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DTS on sonos coming soon

  • 19 September 2021
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Hi, yes your C8 does passthrough and yes it supports DTS as a codec. You can enable the passthrough option in the audio menu on the TV. DTS is basically like Dolby Digital 5.1 for reference and the one Sonos will be supporting. DTS:HD is like the equivalent of 7.1 and DTS:X is like equivalent of Dolby Atmos although both those two won't be supported, but should get mixed down to standard DTS or multichannel PCM. 

Thank you for the reply, very helpful. 

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Hi, yes your C8 does passthrough and yes it supports DTS as a codec. You can enable the passthrough option in the audio menu on the TV. DTS is basically like Dolby Digital 5.1 for reference and the one Sonos will be supporting. DTS:HD is like the equivalent of 7.1 and DTS:X is like equivalent of Dolby Atmos although both those two won't be supported, but should get mixed down to standard DTS or multichannel PCM. 

Hi I'm wondering if someone can help me understand how this DTS support will work. I'm really new when it comes to all this audio talk and I don't really understand it. Sorry if this is a dumb question. 

 

I have an LG C8 TV which is connected via arc to the sonos beam and I have 2 one SL speakers for surround sound. 

 

I watch a lot of movies and I download the movies then copy them to an external HDD that I then connect to my TV. 

 

Before I download a movie I always had to make sure it had DD5.1 because I knew my beam supported that codec but with this DTS update will I be able to download DTS hd master audio films and have my TV convert the audio to a DTS codec that my beam will support or will the TV not do that ? 

 

I'm just really confused as to what DTS codec the beam is going to support and what the passthrough thing means on the TV. I don't even know if my TV even does a passthrough. 

I particularly like this line:

But ultimately, use your ears to determine what sounds the best to you.

 

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@GDaz Regardless of the player you are using, multichannel PCM will always be higher quality audio than DTS Digital Surround. The former is a lossless, higher resolution audio format that contains much more audio data, whereas the latter is a lossy, more compressed audio format very similar to standard Dolby Digital. But ultimately, use your ears to determine what sounds the best to you.

Sonos is still working on the 7.1 to 5.1 downmixing issue. But I have noticed an improvement with DTS discs on my UB820 player. I have the Arc/Sub/Play:1s setup. Using a 7.1 DTS Sound Check on a DTS Demo Blu-ray disc, the two rear surround channels used to not play any test tones out of my Play:1s. Only the two side surround channels would play audio. Now all four surround channels play audio out of my two surround speakers. The Sonos app still displays the audio as 7.1, but it sounds like the 7.1 mix is being properly downmixed to 5.1.

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On a related note (and feel free to ignore if it takes the thread off topic), does anyone have latest word on the Sonos fix/improvements to handling LPCM 7.1? (it’s related to the above b/c today several players can output DTS as multichannel PCM - but sometimes it’s LPCM 7.1 even when the source is 5.1!).

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@GuitarSuperstarThanks for your description above! For players able to output DTS:X as multichannel PCM (e.g., some UHD players), do you think the better sound quality is going to be via multichannel PCM, or the (lossy) DTS Digital Surround? I guess maybe it depends on the quality of the player’s mixing to LPCM (in particular I have the Sony X800M2 so I’m most curious about that one, but also considering a UB820 in another setup)? Of course, once the feature is available from Sonos I guess I could try it both ways - but am curious in the meantime :grinning:

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Pretty excited about this update, any idea when it'll happen (outside of the vague "later this year"?)

There is an Audio Advice video that mentions a November 21 update. Start at the 4:06 mark:
 

 

Pretty excited about this update, any idea when it'll happen (outside of the vague "later this year"?)

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It's great news it's better than nothing, considering that Bose announced their atmos soundbar with no DTS at all...

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Now you'll have to explain how a DTS-MA or DTS-X track from a blu-ray will play on a Sonos soundbar. Is it absolutely necessary for the TV to have a "Passthrougth" feature that supports DTS? Will the signal be "degraded" to simple DTS or can it be converted to Dolby Digital-True HD/Dolby Atmos? I would like to note that simple DTS 5.1 will be a huge step forward, especially regarding dynamics and surrounds, instead of stereo. Therefore, thank you, I'm looking forward to the details and future announcements.

A DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS:X track has a core lossy DTS Digital Surround track. This is similar to Dolby TrueHD having a core Dolby Digital track. DTS Digital Surround is what Sonos will begin to support. From what I can tell, DTS Digital Surround has a slightly higher bitrate than Dolby Digital, so the audio should sound a little better than standard Dolby Digital.

  • If your TV and soundbar have HDMI ARC (like the Beam Gen 1) and your TV has DTS passthrough, when you play a DTS-HD Master Audio or DTS:X disc, you will get DTS Digital Surround audio (after the DTS update). 
     
  • If your TV and soundbar have HDMI ARC and your TV has Dolby Digital passthrough, when you play a Dolby TrueHD or Dolby Atmos disc, you will get Dolby Digital audio. 
     
  • If your TV and soundbar have HDMI eARC (like the Arc or Beam Gen 2) and your TV has DTS passthrough, when you play a DTS-HD Master Audio or DTS:X disc, you can get DTS Digital Surround audio (after the DTS update) OR multichannel PCM (depending on your player’s settings). 
     
  • If your TV and soundbar have HDMI eARC and your TV has Dolby Digital/TrueHD passthrough, when you play a Dolby TrueHD or Dolby Atmos disc, you will get Dolby TrueHD or Dolby Atmos audio.

I’m hoping this DTS update will be just the first step to Sonos eventually supporting DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS:X over eARC for the Arc and Beam (Gen 2).

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Is it absolutely necessary for the TV to have a "Passthrougth" feature that supports DTS? 

It is. A lot of TVs simply won’t do it, and that’s probably one of the many reasons why Sonos has been slow to implement the feature - it’s not going to reach everybody. Samsung and LG are big offenders here - they’re probably not willing to pay for the licencing. Recent Sony and Hisense TVs are probably ok. rtings maintain an up to date listing of TVs and passthrough support. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to link it here?

As always a way around it is to use a player that can reencode DTS to Dolby or LPCM on the fly.

I would like to thank the Sonos team for finally taking into account the request of many customers regarding DTS. This was a huge drawback considering the high price of Sonos products.

As a Sonos Beam+Sub owner, I had invested in a Sony UBP-X800M2 player connected to a Sony TV of the same generation (the only combo allowing DTS->LPCM->Dolby transcoding, a miracle I still don't understand). But I know other people who are not so lucky and are stuck in PCM stereo when playing DVD/Blu-ray with a PS5 and the Beam.

Now you'll have to explain how a DTS-MA or DTS-X track from a blu-ray will play on a Sonos soundbar. Is it absolutely necessary for the TV to have a "Passthrougth" feature that supports DTS? Will the signal be "degraded" to simple DTS or can it be converted to Dolby Digital-True HD/Dolby Atmos? I would like to note that simple DTS 5.1 will be a huge step forward, especially regarding dynamics and surrounds, instead of stereo. Therefore, thank you, I'm looking forward to the details and future announcements.

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I also saw this and was surprised at how under the radar this news is!

As a long suffering Sonos user who loves using Disk Format, i’ve had to jump through hoops to get DTS to play on my setup, and after years of Sonos telling me that this nuisance wasn’t their concern, they’re finally bringing DTS support to their home theatre products!!!

It might be a little downplayed because they’ve now allowed all eArc devices to process Multichannel LPCM devices so we’re covered for full surround for more DTS disks (though I’m not sure about DTS:X), but this doesn’t solve anything for the Playbar -- which is part of the DTS update.

It’s still a head scratcher that none of the higher end DTS formats are being supported though - guessing technical issues and too much development cost plays a part.  Lets be honest -- disk using purists who crave the highest level of audio quality are a quickly shrinking minority.

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Yes, it is true. But from what I can tell, it only appears to be lossy DTS Digital Surround support, not support for lossless DTS-HD Master Audio or DTS:X.

“Sonos also plan to add support for decoding DTS Digital Surround later this year via the S2 platform on Playbar, Playbase, Amp, both generations of Beam, and Arc.”