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I have a gen 1 beam and recently upgraded my tv from Samsung to Hisense.  Beam gen 1 only has an optical cable.  About every 70 minutes the sound drops out for about 20 seconds and then comes back on.  Didn’t happen with my old tv.  I have done all the software updates and reboots etc.  I am considering upgrading to a gen 2 but worried I will have the same issue.  No dropouts when just streaming music

I can’t explain the 70 minute cycle. Is it possible that a program is switching to an unsupported audio format? Are the connections fully seated?

Have checked all the connections multiple times.  Happens only when playing through the tv

Beam Gen 1 has HDMI-ARC support, why not use that instead of optical?

It only has one port and that is optical

They still sell TV’s with optical only these days? Which Hisense did you get?

Hisense is a frequent source of issues in these forums, apparently due to their attempt to be ‘price conscious’, they don’t always get all the implementations / things done properly. 

The TV has HDMI Arc and optical - it’s the beam that only has optical.  The tv is Hisense 65” 4k ULED mini LED TV (U8HAU)

I’m confused, the gen 1 Beam had ARC, if memory serves. Only the current Ray, and the former PLAYBAR and Playbase were optical only? The Beam gen 2 added eARC to the previous ARC?

None of that alters the fact that Hisense has been known for improper implementations of many of their APIs. You should, at the very least, check to be sure that the software on the TV is up to date. 

The Beam was the first Sonos speaker that did (and has always done) HDMI-ARC. Are you confusing Sonos speakers?

Sorry - my bad - Sonos Playbar 1

Make sure the TV, and any source connected to it, is locked down, in the audio settings, to Dolby Digital, which is the max that the PLAYBAR can handle. 

Your system may be sending something to the Hisense that it can’t send across the limited bandwidth available to optical. And optical, being one way only, isn’t able to send a signal back to the TV saying ‘Only send me X’ as it would in an ARC (CEC) situation. 

FINALLY: ITS PLAYBAR DROP OFFS, not BEAM. (Admins can you change the title?)

Yes, my Playbar started this about a month ago. I thought it was a hardware problem, so I swapped in a spare Playbar and it still happens.

Running S2, bonded to a Sub Gen 1. Connected to a 2019 Samsung TV, fed with a TiVo and an Apple TV. Happens on both sources.

It drops for a second or so on a random cycle, averaging once or twice an hour.

Nothing like a 20 second drop though.

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