have a monitor asb-2 soundbar that is now more than 10 years old. i also have a Panasonic 65" EZ952 OLED 4K UHD TV that was bought in 2018. i also have a Sonos Z80, Youview box, Sony DVD player and Roku box. everything is connected to the ASB via HDMI and the soundbar is connected to the TV through ARC. The Sonos Z80 is connected to the soundbar via an optical cable.
i’m considering upgrading my soundbar to the new Sonos Arc Ultra. however it seems there is only 1 HDMI port on the Sonos and the TV only has an older version of ARC and not eARC. it seems that very few soundbars have HDMI ports either.
what is the best way to configure the system if i use the Arc ultra (which doesn’t have HDMI pass through either).
connecting equipment to TV and Arc Ultra
Connect the Arc Ultra to the TV’s ARC port. Connect the other devices via the TV’ other HDMI ports (or a HDMI switch).
Alternately, more expensively, you could get an eARC switch, and connect everything to that.
Regular ARC in the first option will give you the majority of Atmos via Dolby Digital plus, which is what the majority of streamers use. Apple TV tends to use the wider bandwidth which requires eARC, but can easily be set in the options of the Apple TV to convert to Dolby Digital Plus.
The Z80(?) Would that be a Zoneplayer 80, will (edit: likely not, see following post) connect wirelessly to the Arc Ultra but there will be a 75 ms delay in the sound when viewing a TV source. No delay for streaming sources.
+18If it really is a ZP80 (precursor to the Connect), would that not be S1 only and so wouldn’t connect to the S2 only Arc Ultra?
yes it’s an old ZP80! presumably i won’t need the zp80 with the Arc so i can get rid of one device.
that would just leave the roku, dvd and youview box. it would appear that given the lack of hdmi ports, i would need an hdmi switch to connect everything?
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