probem with audio format with Sonos Beam gen 2 and apple tv

Hi @GuitarSuperstar and thanks for the answer.

I’m not particularly interested in Dolby Atmos, is there a cheaper option to the Arcana that could solve the problem? A simple hdmi splitter to send the Apple TV signal both to tv and to the beam could work?

There are two less expensive devices similar to the Arcana, but they don’t work as well:

FeinTech VAX04101

OREI HDA-935

the Feintech seems like a good option, and it’s easily available here in Italy. Why the FeinTech is not as good as the Arcana? has some problems or less features?

If you’re not interested in Dolby Atmos, you could easily use a normal HDMI switch- like device, which pulls the Dolby Digital information off to an optical port, then use an optical connection to the adapter Sonos makes to connect optical inputs to the ARC port on the Beam. 

Lower cost, too. Many relatively inexpensive HDMI switches offer this. 

I’m not familiar enough with the three devices to help in any understanding of which is better, but have had no problems on my side with the HD Fury Arcana. 

This sound like a good option, more sooner then later I will change my old TV, so I don’t want to spend that much. but if I understand correctly, with this type of solution I would not get audio from the TV when I’m watching regular TV. is there a solution for this? will the HDMI switch take the audio back from the TV and send to the optical port?

I say that “they don’t work as well” primarily because the Arcana is by far the most widely used option of the three. It has been well documented online that the Arcana works. I have read very little about the FeinTech simply because there are just far less users. But from the few instances I have seen the FeinTech mentioned in this forum, it seems to work fine. The OREI is a newer product and seems to have the most issues of the three products, so I would avoid this one.

I’m not sure I understand your statement of “ would not get audio from the TV when I’m watching regular TV.”. You would indeed not get any sound when watching something from one of the TV’s smart apps, if it has any. You’d only get sound from external feeds, such as a cable box, or Blu-ray player, etc, that have external HDMI sources. Anything you’d normally connect to the TV’s HDMI ports would connect to the external switch, and feed the optical cable to the Beam, and the video would go to the TV set.

You might be able to get the sound from smart apps on the TV if you were instead to ignore that switch, and plug in to the optical port on the TV set directly. That age of electronics, sometimes optical ports had more function than ARC ports did. But your owner’s manual, or a call to Samsung might give you better information. 

The real question, which would be answered by either that perusal of the owner’s manual, or contacting Samsung directly, is why an HDMI connection of X type (Dolby Digital) is not being passed through properly on both outputs, either the optical or the HDMI ARC one. 

@GuitarSuperstar ‘s solution, which I concur with, is to pull the audio out before it reaches the TV. I have a similar issue with my Vizio TVs, where they don’t pass Dolby Digital Plus, only Dolby Digital. But then I never use the onboard “smart” apps, either, just my Apple TV or Microsoft XBox, so I feed the signal through an HD Fury Arcana, as suggested. However, since you appear to have an ARC port, there is a way on shown the HD Fury website, to get data from your “smart” apps on the TV to play on the Sonos Beam, it just requires a more roundabout method, including additional switches. 

At the end of the day, given the age of your TV, it might be worth it to just upgrade the TV, and not mess with all of this. 

Can be the HDMI cable a possibile cause? 

it’s an Amazon basic cable marked with “high speed with ethernet”. My tv is full hd, not 4K, and the Apple TV output is set accordingly. Could the cable limit the audio output format?

“would not get audio from the TV when I’m watching regular TV”: I mean if with a simple HDMI switch I would be able to listen to audio coming from tv (tv tuner mainly, the apps are too old to be usable), while having the Apple TV, the beam and the tv connected to the switch, and probably the answer is no, because there’s no ARC audio return in that kind of cheap switch.

BTW I’ve ordered a FeinTech VAX04101 on Amazon, let’s see if it solves my problem and the setup is stable and easy to use, or it will go back and I will take into consideration to upgrade the tv (but it’s a much bigger expense).

Everything would have been easier if the beam just had a second HDMI port to connect the TV... 

Then everyone would be asking why the Beam didn’t have two inputs, and three, and four….and so on. With the additional need for changing the software for including a method by which people would choose which input. Why go through all that when there is already an industry standard for this kind of thing that they could adhere to?

Keep us posted on the Feintech, I’m interested. 

So I’ve received and did an initial test of the FeinTech VAX04101. here’s some comments for who is interested @Airgetlam

The FeinTech is a well built unit that feels premium and do what is supposed to do: it streams audio directly from the Apple TV to the soundbar via an eArc port, and sends a full signal to the TV. I got Atmos audio and Dolby 5.1 from Apple TV+ and Disney+. I’ve not been able to get Atmos from Netflix but I will look into that another time. Dolby 5.1 was reported as PCM 5.1, so it should be uncompressed and best quality. you need to select the 7.1 mode with the EDID switch to make it works, Auto will not work (at least with the Apple TV).

Audio quality is night and day compared to connecting the Beam directly to the TV. Audio is not compressed (and this is a huge part), voices are clearer and reverbs are much more detailed, giving a much better sense of the space. also seems like the the Beam perform very well decoding Atmos, even if you are not getting that sense of sound coming from above.

Please note that my TV is only SDR Full HD, so I cannot test the video part for HDR, Dolby Vision, 4K etc… my video output was ok.

As a plus, I’m also able to listen to Dolby Atmos tracks from Apple Music. not a big fan but it works.

The FeinTech is also able to take audio from the TV (broadcast channels or apps) via the second ARC port dedicated to TV. I haven’t tested TV apps because I don’t use it, but broadcast channels worked as expected with Stereo PCM or Dolby 2.0 audio.

Now two negative notes: 1) you have to manually switch the audio from Apple TV to internal TV audio, with a button on the unit or with the remote. this is not a huge deal for me but for the rest of the family it could because you have to switch both video (with the tv remote) and audio (with the FeinTech remote) 2) HDMI-CEC works for volume control, both with TV remote and Apple TV remote, but the visual feedback on the screen not so much. with the tv remote the visual feedback is there, but shows the wrong numbers. with Apple TV remote you don’t get any visual feedback.

I would be nice to have the auto switch from external source to internal audio TV. Maybe the Arcana is capable of this? I’m still not sure I’m willing to pay 100€ more for this alone as I see the FeinTech as a temporary solution before upgrading the TV in the next year.

Thanks for this.
 

Visual feedback on volume changes is the responsibility of your TV set, and not any of the devices connected to it.

With only one input, there’s no ‘auto switch’ on the HD Fury Arcana, but you would be able to put an ‘auto switching’ device in front of it, certainly. 

@Eriksatie,

I have the FeinTech VAX04101 audio extractor/switch too and really pleased with it and as Bruce mentions the TV volume display is down to the TV - I just get a +/- display when adjusting volume and no numbers displayed at all on-screen - I don’t believe you would see a difference if you were using the Arcana. 

The handy thing with the VAX04101 extractor, is that it is a combined HDMI-switch too and it’s cheaper, but more difficult to perhaps get hold of, depending on which country you live.

I agree the VAX04101 is a really well-built product, but thought it’s remote could have perhaps been a little more sturdy, but still okay and it does it’s job. I actually do not use its IR remote, as I use a Harmony Hub in the same room and that allows me to change inputs/TV channels using Alexa instead, which saves reaching for its remote.

Anyhow I think the VAX04101 does a very good job and it saves the added expense of buying another TV, just to get Atmos Audio - I currently use it with the Nvidia Shield (recommended) and FireTV 4K.

By the way, to get Atmos on Netflix you need a premium HD account and to play the movie using its original audio format, so maybe check you have both those things in place. Hope that assists.

Sure, but when connecting the Beam directly to the tv I had visual feedback. So there should be something about the routing of HDMI-CEC that works differently with the FeinTech. But this is a minor thing.

more useful would be auto switching, not between different hdmi input, but between the active input and the audio from the tv, just like a tv Arc port is acting (at least this is the behaviour of my tv connected directly to the beam)