DTS on sonos coming soon

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.

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.

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.

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).

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

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:
 

@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

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!).