Epson 4010 4k projector with Sonos Beam

What kind of audio connections are on that projector? Optical? HDMI-ARC? Headphone jack?

Thank you, Bruce. This is what it has. I think USB Type A (for optical HDMI cable) and Trigger out may the ones that I can rely upon. Am I right?

Thank you so much for a detailed writeup.

Request a suggestion: I've a small room that I'm setting up my home theatre. I'm thinking of either buying a Sonos Soundbar with Sonos play 1 speakers OR Just a Sonos Playbar. Any suggestions on which one would work best for a home theatre setup.

For any "home theater", I'd always suggest adding the surround speakers.

Not sure what a Sonos "soundbar" is...there's three different models. The Beam, PLAYBASE, and PLAYBAR.

The Beam is designed for smaller rooms. Not sure what Sonos means by that adjective smaller, but it certainly isn't as wide as the PLAYBAR and PLAYBASE, which would give a wider sound field.

The PLAYBASE is designed to sit underneath a TV, and has a smallish subwoofer built inside it.

The PLAYBAR is the oldest design of all three, but is my personal favorite, due to the widest sound field it has. I am, however, looking forward to a refresh from Sonos at some point, so that it will include many of the newer tech features of the Beam.

The benefit of a Sonos system is that you can start off with just the soundbar, whichever of the three you want, and then later on, when finances meet the need, you can pick up a pair of speakers to act as surrounds, and then later you can get the SUB to support that true "movie" experience.

Request a suggestion: I've a small room that I'm setting up my home theatre. I'm thinking of either buying a Sonos Soundbar with Sonos play 1 speakers OR Just a Sonos Playbar. Any suggestions on which one would work best for a home theatre setup.

FYI, I'll assume that when you use the term Sonos Soundbar you are actually meaning a Sonos Playbar. The terms often get used interchangeably with the latter being the correct one.

To your question regarding room size:

Before the introduction of the Sonos Beam there were no options relative to size; as the Playbar and Playbase produced more or less identical sound. To put size into perspective the Sonos Beam is recommended for a room the size of a Bedroom or just slightly larger. The Playbar and Playbase are recommend for a full size living room or theater room. However, some have used the Beam in full size room applications albeit with surrounds and Sub. Primarily the Sub is used to handle the low-end which IMO makes dialogue clearer when used with a Beam.

Although the Playbar will fill a room large or small; if in a small space you need not play it loud. In fact if you use an iOS device it can be tuned via TruePlay; in the Sonos app, to accommodate just about any size room (i.e. not make it overpowering in a small space).

The use of surrounds with a Playbar, Playbase or Beam are only present acoustically when the source material has a surround track. So when watching broadcast TV via cable or OTA the surrounds will most likely be silent or only produce a very subtle sound. IMO surrounds always add to the movie experience in any size room. Here again Trueplay will tune all speakers to the room size including the Sonos Sub when used as a complete DD5.1 HT setup.

One more point about the surrounds...they can be set to automictically switch over to FULL on speakers when playing music. After the music stops they alternately switch back to surround mode.

FYI, here are your levels of DD sound:

1. Playbar or Playbase or Beam = DD3.0
2. Playbar or Playbase or Beam with sub = DD3.1
3. Playbar or Playbase or Beam with surrounds = DD5.0
4. Playbar or Playbase or Beam with surrounds and sub = DD5.1

I hope this helps. Cheers!

Thank you all so much for your feedback.

Thank you all for your support.

I've set my hometheater with Epson 4010 4k projector, Sonos Beam and HDMI video/audio extractor (HDCP 2.2). However, when I play 4k content the Sonos Beam speaker does not work. I think that the issue could be for the HDMI cable that I've used! (link below). Does someone know if there is a fix for this?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DI8929Q/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thank you,
Vj

What makes you think it is the HDMI cable?

And, I guess, we need more information as to how you’ve got this set up.

What should be be happening is that you have the Apple TV connected to the HDMI switch / extractor, with an HDMI cable then going to the projector. An optical cable would then be connected to the HDMI switch’s audio output port, and go to the adaptor that connects to the Beam.

You would then have to go in to the audio settings on the Apple TV and turn on “Change Format” and restrict it to Dolby Digital .1, rather than any other options. Both settings are under Video and Audio, Audio Format, below the Audio section on the screen.

You are right. it does not look like a cable issue. This is my setup.

Projector > HDMI cable > HDMI Switch with Roku > Audio out > Sonos Beam.

Roku has Audio Mode set to Dolby Digital Plus, DTS. Everything works fine until I play 4k UHD content and the audio doesn't come out. Any help is highly appreciated.

Sonos can't interpret Dolby Digital Plus or DTS. You need to put something in there that changes those signals to Dolby Digital.

I changed the setting to Stereo on Roku and it works.

Thank you so much all for your support.

Hey there, I just have this same set up. Thank you for the in-depth explanation! I just ordered HDMI video/audio extractor that you recommended.

I am however looking for more clarity on this bit:

1. Source HDMI-Out to HDMI-In port of extractor
2. HDMI-Out port of extractor to HDMI-In of Projector
3. Optical-Out port of extractor to Sonos Playbar

Possible to supply photos?

Not sure I understand why you need pictures. It’s just HDMI cables plugged in to HDMI ports? And an optical cable connected between optical ports?

Yeh you're right. My real confusion is with the Optical HDMI part of it. I thought that you needed to use the Sonos Optical Adapter and did not understand how to go about using it. Looks like you don't use that. All you need is an Optical HDMI cable, right?

Is this the right HDMI cable to get for the Opt.HDMI 300mA connection?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L2Y2BGM/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_e-UHDbFVNFRRQ

Would you recommend a different one for any reason?

Huh? You've completely befuddled me. There's no need for an optical HDMI cable (in fact, I didn't know they existed, until you sent me to that link).

For the HDMI connections, you're using standard (recent...use HDMI 2.0 spec at the least) HDMI cables. For the optical connection, use a standard TOSLINK optical cable.

When not using Amazon, I tend to use Fry's for my shopping, they tend to be more cost sensitive than places like Best Buy. When I get optical cables, I look for some made by the RCA company. They're inexpensive, well built, and functional. HDMI cables similarly. Sometimes I actually order from Blue Jeans Cables, which now sell on Amazon. The thing I never, ever do is look at things like Monster Cable. Those people are selling snake oil and marketing, and not a better cable, or at least not so much to justify the ridiculous price differential.

So, on Amazon, I'd be looking at something along these lines:

HDMI

https://www.amazon.com/Bonded-Pair-Premium-High-Speed-Cable-Ethernet/dp/B0026O0LN4/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2TVPIUBIZB0XA&keywords=blue+jeans+cable&qid=1569170422&rnid=493964&s=electronics&sprefix=Blue+Jeans%2Celectronics%2C168&sr=1-2

and for optical

https://www.amazon.com/RCA-Premium-Digital-Optical-DV11R/dp/B0163PJDCG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=XT5G6OYUV3OH&keywords=rca+optical+cable&qid=1569170598&refinements=p_89%3ARCA&rnid=2528832011&s=electronics&sprefix=RCA+optical%2Celectronics%2C166&sr=1-1

Note: These are personal preferences, and shown as examples. You need to make your own decisions and choices.

Befuddled, nice! SAME!!!!

Let's talk about this Optical connect flow 🙂

I thought that it starts from the Projector's Opt. HDMI 300mA output but what you're saying is that you use a regular HDMI cable and connect it to the HDCP2.2 ?

Still trying to figure out where the optical cable connects to. It goes from the Extractor to where? Is the Sonos adapter needed?

It's OK for both of us to be befuddled. We're kind of talking at cross purposes :)

And thanks for that picture, it does explain to me where you're coming from. You've been talking about the projector, and I've been thinking an HDMI switch.

I believe that the "Opt.HDMI 300mA" that you're looking at there is an input, not an output. So you're not liable to get any audio coming out of it, particularly if the projector doesn't have an HDMI-ARC capability, which, if it did, would be somewhere on those labels.

What I've been talking about is something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Tendak-Switcher-Selector-Extractor-Splitter/dp/B01HM1RP6G

Note: There's hundreds of these kind of devices. I don't use one, I've got no particular recommendation. Peruse and choose the one that fits your particular needs/price point/etc.

So, in my thought process, the source device (cable box, game console, DVD player, what have you) connects with an HDMI cable from the source to the inputs on that device. In this particular one, they're labled in1, in2, in3, in4/MHL. So you can have several devices in your system sending to this switch.

You then connect an HDMI cable from the Output/ARC connector, and connect that to the HDMI 1 connection on your projector. This will carry the video signal to the projector.

Then, you'd connect that optical cable I linked to earlier to the TOSLINK port on the HDMI switch, and connect that to your PLAYBAR.

Finally, you'd need to go into the audio settings on all of the source devices, and make sure that they're sending a Dolby Digital signal. The HDMI switch usually doesn't have the capability of transcoding audio from one format to another.

If I haven't been as clear as you'd like, feel free to poke me more. 🙂