Hi all,



I just wanted to chime in with my experience. I have received my Beam a couple of days ago (international shipping took a bit of time; Beam is not sold in my country, unfortunately) and installed it as part of a 5.1 system (with a Sub and two Ones). Setup was very easy --- I had a Sony soundbar connected via HDMI ARC, so I just disconnected it and replaced it with the Beam. The TV recognized the Beam immediately. So, setup was pretty smooth. The only snag was that I had to re-add my Sub and Ones, rather than add the Beam to an existing Sonos setup.



Reading the forum, I was worried I might have lip sync problems. I am happy to report that the lip sync is, so far, perfect. I use an Apple TV 4K for all my content. It is configured to output Dolby 5.1 sound. The TV is in Cinema Pro mode; this turns off most of the processing modern TVs like to do to "improve" the picture (I think most such processing does the exact opposite). In particular, this ensures the TV does not "invent" new frames or data, and does not do any sort of smoothing (so no soap-opera effect).



Sonos is receiving Dolby 5.1 from the TV, and it sounds great. I was originally apprehensive about the Beam. I was hoping for a playbar replacement with a more modern look and an HDMI input. I really struggled between getting the Beam and a playbase (I wanted Airplay 2, so playbar wasn't an option). However, the HDMI ARC won me over. I figured that with the Sub and two Ones, the sound would be more than adequate. Indeed, coupled with the Sub and two Ones, I find the room quite full of sound (It's an apartment, so the room is an open plan, about 4 meters by 7 meters). I can't compare the sound to what a playbar or playbase might produce in this setup, but the current sound is a definite upgrade over the previous setup I had. I am still hoping for an updated playbar (at which point the Beam would move to the bedroom...).



I wanted to give a shout out to the dialogue enhancement mode. It really makes a difference with some TV shows. What a great addition! The night mode is also great. I had to turn it on last night when watching a TV show...