Adding a 3rd party sub to ARC / LG CX

  • 6 March 2021
  • 5 replies
  • 813 views
B

I have recently paired an LG CX OLED TV with a Sonos Arc - a popular combination and I get Dobly Atmos!  I added two sonos Ones for rear speakers.  I have an existing subwoofer that has an 18inch driver and was brilliant in a former setup, but I’ve discovered there is no way to get an audio signal out to use it, let alone a 5.1 sub output. There’s a confusing number of conversations around this, but I’m starting to understand that a Sonos PORT is the only way I can now get an analogue or digital output to work with.

Question: is that true? Are there alternatives?
Question: if I get a SONOS port, do I then need to use the digital COAX output (and why did they drop the TOS output??) and feed that into a Dolby decoder box of some sort to get my LFE sub channel out?

Question: will I then be able to configure the PORT output to be a subwoofer for the Sonos ARC tv setup?

Whilst the Port is an expensive option, I do also have a legacy high quality amp that I might also use in conjection with a port IF I can use the audio analogue outpus, alongside the digital COAX output.  IS that supported? At the price, you’d hope it would.

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5 replies

G
Userlevel 7

Trying to use a third party sub with the Arc is not a good idea. Read this:


Invest in the Sonos Sub. You won’t regret it.

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi
B

Thanks for that. So you are suggesting the PORT has sync / timing issues used this way, that doesn’t occur with other Sonos gear?

I’m not concerned about the sub sound as it has both crossoverfreq. control as well as a parametric EQ controls built in. Any other contributions that answer my questions?

G
Userlevel 7

Anytime you “group” another Sonos speaker/device that isn’t part of your Sonos home theater setup (in your case, grouping a Port to an Arc and two Ones), you will experience a 70 ms audio delay when in TV mode, but playing music will be in sync.

Read more about it here: 

 

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi
J

Sonos sound bar based HT setups are just not designed to work with third party subwoofers. Any attempt to bring a Port into the picture is an unsupported configuration and not a good idea. This is not an intended purpose for the Port.

B

Thanks for those explanations, that’s helpful if disapointing. So it iooks like hooking it into the Sonos ecosystem isn’t going to work.  Perhaps there is another way to split the signal from the LG TV end.

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