Beam setup - confirming 5.1 is being sent and received correctly
Hello,
This evening I have unboxed and setup my Beam system. I have done this after reading about issues some TV's have passing through DD 5.1 signals, as a result I wanted to get some feedback and confirm my system is setup correctly and that my TV is correctly sending DD 5.1 to the Beam from other HDMI sources.
My setup is that I used a Fire TV Stick connected to an HDMI port as my primary streaming device and then I have the Beam connected to the TV via an HDMI ARC connection.
Freeview TV
Most shows I viewed displayed in the Sonos app as "Audio In: Stereo" but one show displayed as "Audio in: Dolby Digital 5.1"
Fire TV Stick
With my Fire TV Stick surround sound setting set to "Best Available" the Sonos displayed as receiving "Stereo" on all content from both Amazon Prime and Netflix content.
If I change that setting to "Always Dolby Digital" then content on Netflix and Prime showed as "Dolby Digital 5.1", and a show on the Fire TV IPlayer app displayed as "Dolby Digital 2.0".
I then switched from HDMI to Optical and found that with the "Best Available" setting content continued to play in "Stereo" and with the "Always Dolby Digital" setting no audio was played at all.
Questions
1 - Whenever the Sonos is showing as receiving Dolby 5.1 is it definitely receiving this signal correctly? Or could this be an issue as it was required to set the Fire TV to "Always Dolby Digital"?
2 - Is there a reason why when using the "Best available" only a "Stereo" signal is received? could this indicate a lack of true Dolby support?
3 - Does this confirm that my TV is indeed correctly passing through a 5.1 signal received from the Fire TV stick HDMI through to the HDMI ARC port to the Beam?
4 - Does it confirm that the TV is unable to pass Dolby received from an HDMI input through to the optical output?
5 - If the Beam is receiving a 5.1 signal but no rear speaker are connected is that a problem?
6 - Finally, if I listen to music via the sonos app, if I then try to watch TV again the TV sound does not engage. I have tried pausing/restarting content and altering the volume but the TV sound does not restart. Am I doing something wrong?
Many thanks for any feedback
This evening I have unboxed and setup my Beam system. I have done this after reading about issues some TV's have passing through DD 5.1 signals, as a result I wanted to get some feedback and confirm my system is setup correctly and that my TV is correctly sending DD 5.1 to the Beam from other HDMI sources.
My setup is that I used a Fire TV Stick connected to an HDMI port as my primary streaming device and then I have the Beam connected to the TV via an HDMI ARC connection.
Freeview TV
Most shows I viewed displayed in the Sonos app as "Audio In: Stereo" but one show displayed as "Audio in: Dolby Digital 5.1"
Fire TV Stick
With my Fire TV Stick surround sound setting set to "Best Available" the Sonos displayed as receiving "Stereo" on all content from both Amazon Prime and Netflix content.
If I change that setting to "Always Dolby Digital" then content on Netflix and Prime showed as "Dolby Digital 5.1", and a show on the Fire TV IPlayer app displayed as "Dolby Digital 2.0".
I then switched from HDMI to Optical and found that with the "Best Available" setting content continued to play in "Stereo" and with the "Always Dolby Digital" setting no audio was played at all.
Questions
1 - Whenever the Sonos is showing as receiving Dolby 5.1 is it definitely receiving this signal correctly? Or could this be an issue as it was required to set the Fire TV to "Always Dolby Digital"?
2 - Is there a reason why when using the "Best available" only a "Stereo" signal is received? could this indicate a lack of true Dolby support?
3 - Does this confirm that my TV is indeed correctly passing through a 5.1 signal received from the Fire TV stick HDMI through to the HDMI ARC port to the Beam?
4 - Does it confirm that the TV is unable to pass Dolby received from an HDMI input through to the optical output?
5 - If the Beam is receiving a 5.1 signal but no rear speaker are connected is that a problem?
6 - Finally, if I listen to music via the sonos app, if I then try to watch TV again the TV sound does not engage. I have tried pausing/restarting content and altering the volume but the TV sound does not restart. Am I doing something wrong?
Many thanks for any feedback