As with many such devices, it supports ARC input on its HDMI output. What it doesn’t have is an ARC output (which would technically be on an HDMI input).

Interesting. This whole thing is really fighting my “Sonos, it just works” mindset.

Sonos does just work, with TVs that have a suitable ARC/eARC port. Trouble is, it’s somewhat ahead of the game, in that few TVs support eARC, and those with ARC may or may not forward Atmos. 

What people here are hoping for is some gizmo which would allow the TV to be bypassed in order to render the best audio that an external device (Firestick, Apple TV, etc) could offer. Right now we’ve yet to find one. 

Sonos devices will ‘just work‘, but to get the ‘full‘ benefit of all the capabilities of the new ARC that it appears capable of, you ‘perhaps might’ need to invest in a new up-to-date TV .. it’s a case that such new Sonos devices are a step ahead of some of us who have older TV’s.. but it will definitely still work for HT surround sound, if the TV has either HDMI-ARC, or optical, audio output, which most TV’s do.

Ah @ratty beat me to it..

Hoping this post gets noticed by @JeffDs…

I’m in a similar boat to you, with an Arc on the way and a non-ARC projector as my display. I see you managed to order the ARC-01 device, but I can’t see if you’ve received it and it’s working? I also can’t quite work out what the benefit of this device is vs an Optical Audio Extractor… does ARC get you more than DD5.1, even if you can’t get full Atmos?

Finally, how much did it cost you? 

I have preordered the Arc, I have multiple Sonos products, I will be using my Sub and two Play 1’s for surround set up. I have several other Ones, around the house, namely in two rooms adjacent to where the surround system will be set up. My question is, how many speakers can be added to the surround setup? I am aware that Sonos does not support 7.1, however is it possible for example, to group lets say 2-Play 1s as the rear surrounds, and then group two adjacent Ones as two more rears/sides, or just additional speakers within the surround grouping?

No.  One pair of surrounds only. 

Thanks for responding. My thought was to have several rooms broadcasting the sound of a sports game, concert, DVDs etc. at parties from a single TV source, which would also be the primary surround set in one room. Is there any other way to accomplish multiple room sound, similar to music grouping “everywhere” with a single TV output? 

You would ‘group’ the other rooms, in the same manner as is available now. The ‘grouped’ rooms would be slightly delayed from the sound bar room for TV input, but completely in sync when playing music streams. 

As stated, that is called grouping.  Different from the surrounds, which are bonded.  The difference is, surrounds each play a discrete channel of the 5.1 signal, whereas grouped rooms/devices all play the same thing.  

jgatie, Bruce, thank you guys, I appreciate your quick responses.

@Ryan S

I noticed you mentioned the Arc needs about 10-15cm distance from the TV and to the sides. Does that count for the bottom also when wall mounted?

My Arc will be mounted about 10cm below the TV, but perhaps only 5cm above the credenza (I prefer wall mounting to hide cables and such).

Or would it be better to raise the TV a little, having 10cm above and below the Arc?

Also, when will the manual for both the Arc and its mount be online? I'd like to plan ahead. Or do we really need to wait until the 10th of June?

My goal was to getting CEC working for volume without relying on IR. I haven’t accomplished that yet (likely due to other issues in my setup; but not at that location right now so I haven’t messed with it in a while). In this case there is no audio quality advantage; but the device existing proves that the functionality is quite viable - just likely not in high demand. For the Sonos Arc the real desire is a similar solution supporting eARC via pure-HDMI.

Cost was about $40 for the unit and another $40 for shipping (the downside of having to order from overseas).

Hey people

Apologies if this has been covered before but I need it laid out in simple terms as I'm not the most technically minded.

I've had confirmation from LG that my TV doesn't support Atmos pass-through via the sets HDMI-ARC socket.

I'm looking to buy an Amazon Fire Cube here in the UK as it's one of only a few streaming devices that supports Atmos from Netflix as Netflix is my main source for content.

So that I can get the Atmos signal to the Sonos Arc would I be able to have a HDMI cable from the Fire Cube to a splitter with 1 HDMI coming out and going to the TV with another coming out and going to the ARC?

Would this allow me to get the Atmos signal to the ARC?

Would this cause any kind of sync issue between sound and display?

Thanks guys, really want to the ARC but not sure if I can justify it unless I'm going to get Atmos without having to buy a new TV.

Thanks for the reply. So I can live without this for now - especially as I’ll be using a Logitech Harmony for volume control - but hopefully the right product comes along soon enough. Good luck with your CEC!

Unfortunately not. That would only deliver a standard HDMI to the Arc, when what it needs is an HDMI-ARC (or HDMI-eARC). The latter puts the Audio Return Channel on physically different pins.

A splitter would only be able to connect to an HDMI input. Technically the HDMI socket on the Arc is an output, since it’s designed to connect to an HDMI-ARC input on a TV.

Is there an HDMI-ARC to HDMI-ARC splitter on the market?I done a quick Google search and they do come up just not sure if they ACTUALLY do the job in reality. If anyone's got any recommendations re a splitter that will work or any other wiring set up that would get me Atmos from an Amazon Fire Cube when my TV doesn't allow pass-through?

TIA

There are plenty of splitters that have an HDMI-ARC feature, but with the exception of the ARC01 which doesn’t help with Atmos, the existing devices take an ARC signal from a TV and pass it on to a different device...again not helpful for Atmos.  The only device I know of that can take convert an Atmos format signal from a Cube or other source to HDMI-ARC, is a TV.  It does not have to be the TV your watching though.

Actually it’s not so much a splitter as an HDMI-ARC (or eARC) generator that’s required. It would have to extract the audio off an HDMI input -- from, say, a Fire Cube -- and embed that onto an HDMI-ARC/eARC ‘input’, and thus return it to the Arc’s ‘output’.

Go back through this thread and you’ll find various sub-discussions about this. To date nobody appears to have found such a device.

There does appear to be a device which can take PCM/DD audio off an optical input and embed that in ARC, but that’s of no use if one wants the full Atmos/DD+ audio from an HDMI.

Go the other way… The new Nebula Cosmos 4K projector (Indiegogo) will be able to support eARC and it has two HDMI so you can connect AppleTV or Fire TV cube to one port and use the eARC HDMI slot for Sonos ARC. Expensive solution but on the other hand you can enjoy native 4K and Dolby Atmos 🙂 Time to upgrade….  

That setup should be just fine without moving the TV. There isn’t the same minimum distance guidance below the Arc when mounted.

I might just buy a cheap 43’ Samsung TU8000 put it to the side and dim it, then use a splitter to feed that and the projector. Then the Samsung feeds the Arc with it’s eArc. Oh this is what it takes to get Sonos Arc to work in a proper HT setup. lol

The lack oh HDMI input on ARC poses a lot of limitations. No TV will ever offer more versatility than an external streamer/player (like shield). Too bad there is no hdmi in. Still looking for workarounds to pull the trigger on ARC

You can still use an external streamer.  You would connect the streamer to the HDMI input on the TV, and the Arc to the HDMI-ARC output on the TV.