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Hey Gurus,

I want to use a BEAM for 5.1 sound on my PC.  And also a SONOS SUB and a couple of SONOS 1.  Here is my PC configuration.  HP ZBook Create G7 Notebook PC.  It has a Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10885H CPU @ 2.40GHz.  It is connected to a HP Thunderbolt Dock G2 with the most recent USB C standards USB 3.1 Gen 2.  The PC has a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 with Max-Q Design card which supports NVIDIA High Definition Audio for 5.1.  I will use a Rankie DisplayPort to 4k HDMI with audio adaptor to connect from the HP Thunderbolt Dock Display Port to the BEAM HMDI input.  Will this work?  Anyone have suggestions.

 

 

You’ll need some sort of device that will move the audio signal from HDMI to HDMI-ARC. The Beam (and all Sonos home theater products) work from ARC, which is a subset of the CEC standard. Usually, this signal is created by electronics inside the TV set, and not by the originating device sending the signal. Since you don’t have a TV set in this equation to create that ARC signal, you have a few options.

One is a relatively inexpensive HDMI switch, with an optical output on it. This will take the audio signal from your HDMI output on your PC (Dolby Digital only, mind you!) and pull it to the optical cable, which you would then connect to the adapter that came with your Beam, and that adapter plugs in to your Beam.

The second, more expensive option would be a device like the HD Fury Arcana, which takes the HDMI input, and separates it into eARC output, so you’d be able to run only HDMI cables, again restricted to only Dolby Digital for the Beam.

There’s a thread here that discusses using Sonos as a computer speaker, there may be more information that suits you in it.  

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