Does the Arc accept regular HDMI inputs for audio or does it need and HDMI-ARC output? I ask because my TV does not support DD+ but my streaming device does. Wanted to put a Matrix/Splitter in place to duplicate the audio to get full DD+ on the Sonos Arc
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Only ARC. Simple HDMI audio with black video won’t work.
I’ve tried 3 different splitters from amazon so far. None have worked. I, too, am in the same boat. TV supports DD+ but not atmos I guess 
♂️ Because I get no DD Atmos badge on ARC window when in S2 controller.
The closest I got to the ARC producing sound from a switch was with the “ViewHD Prosumer UHD Switch (VHD-U4X1AS)” it allowed me to output DD5.1 to the ARC, but the second I enable 7.1 which allowed Atmos the ARC falls silent. My Apple TV displays Atmos badge on content with 7.1 setting selected, but the ARC decides to quit working until I switch it back to 5.1. Unfortunate.
idk all the details of how it works, but if it’s a software limitation to require ARC, I hope sonos removes it via update. If it’s hardware, at least create a device for us that would allow us to send the appropriate signal to ARC and DolbyVision to TV. I wish Sonos would’ve just made the arc to pass through the 4K signal to tv so we can get full atmos from our streaming devices
Its a hardware limitation. The Sonos Arc has an eARC output, which handshakes with the TV and expects audio back. Hence the name Audio Return Channel. Audio via ARC is sent through different HDMI pins and also require a preceding handshake compared to simply carrying the audio channel on a regular HDMI output from a video/audio source. Therefore regular splitters that take the audio and duplicate it to another HDMI output won’t work. You need the whole ARC protocol implemented for that. And since ARC is exclusively designed for TVs, there were no usecases where you would have to emulate the ARC protocol on a HDMI switch As a result there are no switches for that. Only now there is a niche community, mostly from Sonos, that require such a solution. So lets hope someone thinks its worth to develop a product only very few people will actually find any use in.
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