Arc/Atmos - TV support for passthrough from Apple 4k?

Sonos has never said they could interpret those signals. I said “everything that they say it can” , and not everything. 

For instance, Sonos is still unable to accept a DTS signal and interpret it. 

Yes, there are other manufacturers out there that can accept different codecs. 

Yes but you also said there is nothing Sonos can do to fix it. Why can they not fix it, is there some flaw in the Arc that you know about and we don't? If it's down to a physical limitation like a poor sound processing chip then. I can understand but be ware the Arc is a premium product with a  high asking price so we would not expect them to use cheap alibaba components. DTS is not relevant to the conversation, DTs requires expensive licensing fees so I can understand why it's not supported but LPCm is free, no one has ever paid a penny for LPCM codecs - that's why LPCM is very popular because there is no licensing fee 

You’re interpreting what I said to an extent I didn’t intend. Sonos could, indeed, either pay the appropriate licensing fees to the companies who own those codecs, or add processor power / new inputs / what have you to their devices so that the devices could “read” the codec. 

Yes, anything can be “fixed”, with enough time, money, and intent. Sonos has made the choices for their company. I can’t change that. My point stands. Sonos will play the sounds they say the will, as long as they are sent to the Sonos device in that fashion. 

What’s the point of yet again bringing a product to market that can’t support the majority of devices. I honestly don’t get it. It may be ok for people who will only watch streams via their internal TV apps, but at that price point this product is not aimed at them and TVs with eARC are few and far between. The omission of LPCM, uncompressed bitstream, and additional hdmi Input ports (again) is just ridiculous. I thought it was stupid when they launched the beam (I still bought one), but two years later the same again. 

As pure speculation, Sonos’ definition of ‘majority’ is different than yours. I certainly don’t know what numbers they look at, nor what marketplace they’re trying to hit. Perhaps if there is an AMA with Patrick Spence, you might ask him. 

Just think that AppleTV, Xbox, PlayStation, Google Stadia (Chromecast) to Name a few all output LPCM. Why would you not support that? As much as I love Sonos, I’ll probably look somewhere else for an Atmos capable sound bar. 

Basically, if you are a gamer stay away from Sonos, thats the message I’m getting here.

If you just want a basic product that plugs into your tv and plays sound, Sonos is there.

They should have just kept making the Playbar and dumped the Arc.

I also think Sonos attempting to do surround sound was a mistake, they should just keep a 3.1 channel as standard with the playbar and sub and not add others into the “room”. Thats to make the product even more simple for the target market.

Personally I’m an all or nothing person and it annoys me when companies do things half 

Moderator edit: Removed profanity 

This does seem like a strange oversight. I had planned to use the following chain of devices: Apple TV 4K —> LG OLED TV (eARC) —> Sonos Arc. With the lack of support for LPCM, will that cause this setup not to work with Atmos?  Anyone know if the 2020 LG OLED TVs can downmix the Apple TV audio to something the Sonos Arc can accept, while keeping the Atmos track?

Its a strange one alright - if S2 allows for high definition audio, you would have thought LPCM would be a no brainer considering there are jo licencing costs to speak of.

It would be interesting to here the engineer's take on that - are there any remainig technical reasons beyone bandwidth that would explain why LPCM isn't on the table?

You will be fine if you have eARC.  The Apple TV will pass the Atmos to the Arc just fine, if using eARC.  Consider yourself lucky - for many people (myself included), our TV’s without eARC will not be able to send an ATMOS signal to the Arc because Apple TV does not use DD+ as a container, and thus what they do send is too large to send through the legacy HDMI arc connections.