Sonos Arc TV Compatibility

That is both the key question and almost impossible to answer. 

From what we’ve seen with user reports both here and on Reddit, it’s all over the map. 

Compatibility completely depends on the TV’s capabilities and it varies wildly from manufacturer to manufacturer (and even model to model). Even with the sets (sporadic as they may be) have eARC. 

Atmos ability also varies wildly from service to service and device to device. 

Unfortunately, that means there’s no way to have a comprehensive list that I’m aware of. I saw someone try to start a crowdsourced list over on Reddit a few weeks back but that project seemed to flame out pretty quickly. 

This is why many of us are anxiously awaiting a dongle from HDFury called Arcana (search this forum or Reddit) that will provide full range audio and Atmos from compatible external sources to the Sonos Arc. 

If you’ve got a question about a specific TV, ask it here and we’ll see if we can help. 

FYI and good luck! 

The information on rtings.com seems to be fairly reliable, but there isn’t a list, per se. 

@Highfalutintodd- thank you very much for getting back to me with such a detailed reply! Myself and a friend are looking to upgrade/buy the arc so we are trying to make sure it will work. I’ll keep digging and see what I can find out and will post back here if I find out anything further. 

The TCL 8 series 65 inch TV supports Dolby Atmos. When active the Dolby Atmos icon appears on the Sonos now playing screen

There is somewhat of a list here: https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/inputs/5-1-surround-audio-passthrough#:~:text=5.1%20audio%20passthrough%20allows%20you,to%20a%20receiver%20or%20soundbar.&text=We%20also%20test%20passthrough%20over,%3AX%20object-based%20formats

I replaced a Beam with the new Arc.  If I had to do it again, I would stay with the Beam.  The Arc sounds marginally better but the Alexa app within the Arc no longer controls my Samsung TV model UN75MU800.  My TV is only 2 years old.  Sonos customer service has told me the following:

“Some of our developers and other engineers took a look at the bug I entered for your issue on how the Arc is failing to turn the TV on.  They confirmed that the Arc does communicate over CEC a little differently by sending the command via a broadcast instead of directed message to the TV and this specific TV at least is unable to support that message type. 

Unfortunately this means that this is not likely to change and your Arc will not be able to power that TV on as the Beam did.”

Ugh!  Needless to say, the Arc is not compatible with many TV sets.  Do your research before you buy the Arc.  

Ken

My relatively bargain basement 2020 model TCL 7 series supports onboard Atmos. It doesn’t have eARC, so I am guessing any Atmos over the ARC HDMI won’t be lossless. 

I downloaded a Dolby Atmos lossy file from thedigitaltheater.com onto a USB stick yesterday and played it through the TCL 7 series, connected to my ARC through the ARC port. I got the Dolby Atmos message in the Sonos app when watching the download.

What I haven’t managed to do yet is find any Atmos content on Disney+ or Amazon Prime to see if I can get Atmos from the TV’s native Android Apps. I have read that Disney+ is helping to reduce bandwidth during the Covid crisis and that full Atmos streaming is being suppressed.  

If anyone reading this can suggest where to stream lossy Atmos content so I can test if the TCL 7 series will pass this through to the Arc I would love to hear back.  

I’m not aware of Disney+ bandwidth restrictions in the US, but if you’re in the UK it looks like those restrictions were lifted just yesterday: 

https://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2020/07/disney-plus-has-removed-its-coronavirus-quality-throttling-in-the-uk/

I want to say only the Star Wars movies are currently streaming in Atmos on Disney+ but could be wrong. 

Thanks for all the great information,

I have been researching every where but can not get a 100% conclusive answer to whether or not my TV will work well with the Sonos ARC. I have an LG 82UM8070, no EARC only ARC. I know it has Dolby Digital but am not certain if it will do dolby digital plus in order to get Atmos . I own the play bar which I bought together with my tv in March and am ready and willing  to upgrade, but cant buy a new TV at this moment. Only getting 5.1 surround will be a deal breaker unless I am certain I can get ATMOS through DD+. If someone has this set up please reply.

Thank you in advance.

Are you wanting to use the TV’s built-in apps or an external streaming device like Apple TV / Nvidia Shield / Roku / etc? 

Thank you for the quick response.   I was thinking Tv,s built in APPs and perhaps use a Blu-ray player for discs. Also open for suggestions please..Thank you very much!!

The TV’s specs page specifically calls out Dolby Atmos compatibility so I’m willing to bet that you’ll be able to get Atmos to the Arc (over Dolby Digital Plus) from the set’s built-in apps (at least those apps that support it - app support for Atmos seems hit or miss by manufacturer for built-in apps). This is currently the only way I’m able to get Atmos on the Arc at all using my Vizio TV. 

Blu-ray is a bigger can of worms for a couple of reasons. First off if your TV doesn’t support eARC (which it looks like yours doesn’t), you WILL NOT get Atmos on your Arc from a Blu-ray Disc. Atmos on BDs and 4K BDs is encoded using a codec called Dolby TrueHD which simply can’t be transmitted over HDMI-ARC (though TrueHD CAN go over eARC). So there’s strike one. Second is that many (most?) BDs use DTS encoding for their audio which no Sonos product, including the Arc, supports. So not only will you not be getting Atmos, you may be limited to the disc’s 2 channel Dolby Digital stereo backup track to get audio at all. 

Now, there are a couple of potential workarounds here. One would be to get a BD player that can transcode the DTS soundtrack to Dolby Digital. You still won’t get Atmos from a BD, but at least you’d be getting 5.1 to the Arc. I don’t have any recommendations here, so Google around for options. 

The other option is the HD Fury Arcana (https://www.hdfury.com/product/4k-arcana-18gbps/), which is an adapter that’s specifically designed to pass full range audio from an external HDMI source to the Arc. Very simplistically, it bypasses the TV completely and tricks the Arc into thinking it’s connected to an eARC TV. Several hundred of us have already placed pre-orders for the device in order to do exactly that (or to get Atmos from an external streaming device like an Apple TV, for example, which is my use case). 

Greetings,

Thank you so much again for your quick response. This is all great and detailed information, which I truly appreciate and will help me a ton. I am new to all the advanced technology but am learning quickly thanks to individuals like yourself .  Keep up the great work and be safe.