How can I play a Studio One Atmos project live on Sonos Arc system?

Hi @Key Man Dan 

Welcome to the Sonos Community! And, apologies for the delay.

I think the only way in which I can help you here is to point out that the only way to get Arc to play Atmos audio is to either stream it from Amazon Music or Apple Music, or to have it come through the HDMI cable from a device that can supply HDMI-ARC/eARC. So, assuming you cannot publish to Amazon or Apple, the only answer is to have the Dolby Atmos stream that you want to play be played by the TV.

So, for real-time output, it does sound like there are two possibilities - AirPlay, or real-time computer output.

However, AirPlay will only stream stereo audio to non-Apple products, though it does sound like you were AirPlay-ing to the Apple TV rather than to the Arc, but that will explain the stereo output when AirPlay-ing to the TV instead. It seems you have hit a limitation when AirPlay-ing Atmos to the Apple TV, however. I have a nVidia Shield, and while it does accept AirPlay, it’s a safe assumption that it will only do so in stereo - I don’t have any Apple devices with which to test, but the restriction Apple has applied is universal, as I understand it.

So, I think the only remaining possibility is to connect your TV that has the Arc connected to it, directly to the computer running your Studio One software with an HDMI cable, and setting the TV as the computer’s (or Studio One’s, if it has separate options) audio output device.

I hope this helps.

Hi, Corry, and thanks for the welcome and reply!

Yes, tried connecting my macbook to the TV’s ARC input via the computer’s HDMI out. Only got stereo, though, which I found out is a limitation of my current laptop (2021 model with M1 chip). So thinking about getting a new macbook w/ the M3 chip, which, according to the specs, does multi-channel audio via the HDMI port. Need to check if that will do Atmos from Studio One…

Have a great day!

Hi @Key Man Dan 

I confess it did not even occur to me that the Macbook might not support outputting Atmos - does it not have an option to pass the audio through without touching it (typically called Passthrough)? I know that with Windows, it wasn’t so much a system option as an option for the codec selected for use with that format (be it the AC3 filter, or ffdshow). I guess it would work differently with audio that has not been pre-recorded and compressed, however.

I hope Apple give you a period within which you can test, before committing to the purchase.