is turned all the way up so you can adjust the soundbar’s volume directly. This might help since interference is introduced when the source (TV) volume is low and the output (soundbar) volume is high.

One complaint you might see frequently, even on top-end soundbars, is that they don’t sound any better than the TV they’re supposed to be connected to. The number of channels present in a soundbar is represented by two digits separated by a full stop. The first digit reflects the number of primary channels, while the second indicates the presence of a subwoofer to handle low-end frequencies. So, a 2.0 soundbar possesses two audio channels – left and right – while 2.1 bars add a third via a subwoofer. Sound quality is impressive too, with virtual surround sound reasonably effective given the limitations of a 2.0-channel setup and plenty of ways to customise your audio experience. That customisation extends to the Katana SE’s LED lighting too, which won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but is an essential inclusion for some gamers. You want to find a range that allows you to use the TV remote for the volume most of the time, and this usually means setting the soundbar at somewhere between 50-80% of its maximum volume output.When using an optical connection, the setup is the same as the instructions above. After your optical cable is connected to both your soundbar and TV, you will go to the TV settings, turn off the TV speaker, and change the source to ‘Optical’. When testing a soundbar, the first thing we focus on is the process of setting it up. Typically, that will mean placing it in front of a TV (or monitor), connecting it to a power source and the input source via included cabling or HDMI cables if not provided in the box. Now that you’ve made the connection from your soundbar to your TV via an HDMI ARC or optical connection, make sure that both of your devices are turned on. You can do this by their separate remotes or on using the buttons on the devices themselves. Test and Troubleshoot Any Connection Issues When Using HDMI ARC: If your video device (such as a Sky box, TV box or DVD player) is plugged directly into your soundbar, it’s possible for your sound to get ahead of (fall behind) the image on your TV. Many modern boxes have a feature to prevent this - you’ll find this in your audio settings menu.