Don't have eARC? Get Atmos w/ HD Fury "Arcana" - Pre-orders now LIVE!

Update for anyone here that is not on Discord:

HDFury just confirmed that they will start shipping on September 15th, approx. 400 units a day, to finish on the 19th. Pre orders are now at approx 1400, so by that math they would either finish early, or it means that they expect to have the 1900 units they refer to on their website ready to ship on the 15th.

It would be nice if Sonos App can display Dolby Atmos “TrueHD” or “MAT” instead of the generic Dolby Atmos.  It is able to distinguish Dolby Atmos (DD+) in “About my system”.

There have been a couple of threads on this. I’d say most of us are in agreement that the now playing screen in the app could and should be much more descriptive than it currently is. At a minimum, I’d like for it to display whatever audio format is currently being displayed in the About My System screen. Such a simple thing but would be a nice touch. 

It may be a simple thing, it may not. It depends on the code. I’ve seen quite a few ‘simple’ suggestions that have not been implemented. I always have to assume it’s not because Sonos enjoys frustrating its users, but there are reasons that we don’t know, which could often be Code/path complexity. 

Shield are very good bits of kit and seem to handle lots of formats without any wobbles

As you are beta testing the Arcana with our new favourite bit of kit (Sonos ARC) can you indicate how much difference there is between 5.1 and full fat True HD Atmos ? As that is why most of us without Earc TV’s will be wanting the Arcana. I have to echo your thoughts on the HD Fury guys they are fantastic at customer service which is one of the reasons why I took the plunge.

So far I’m very impressed with the Shield’s capabilities… as a Plex server. I’ve had up to 7 direct HD streams running locally at once and it can easily handle at least 3 direct local 4K streams (and even a couple of HD streams at the same time!) as well. Would never have dreamed that I’d get Plex server performance that good from “just” a streaming box. 

The client side is more of a question. I don’t really like the interface (Apple TV guy here), the images looked really washed out until I found an obscure and poorly worded setting, and it doesn’t transcode DTS to Dolby Digital like Plex on Apple TV will without changing a setting (which then basically turns off TrueHD/Atmos output, which was the original reason I got the thing). 

So a mixed bag, but high marks for Plex server performance! 

Unfortunately, I haven’t done any critical A/B listening tests yet. I’ve been more focused on getting everything working and then I got distracted by moving my Plex server over to the Shield, and the kids are doing school from home so I can’t have it loud during the day, etc. etc. What I’ve heard so far, though, has sounded great. However, what I’ve heard from Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus has sounded great so far, too. In the little bit that I’ve heard so far, my ears can’t immediately tell a difference. Or certainly not a major one. When I do get around to critical listening tests, I’ll be surprised if I hear a difference that blows me out of the water. More than likely it will be an incremental improvement, but I’m happy to be proven wrong. 

Also, I’m not going to get myself too worked up over it. No one, hopefully, watches movies switching back and forth between sound formats so I’ll just be happy to choose the best available format and sit back and enjoy a movie or show knowing that I’ve got the best possible sound quality. YMMV, of course. 

Thank you for the quick reply.

I agree the DD+ sounds great anyway but i kind of secretly hoped that being able to put full fat Atmos from a 4k disc via my OPPO might have the edge somehow.

As you say the knowledge that you will have the best possible sound whatever the source and without having to buy a new TV (mine is LG B7) is a warm feeling.

Thanks to the Shield and my Plex collection, I’ve now got access to multiple pieces of the same content in TrueHD (with and without Atmos), Dolby Digital (transcoded from DTS), and Dolby Digital Plus / Atmos. I’ll see if I can start doing some critical listening tonight and will report back. 

I’ve heard others say that TrueHD is noticeably better than DD+ in general.  I don’t really know if that’s psychosomatic or if it’s actually better.  The other aspect of this, particularly when atmos gets thrown in, is that you quickly get into the territory where the rooms acoustic characteristics plays a very large role.  Trueplay helps with this a lot, but when you’re counting on audio reflecting off walls and ceilings, you’re going to have rooms where it sounds great and others where you can’t hear much difference between TrueHD atoms and DD 5.1.

For me, I do notice some difference with atmos audio coming through, but not as much as I originally thought.  I am overall happy with it, and like the improvement over the playbar, for sure.  

Yeah, that’s why I’m not getting too worked up about it all. On paper, I’m sure TrueHD blows DD and DD+ out of the water in terms of sheer specs. In reality, though, I’m willing to bet it won't matter all that much. If you’ve got a serious (and seriously expensive) home theater system that can wring every bit of sound out of it, I’m sure TrueHD is amazing. For the rest of us, even “plain old” Dolby Digital is still really damn good. 

I still think most people don’t understand just how damn good all of these audio codecs are these days. Dolby and DTS and others have been working on these compression algorithms and making psychoacoustic magic for decades now and they’ve gotten ridiculously good at it. 

Plus, there are so many variables at play. Even if there’s a subtle difference like the TrueHD mix simply being a little LOUDER than a Dolby Digital Plus mix for the same movie, it could cause a person to perceive that the TrueHD mix is better (or vice versa).   

But, again, I’ll be happy to be surprised. Maybe TrueHD will blow me out of the water. Regardless, I’ve got really, really good sound quality that’s making me quite happy. ;-)