Sony XBR-65X900F (w/ eARC firmware update) + Sonos ARC?

Hi @carnageasada 

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

Even if your TV does not have eARC compatibility, it will still have HDMI-ARC and that means Atmos sound can be received by a Sonos Arc via Dolby Digital +, so long as the content, player and TV all support DD+.

If you use an optical connection, you will only receive Dolby Digital (5.1) or stereo.

I can’t give you any advice about that TV specifically, but perhaps someone in the Community can?

Hi and thanks for the reply.

To add to the mix, I’m using an HDMI audio driver from a PC, then an APO driver to force that HDMI input on this TV to get DD 5.1 out via optical, which just plain works.

I know for the PC I won’t necessarily get more than the DD 5.1 (unless someone knows the 900F will pass DD+ from an external source out through the HDMI-ARC to the Sonos ARC?), but it would be cool to have the native apps on the 900F to put ATMOS out on the Sonos ARC via the HDMI-ARC (NOT eARC, again, my bad)...

I would assume that your TV would passthrough DD+ to your Arc, though by no means is that certain. It does seem that some TV support a codec internally but won’t pass it to HDMI-ARC, but HDMI-ARC is certainly capable. It’s just uncompressed Atmos (True HD) that you need eARC for.

I would also assume the same for DD+ and your TV’s apps, but again, it’s not certain. Forums related to your specific TV model should tell you one way or another.

I recommend you check the digital audio output format setting on your TV (one random word of those four is often missing) and set it to Auto or Passthrough. The TV Apps may have their own settings too.

Well done on getting the APO driver to work - I tried that on my nVidia graphics card’s HDMI output but unsuccessfully.

I dig all you’re saying and I think it may touch on what has prompted my confusion about the DD+ capability from the outset, folks have reported here-and-there on this forum that people are indeed seeing up to ATMOS from their Sonos ARC from the 900F, even if compressed. I think a firmware update in the last year or so did make that possible on HDMI 2.0b hardware via HDMI-ARC, just not full-tilt True HD as you saying perhaps requiring HDMI 2.1 throughput, if anyone is able and willing to comment on this with greater knowledge, I’m all ears…?

Either way, I decided to go for it and do a surround system with an ARC, Sub, and 2 x Fives, should be boss and I’ll do my best to circle back and relay what I find based on native apps considering that the content is in ATMOS in the first place.

As for the APO driver, I simply followed these instructions sans the LoopBeAudio bits:

https://github.com/GingerAdonis/SonosTricks/blob/master/surroundSoundOnWindows/README.md

I’m running an RTX2080 Ti and it just works in forcing the TV HDMI “target” to DD+.

Although, or perhaps because, the Fives are great speakers, you may find them over-kill for surround. Most find a pair of One SLs sufficient, especially when there’s a Sub in the room.

That looks familiar, but it was a while ago. Perhaps I’ll give it another go sometime soon.

I actually got the Fives to also serve as a killer (read louder) “zoned” stereo pair in a much larger space in a new home I’m moving into soon (i.e. a living room that opens to the kitchen) and want that surround combination to be able to both jobs and own it.

That and I’m upgrading my system from using 3s all this time as rear channels, so I’m spoiled.

If it were me, I’d keep the Play:3s as surrounds and have the pair of Fives as music speakers for the open-plan room. The front channels of your Home Theatre system shouldn’t be over-powered by your surrounds, and a HT setup is meant to be semi-permanent, so changing the Fives from surround to stereo and back again could get tiresome quickly.

Should you want to pump it up a bit for music, group them together, and Arc, Sub, Play:3s and Fives will all play.

I suppose it’s about where you want the bulk of the sound - if it’s in the middle, maybe Fives would be best as surrounds and Play:3s in the kitchen. The good thing is you don’t need to rewire anything to try every option.

Huh, so you actually think walking back to using the Ones or 3s as rears would be better than using Fives in general? Can’t the new app compensate via simple level mixing to tame the Fives as rears? Also, looking at the improvements in the new app, I was under the impression that one might be able to preserve a setup such as a surround zone when using the TV, then just select the Fives as a separate zone in software to run music, is that not something that it can do using the newer hardware…?

It’s more of a case of why would you buy Fives so that they can be “tamed”? Most find Ones, and certainly 3s, to be sufficient for surround - better to have the Fives ready for instant musical use than to mess about with the app when visitors come (not an issue now, I know).

Thinking about it, you are correct - the software will adjust the sound balance according to what speakers are connected, but as I said, why tame the beast? I can’t imagine a situation where Fives would be necessary for surrounds - sure they may be beefier, but wasted in that role, I feel. Remember the Sub - low frequencies are difficult to locate in 3d space, so a Sub sounds pervasive - just as good for enhancing rear as front. If anything, a second Sub would be a better upgrade for HT than Fives as rears. If the 3s were in the kitchen and playing music, you’d lose out on bass that you would get with Fives (no Sub to supplement them).

If you play music to the Arc, the surrounds can be included with that playback, but the Arc has to play it too - most users like to reserve their Fives for music, and their Home Theatre for cinema/TV.

No, at present there is no way to save a configuration and revert to it at a later date. It may be in the works, but I’m not privy to it. Possibilities are opened with S2.

As mentioned, there’s little extra work in trying different options. Whatever is good for you is what you should stick with - everyone has their own preferences and room requirements, and yours are the most important when it comes to your system. Unless the Mrs chimes in, obviously.

I just revisited why louder is in order, cause the rears will be almost 4m back from the rears in my current configuration, so call it hedging my bets for the surround configuration. Like I said, the space is quite large to fill and I just pulled out the new floor plan to check again and to me, that's justification alone.

I have faith that your company will see that a path to breaking off units in separate zones via a save state of TrueSound or whatever it's called is entirely possible. Especially with the caveat that so long as the speaker(s) is static along with its surroundings, the mapped acoustic field will remain fixed as well. Heck I'd bet with a little effort, the old app could do this. To be honest, if the tuning doesn't do much for me, I'd just throw tunes through the surround setup and let be, or with a minute or two in the new app and just bust off the Fives and jam, whatever…

I appreciate the opinion and agency you take in your products, give a good different perspective. However, the fact that the above functionality hasn't been implemented in the software is a bit dubious. I get not being informed as to why, I work in an industry that thrives off of that one way or another.

I think the best call here is to try it and see - 4m is a big gap, so you may well be right, and it doesn’t sound like it’s going to change how much you end up spending. I was hoping someone on the community who actually has a similar setup would chime in at some point, but it seems not.

I can’t comment on the requested feature specifically, but some suggested features that sound like a good idea may be left behind if we determine that it may cause more issues/confusion than it fixes. But for what it’s worth, I agree - the feature would be a Good Thing.

I agree, given that this is audio and subjective, the best tools for this job are my ears…

Between this community and other sources, the split seems to be half where folks either say the Fives would “seem” to be overkill or go for it and see why they’re happy with their purchase, there are rare utterings of those that decided to downgrade to Ones after trying the combination suggested here. I’ll say it again, the few minutes (if that) spent on linking things up from one situation to another in the app really isn’t a big deal to me, so there’s that.

Yeah, people might expect too much of the suggested feature, but perhaps something aimed at an advanced user of sorts. Even though the switch could just prompt the same warning that the surround grouping shows when you decide to stream audio instead of watch TV as in the S1 app. It would be that when you switch to TV for surround, opt to have it automatically switch the rears back to the surround config (or however you switched the config to otherwise) or just throw a notification that part of your surround zone is part of another group and let the user decide. All contingent of nothing being moved physically of course.

You should give that APO driver another shot though, seriously slick to bring everything together like that!