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Sonos ARC and TIDAL Atmos?


Sonos Support on Twitter seems to suggest that Arc supports streaming of TIDAL Atmos tracks; however, there is a curious inclusion of “when using a compatible TV” in their response. 
 

Has anyone tried this yet or know if the music has to be streamed through the TV source first rather than directly from the Sonos or TIDAL apps to the Arc?

 

“... With S2, 24 bit audio is now supported for Music Library and NAS shares. You can also preview Dolby Atmos Music on TIDAL when using a compatible TV with the new Sonos Arc.”

 

Link: https://twitter.com/sonossupport/status/1270038144889638916?s=21

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Best answer by Krishma M 1 July 2020, 01:37

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Would also be interested in the answer to this, surely if you are playing directly from tidal to the arc and say the tv is off it would play in atmos?

I got Arc and last night was playing around with Tidal since I found out it offers atmos music. I think it is not working streaming from sonos app nor tidal app which is a shame. One would think since you are streaming from sonos app it would work no problem. Little disclaimer here I dont have any atmos capable streaming box nor tv and I have never experienced atmos. But Im pretty sure I cannot hear any sound coming from above. I looked up some youtube reviews of atmos music from tidal so I played the same track he was playing and i could hear instruments going around in 5.1 but none overhead. The sound arc produces is incredible for the package and definitely big upgrade to beam in 5.1 setup. Just a shame sonos doesn’t have this sorted. Lets just hope they release update that fixes this. Hope this helps

Tidal Atmos music doesn’t play via the Sonos app. (Nor does MQA for that matter.)

The comment about “compatible TV with the new Sonos Arc” means that a device such as a suitably equipped smartTV or external device (Apple TV 4K, Fire TV Stick 4K, etc) running the Tidal app would be required. The sound would be passed to the Arc as “TV” via the HDMI connection.

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This is really stupid sonos, you should have made this possible from day one. Its such a Shame when you sell a product at this Price. Go to work...NOW. 

This is really stupid sonos, you should have made this possible from day one. Its such a Shame when you sell a product at this Price. Go to work...NOW. 

 

Yes, I’m sure Sonos is going to take their product development cues from an anonymous poster giving obnoxious orders in an online forum.  As an engineer, I know I would drop everything and rush to please a poster like you.  What a great motivator you are.  

This is really stupid sonos, you should have made this possible from day one. Its such a Shame when you sell a product at this Price. Go to work...NOW. 

 

Not stupid at all.  The Arc is the only Sonos product capable of reproducing Atmos format audio. 99.9% of customers are going to buy the Arc for use with a compatible TV, not for streaming Tidal Atmos directly.  

Sonos didn’t have to enable anything for Tidal Atmos to work.  If they stream it directly, they have quite a few changes to make since the Arc, and no other devices would be able to stream Arc.  In the case of group speakers, the Arc would need to be the master room doing the streaming, which is not the case currently, and would have to treat the audio similar to TV audio in that it only sends stereo to other rooms...but without the delay.  And then there’s all the testing.

And of course, none of Sonos competitors can do this either.

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This is really stupid sonos, you should have made this possible from day one. Its such a Shame when you sell a product at this Price. Go to work...NOW. 

 

Yes, I’m sure Sonos is going to take their product development cues from an anonymous poster giving obnoxious orders in an online forum.  As an engineer, I know I would drop everything and rush to please a poster like you.  What a great motivator you are.  

I have 12 sonos product i my House. So i have payed sonos a great deal of money over the years. So i expect Them to fix this. I you Can handle What im writing. Dont read it. 

I have 12 sonos product i my House. So i have payed sonos a great deal of money over the years. So i expect Them to fix this. I you Can handle What im writing. Dont read it. 

 

Whether I can handle your words or not, it’s you who wants this implemented, and your attitude is not likely to spur anyone into helping you out.   It’s the same concept as not mistreating people who bring you your food (and something tells me you probably do that too).  

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This is really stupid sonos, you should have made this possible from day one. Its such a Shame when you sell a product at this Price. Go to work...NOW. 

 

Not stupid at all.  The Arc is the only Sonos product capable of reproducing Atmos format audio. 99.9% of customers are going to buy the Arc for use with a compatible TV, not for streaming Tidal Atmos directly.  

Sonos didn’t have to enable anything for Tidal Atmos to work.  If they stream it directly, they have quite a few changes to make since the Arc, and no other devices would be able to stream Arc.  In the case of group speakers, the Arc would need to be the master room doing the streaming, which is not the case currently, and would have to treat the audio similar to TV audio in that it only sends stereo to other rooms...but without the delay.  And then there’s all the testing.

And of course, none of Sonos competitors can do this either.

Well. When the app. sence that you play Atmos. It Will not be able to use the multi Room function, easy to fix. So because no one else have this function. Sonos dont need it. Hmmmm. We have to wait for Lg or Samsung to do it?..  or What. 

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I have 12 sonos product i my House. So i have payed sonos a great deal of money over the years. So i expect Them to fix this. I you Can handle What im writing. Dont read it. 

 

Whether I can handle your words or not, it’s you who wants this implemented, and your attitude is not likely to spur anyone into helping you out.   It’s the same concept as not mistreating people who bring you your food (and something tells me you probably do that too).  

Dont asume you know me, or What i stands for. What im asking for, is not by any means unfair. They could do it if they wanted.

Dont asume you know me, or What i stands for. What im asking for, is not by any means unfair. They could do it if they wanted.

 

I don’t have to know you to observe that you seem to make demands of others in an obnoxiou way.

Also, without a deep understanding of the underlying architecture, you have no idea what Sonos can or cannot do.  

This is really stupid sonos, you should have made this possible from day one. Its such a Shame when you sell a product at this Price. Go to work...NOW. 

 

Not stupid at all.  The Arc is the only Sonos product capable of reproducing Atmos format audio. 99.9% of customers are going to buy the Arc for use with a compatible TV, not for streaming Tidal Atmos directly.  

Sonos didn’t have to enable anything for Tidal Atmos to work.  If they stream it directly, they have quite a few changes to make since the Arc, and no other devices would be able to stream Arc.  In the case of group speakers, the Arc would need to be the master room doing the streaming, which is not the case currently, and would have to treat the audio similar to TV audio in that it only sends stereo to other rooms...but without the delay.  And then there’s all the testing.

And of course, none of Sonos competitors can do this either.

Well. When the app. sence that you play Atmos. It Will not be able to use the multi Room function, easy to fix. So because no one else have this function. Sonos dont need it. Hmmmm. We have to wait for Lg or Samsung to do it?..  or What. 

 

Can’t understand your first view sentences.  Regards to competitors, the point is that Sonos isn’t going to losing any customers by not having this feature, since you can’t get it anywere else, there is yet to be a large market for atmos audio, and you can get the audio via TV plus video streamer.  It’s hard to make an argument that the need is really there, particularly given the cost to develop the feature.

 

I don’t think you need to wait for Samsung or LG to do it (odd that you picked companies more known for TV and appliances rather than whole home audio), but you would need for there to be additional content, streaming services, and customer interest for Sonos to have a reason to develop this any further.

 

 

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I am sure that Sonos will be working hard behind the scenes with Tidal and perhaps amazon etc to enable their arc which I just received to play atmos music. Its going to happen you just have to wait patiently as we have done for hdmi and better sounds on the arc. I am hoping they also bring out ones, 1’s etc with up firing speakers to really augments the atmos experience even further. 

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Hi folks. Sonos owners can get a preview of Dolby Atmos Music when listening to TIDAL HiFi through compatible TV supported streaming devices with Arc.

More here: https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004255778-Dolby-Atmos-Music

We'll continue to work with our streaming partners to bring higher resolution experiences to Sonos. We don't have anything further to share today but we’ll surely inform our development team about this. 

Hi, this is such a let down. 

 

Purchased an ATMOS system to hear ATMOS!  

It has failed to work via my Sony TV with required Dolby Digital Plus. I then pay for Premium Tidal and ATMOS also does not function directly via the Sonos2 or Tidal App! Let’s not mention Master tracks…

 

Disappointing when other ATMOS systems make ATMOS easy! 

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Well, I can confirm the Sonos Arc plays Dolby Atmos tracks from TIDAL app (HiFi plan trial) on connected Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K. The same tracks played from the TIDAL app on the TV itself (Roku) don't have Atmos. 

So I have the same problem, if I play Dolby Atmos content from my tv it won’t play any sound (Tidal, AppleTV+, HBOMax) but if I Airplay the sound to The bar it would play normally.


I have an LG 65NANO85UNA, AppleTV 4K and a Sonos Arc. 

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Hi @oacs25, thanks for reaching out. Just to confirm, no sound from the Arc, when playing any content from the TV? Did it work before? Because if it's working with AirPlay and music in the Sonos app, we may need to check the connection between the TV and Arc. Submit a diagnostic and reply to us with the confirmation number. Thanks! 

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IMO, a big problem here is that you have to use a TV device to play Tidal Atmos content. That means the source from the point of view of the Arc is a TV (which you would expect).  In the Sonos app, I have the ability to modify the surround speaker balance differently for TV (home theater experience) and music sources.  When I’m listening to Tidal content, I want that to be treated like a music source rather than a TV source.  Yes, I can work around this by temporarily modifying the TV surround settings, but I really shouldn’t have to do that.  These are settings that I’d prefer to set and forget.

Of course, in a perfect world I wouldn’t have to go through turning on my TV, switching to the Tidal app (either on the TV or connected streaming device), etc.  I should be able to use the S2 or Tidal apps on my device or ask Alexa to easily play some Atmos content on the Arc.

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Hi @bjl, thanks for reaching out to the Sonos Community! Just to let you know that when listening to music using the Sonos app, you can permanently set it to Full (full-range audio at the same volume as the home theater speaker). When listening/using your TV it will always work as surrounds whatever the content is. If you prefer to have them in full like the soundbar, disconnect it as surrounds and just group the rooms so you will hear the same sound to all of it. Hope this helps. We and the community are always here to help.

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Thank you for the advice @Krishma M. Unfortunately that doesn’t really address my concern.

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Hi @bjl, thanks for your response. I apologize if that did not help but can you help me better understand it to help you out and maybe some members can share their thoughts as well. 

Just let us know. We and the community are always here to help.

Well, to be honest it is mind bending.. Just purchased a Sonos ARC and an LG CX, so I have the ATMOS compatible soundbar AND the TV… but it seems the fine print is that you will still need a Tidal app on the TV (for LG that’s a NO) or a streaming hardware (Shield, Fire etc.).

I mean.. that is understandable that say a lossless Atmos (TrueHD?) is not streamable and you’ll need a HDMI cable, but the fact that even if you have everything that SONOS tells you to get and you still can’t get even a lossy Dolby Atmos soundtrack play from a premium music account.. that is just bad.

 

Someone who has more knowledge in this.. is this deliberate from Sonos or just unfinished product development / issues in rolling this feature out? And can ARC owners expect any fixes / updates that will deal with this?

Thank you

Well, to be honest it is mind bending.. Just purchased a Sonos ARC and an LG CX, so I have the ATMOS compatible soundbar AND the TV… but it seems the fine print is that you will still need a Tidal app on the TV (for LG that’s a NO) or a streaming hardware (Shield, Fire etc.).

 

 

I don’t get why that’s mind bending.  Atmos is an audio format designed to work with video.  And your surprised that you have to use a video streaming source to get it?  Does Tidal even provide atmos content on devices that don’t stream video?  Not aware of anything.

 

I mean.. that is understandable that say a lossless Atmos (TrueHD?) is not streamable and you’ll need a HDMI cable, but the fact that even if you have everything that SONOS tells you to get and you still can’t get even a lossy Dolby Atmos soundtrack play from a premium music account.. that is just bad.

 

The lossy format you’re referring to DD+.  And you do in an HDMI cable for that.

 

 

Someone who has more knowledge in this.. is this deliberate from Sonos or just unfinished product development / issues in rolling this feature out? And can ARC owners expect any fixes / updates that will deal with this?

Thank you

It’s not broken so there won’t be a fix.  I would expect is that if Tidal wants to provide a direct stream to Sonos, which is likely not a high priority, Sonos would then decide if they want to support atmos audio without a TV.

 Hi Danny, thank you for the quick reply.

I agree with your second comment, it should be developed from Tidal-s side, and it is unlikely to be soon.

For your DD+ comment, I think it is slightly oversimplifying things.. DD+ can be with or without Atmos ( Dolby Digital Plus Atmos to be precise) and it does not require an HDMI cable. Say you download a Netflix movie with D Vision + D Atmos you can stream that from a plain NAS and get both on your compatible TV.

 

I guess my question .. is all TIDAL Atmos sounds are actually lossless? Because then all the DD+ argument is a mute point : )