when I’m playing music through Apple Music app that I installed on my Apple TV 4K third generation Sonos app keeps saying stereo PCM, even though the song that I’m playing is lossless on Apple music app. I went to my Apple TV 4K settings under audio and video and disabled/turned off continuous audio connection. I restarted in my Apple TV 4K. My Apple TV 4K is connected to my tv via HDMI to 4K at 120 Hz sport which is HDMI 2.1 port, my Sonos arc is connected to earc port on my LGBXOLED. I have error 300 as surrounds. I recently updated to TvOS 27.0 but no luck.
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sonos app reports stereo music when I’m playing music on Apple Music app on my apple tv 4k 3rd gen
Best answer by kdowling
Whatever app you are using on the Apple TV should be able to tell you the quality of the source.
In this case, the Apply Music app on the Apple TV device does show the quality it’s playing. Select “Info” at the bottom left of the Now Playing screen. If it’s not showing Lossless there, it’s not playing Lossless. And if it is showing Lossless, then that’s what’s playing. It also shows “Atmos” when playing an Atmos (Spatial Audio) track.
+18You can only play Atmos from Apple Music via the Sonos app: https://support.sonos.com/en/article/playing-apple-music-lossless-audio-on-sonos
edit: this might no be completely right. See
I’m not sure how you’d use the Apple TV app to play on Sonos. - maybe via the TV? AirPlay is always stereo.
If the song is lossless but not Atmos, I would expect to see Stereo PCM as that is uncompressed. What do you expect to see there?
You can only play Atmos from Apple Music via the Sonos app: https://support.sonos.com/en/article/playing-apple-music-lossless-audio-on-sonos
edit: this might no be completely right. See
I’m not sure how you’d use the Apple TV app to play on Sonos. - maybe via the TV? AirPlay is always stereo.
Apple Music on an Apple TV 4K (3rd gen) device can play Atmos (Spatial Audio) hdmi → TV.
Stereo PCM is the raw decoded stream sent by your Apple TV to Sonos. Sonos has no way of knowing the source quality of that Stereo PCM stream because Apple decodes it before it reaches the Sonos device. Whatever app you are using on the Apple TV should be able to tell you the quality of the source.
The reason Sonos can display the source quality when playing via the Sonos app is because it is the Sonos device doing the decoding.
Whatever app you are using on the Apple TV should be able to tell you the quality of the source.
In this case, the Apply Music app on the Apple TV device does show the quality it’s playing. Select “Info” at the bottom left of the Now Playing screen. If it’s not showing Lossless there, it’s not playing Lossless. And if it is showing Lossless, then that’s what’s playing. It also shows “Atmos” when playing an Atmos (Spatial Audio) track.
Thank you so much guys for your replies. That cleared my confusion. I did see under Info tab in Apple Music app on my Apple TV 4K. Yes, it does show lossless. One thing that I noted is that when Apple TV 4K is doing decoding, my Sonos arc is doing the heavy lifting and I hear only ambient sound on my Era 300 even though in the settings of Sonos app, I have selected full in Music playback under surround audio but when I’m playing the same song through Sonos app where Sonos is doing the decoding, it makes full use of Era 300, the sound stage is much wider as compared to playing the same song using Apple Music app on my Apple TV 4K. It is making full use of surround speakers. That’s what I observed. Let me know if anyone else also observed that same.
Content coming in from the eARC is treated differently than content directly streamed by Sonos.
I think the Full/Ambient option is one of them, streaming it is honored, for eARC content it is ignored and it is played back as presented.
In addition to what Stanley_4 mentioned, when your Arc receives stereo from the TV, it generates an ambient sound to play in the surrounds. Otherwise you would hear nothing from your Era 300s for stereo TV sources.
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