poprock wrote:It’s probably okay with a Beam. The Arc relies a lot more on HDMI-eARC to work properly. I lost the ability to control volume from the standard TV remote, which is pretty basic stuff … had to use my phone and the Sonos app to turn it up and down. I tried all this out when I was having compatibility issues between my Samsung telly and the Sonos Arc. All fixed now by firmware updates. Over optical you lose Dolby Atmos completely. Over plain HDMI you lose uncompressed audio - which is fine for Netflix and Disney+ because their audio is always compressed anyway. It’s a hassle with broadcast BBC, iPlayer and Amazon Prime - the Arc expects uncompressed audio from them, and shuts off in a huff when it receives compressed audio instead. I switched to just plain old stereo to avoid having to go change settings all the time.drumbeg wrote:What do you lose out of interest? When I tried it with a Sonos Beam, I think there was a bit of a UI quirk when I changed volume, but didn't notice much else.
drumbeg wrote:b0r1s wrote:Most TV’s lose any kind of Dolby 5.1 or DTS 5.1 processing on pass through from HDMI sources via optical. Most get down sampled to stereo which the soundbar then fakes surround from. Some older Sony and Samsung sets did pass through of digital 5.1 but most don’t. It’s fine if you are just playing out of your TV (apps love broadcast etc.).
Interesting. This is contrary to what I have read and I myself was getting 5.1 over optical (using a 2018 Panasonic TV).
Regardless, I'm not using optical anymore myself since upgrading my TV.
drumbeg wrote:Ouch! Yeah, sounds like that was a mess.
poprock wrote:Only a temporary mess, thankfully. Everything’s peachy now with the soundbar hooked up to HDMI-eARC like it should be. Y’know what does frustrate me though? The Xbox still sending sound to the TV when using headphones. Why would you ever want sound to the headphones and the TV/soundbar at the same time? Wrong thread for that one, I know.drumbeg wrote:Ouch! Yeah, sounds like that was a mess.
Diluted Dante wrote:Also if you're hard of hearing, you might want to use headphones to hear so anyone else isn't deafened by how loud you would have to have the TV.
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