Sonos Beam 2 Centre Channel over Airplay

I suspect the ‘AirPlay 2’ is being sent to the Apple TV. I think the Apple TV then sends the 5.1 signal to your device. To my knowledge, Sonos itself only receives a stereo signal directly from AirPlay 2. 

That may have changed recently, as Apple, I believe, finally opened up more than stereo to non-Apple devices. I’m not sure if Sonos needed to do anything, or their implementation already included (includes) the possibility. I’ve not tested this myself, on the extremely rare cases when I’ve need to send AirPlay 2 video, I’ve always sent it to my Apple TV, since there was no way to split audio and video. 

It’s only an Apple TV streaming directly to the Sonos Beam 2 - and there is clear audio evidence that the centre channel kicks in!

This is great news but is not supposed to happen.

Over AirPlay the Speech Enhancement and Night Sound does not work - but centre channel - well - this is inexplicable but great! Especially if you are using a projector from the other side of the room which is far less common than a direct TV connection.

Two of us sat directly and closely to the Soundbar and the centre channel test is defo coming from direct centre of the Beam 2 and is properly focused.

This test also includes left and right channel (from YouTube) - you can hear that transition too (but of course we know that AirPlay supports stereo but I thought I would mention it to prove I can hear a clear difference).

Corry - how do I get Airplay to carry 5.1 signals to the Beam 2 please? My thoughts are the following and I am hoping you can help me…

I can send audio from one Apple TV to another - and as I understand it Apple devices support 5.1 to each other (even though they won’t support Sonos with the full Dolby). 

So based on that theory - luckily I have an older Gen 3 Apple TV which has optical out (optical out was not an option on later Apple TVs) I can use that earlier gen Apple TV at the receiving end to which I can stream to from the Apple TV connected to my projector.

The receiving Apply TV with optical out accepting Airplay from the Apple TV connected to the Projector will connect to your Sonos Beam 2 using your HDMI adapter. Toslink does support 5.1 (but not fancy protocols like Atmos) - I only need 5.1 so I can get the centre channel sorted.

So you see where I am going with this - Apple TV » Airplay » Apple TV with toslink » toslink connected to Sonos Beam 2. The 5.1 signal should hold out through the chain above - is that likely to be correct?

​@supernova 

I‘m quite sure you can’t airplay from one AppleTV to another. 

Hi ​@supernova 

All I know is that Sonos cannot receive a 5.1 signal through AirPlay. Apple devices can do so, however.

Assuming that you can in fact AirPlay from one Apple TV to another, what you describe sounds like it should work, but I’m not going to go as far as saying it will or it won’t - I just don’t know.

​@Schlumpf thinks that AirPlay-ing from one Apple TV to another is not possible - if they are correct in this, then your proposal will not work. In which case, the only other solution I can think of would be to have a device such as a HD Fury Arcana to provide HDMI-ARC to the Beam (not a recommendation).

I hope this helps.

Yes you apparently can.

I can successfully AirPlay ‘sound’ from a source Apple TV to an older receiving Apple TV which has optical out.

So, for example, my sending Apple TV is connected via HDMI to the projector but Airplay's the sound to the Apple TV with optical out which in turn connects via the HDMI to Toslink adapter of the Beam 2. This is all achievable.

So this is clear evidence that you can indeed do this, because I am doing this.

So if Apple TV to Apple TV support AirPlay Dolby 5.1 - and Toslink supports 5.1 - shouldn’t 5.1 be passed through to the Beam 2?

Hi ​@supernova 

I would assume so, but it’s down to Apple if they want to support passing a 5.1 AirPlay signal to TOSLink or not. If they do, it should work, yes.

I hope this helps.

​@supernova 

Wow, thank you for testing that. I never would have guessed that it works, especially using a much older tvOS version on one device. 
So as you said the only question is, if multichannel audio is supported for an AppleTV being the airplay receiver. 
I just know that it works for Apple Homepods connected via Airplay to an AppleTV and can‘t find any information about ATV to ATV. 
So if you own the required hardware, why don’t you just test this. 😎

Projector - HDMI - ATV - AirPlay - ATV - TOSLink - Beam 2 = Sonos App showing ‘Night Sound’ and ‘Speech Enhancement’ engaged. At least that part carries through.

Projector - HDMI - ATV - AirPlay - direct to Beam 2 = Sonos App NOT showing ‘Night Sound’ and Speech Enhancement’ engaged (no indicators in the App).

Just thought that might be interesting.