Does the Playbar do virtual surround?

Someone must know?

Let me use a simple example

If I input 2 chanel PCM over optical into the soundbar and I have the sub and surrounds connected to the playbar - will the playbar just output 2 channel stereo on the surrounds or will it simulate virtual surround?

I believe it does a virtual sound, but in my experience you really have to turn up the rears to ‘hear’ it. Most stuff in the US that can use a surround channel is already transmitted in 5.1, and its only older shows and talking heads programs that aren’t.

Thanks you Airgetlam

I've got my PC connected to the playbar - the PC only outputs multichannel PCM or 2 channel PCM (PC's in general will not do real time Dolby encoding for the Playbar) - the Playbar will only accept this as stereo audio so I was hoping that at least the system would try to do some virtual surround

That explains why I struggled to hear anything from the surrounds, I'll try turning the volume up, thanks

I like this system, I just hope one day they release an updated playbar that accept multichannel PCM over HDMI, then I would be 100% satisfied with this product

Yea, I’ve had trouble in the past with sound cards in PCs that do 5.1 for their own speakers, but not for an HDMI output ( which took some digging to figure out!)

A possible solution for me then is a soundcard, set to output dolby 5.1 using real time encoding over optical to the playbar

However I'll then be running multiple optical cables and the playbar only has a single input, my PC is also connected to it's own 2:1 speakers and headphones (I have a lot of audio outputs lol) so adding a soundcard and another cable into the mix will make things rather complicated when switch between output sources which I'd rather avoid

None of which would be an issue if the Playbar had an HDMI input and accepted multichannel PCM

As of right now - the direct competitor (Bose) does not accept multichannel PCM either so I am stuck between a rock and a hard place - unfortunately there are no wireless all in one systems I can buy here that support HDMI inputs with the correct formats - so I hope one day Sonos can support this through an updated model

I like this system, I just hope one day they release an updated playbar that accept multichannel PCM over HDMI, then I would be 100% satisfied with this product

Oh, man! Multichannel PCM over HDMI would be the absolute best. eARC would be icing on the cake.

No

If audio TV is stereo, then surround will be muted.

We already asked for this and multi channel (full) stereo but it seems Sonos does not hear us.