Sonos Arc Ultra feedback

Those speakers look amazing. You do know your hifi speakers this is final stage of speakers. You dont see them selling that much on aftermarket and there do demand serious hifi amplifier 

They are amazingly efficient, mine suggested a 100 Watt minimum but they did fine on a 500 Watt amp.

The Sonos Amp should be more than adequate soundwise, for appearance some nice glowing tubes (valves for you furrinrrs that talk funny) would be nice.

You are not unusual at all, @Rhonny. I think my earlier wording might have been a bit unclear. What I meant is that I find the audio quality so addictive that going back to standard TV speakers now feels completely flat and unlistenable.

@Melvimbe actually guessed part of the issue correctly. Since the Arc Ultra introduced Bluetooth connectivity, it has become an incredibly handy feature for streaming audio straight from other devices like my work laptop.

The main snag is that the auto-switching logic isn't quite as clever as it could be. For instance, if I have been listening to something on my laptop via Bluetooth, turning on the television doesn't automatically trigger the system to grab the eARC signal. Instead, I have to manually disconnect the Bluetooth link on my laptop first, and occasionally fiddle with the TV audio settings to force it back onto eARC. It is a bit of a faff, but given how fantastic the system sounds once it is running, it is a minor grievance I am willing to tolerate.

​@TheWhiteWater

What brand TV?  Is TV Autoplay & Ungroup on Autoplay set in the app?

Unfortunately, Ungroup on Autoplay doesn't address ​@TheWhiteWater’s concern about their setup not auto-switching to eArc when done sending BT audio. Ungroup refers to as it says...disconnecting from a Group of Sonos speakers upon turning on the TV.

What may help (emphasis on may help) is turning on Idle Auto-Disconnect from Bluetooth. The key however is I don’t know how long it takes for the feature to kick-in which I suspect is longer than 30 seconds 🤔

I have an alarm set for my Arc Ultra in my bedroom to play everyday at 7am. However, on the weekend I may get up early around 6am and turn on my TV for news/weather.  The alarm will still engage at 7am. When that happens the TV eArc connection is interrupted. I have to stop the alarm and pull the HDMI cable from my Arc Ultra to reset things. 

I think it’s just the nature of the beast. However, for BT I think the setting suggested will work; but not instantaneously. It may still require disengaging the  BT connection to the laptop either via the Arc Ultra’s BT switch or via the laptop menu.

Stop messing around with the settings.... set it once and leave it 

Unfortunately, Ungroup on Autoplay doesn't address ​@TheWhiteWater’s concern about their setup not auto-switching to eArc when done sending BT audio. Ungroup refers to as it says...disconnecting from a Group of Sonos speakers upon turning on the TV.

What may help (emphasis on may help) is turning on Idle Auto-Disconnect from Bluetooth. The key however is I don’t know how long it takes for the feature to kick-in which I suspect is longer than 30 seconds 🤔

I have an alarm set for my Arc Ultra in my bedroom to play everyday at 7am. However, on the weekend I may get up early around 6am and turn on my TV for news/weather.  The alarm will still engage at 7am. When that happens the TV eArc connection is interrupted. I have to stop the alarm and pull the HDMI cable from my Arc Ultra to reset things. 

I think it’s just the nature of the beast. However, for BT I think the setting suggested will work; but not instantaneously. It may still require disengaging the  BT connection to the laptop either via the Arc Ultra’s BT switch or via the laptop menu.

 

That is a very interesting suggestion regarding the Bluetooth Idle Auto-Disconnect feature, @AjTrek1. I will certainly look into that setting to see if it makes the transition a bit smoother, even if there is a slight delay before it kicks in. If it saves me having to manually dive into menus every evening, it will be well worth a try.

Your bedroom alarm scenario sounds like a proper headache, though! Having to physically pull the HDMI cable out of the Arc Ultra just to reset the eARC connection after an alarm triggers seems incredibly frustrating. You would think the system would be smart enough to give priority back to the live eARC feed once the alarm is stopped, rather than requiring a hard reset.

It really does seem to be the nature of the beast with modern audio routing, but it is reassuring to know even the power users are fighting the same quirks. I suppose until a future firmware update addresses the switching priorities, we will just have to keep managing the connections manually.

You cannot just change the source for your Arc from bluetooth to TV?