I am looking for the cheapest alternative to an AV receiver - I'm not sure what this would be called so not even able to search/price one.
Basically I am trying to take a single audio input (from the TV - coax and HDMI ARC audio outputs) and have some kind of selectable switch to send the audio either to speaker(s) or some kind of wireless headphones. I am not an audiophile and will not be installing surround speakers and earth shuddering subwoofers, so I don't want to overspec this. Clearly an AV receiver would do all I want (and more) but I don't really want to spend $500 minimum just for this component. WAF needs to be sought, so both price and ease of use will be factors. And I realise that those factors are somewhat mutually exclusive, but daisy chaining 3 different components together won't really fly.
I'm open to any particular combo, whether a wireless device that you plug headphones into (a la Roku's wifi direct remote) or the Sennheiser-style wireless headphones. For the speaker, a soundbar or small speakers in the TV cabinet would be preferred.
I have just received one of these from Aliexpress which I thought would do what I want it to. But as seems to be typical for me, the unit seems faulty - the headphone jack seems to only output the rear 5.1 channels no matter what I do. I'm over entering into weeks and weeks of to-ing and fro-ing with China so just want to source something local that will work.