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Worth upgrading 5.1 from Beam to Arc?

  • 12 April 2021
  • 3 replies
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Is upgrading to Arc from Beam worth the extra expense?

Now I have a 5.1 setup with beam, Sub (gen 2), 2x Ones as rears.

Recently I have upgraded my TV to LG OLED GX55 which supports Dolby Atmos through eARC. I mostly watch movies and series on Netflix, Apple TV+ or blu-rays, game on Xbox Series X (supports Atmos in trueHD) and listen to music a LOT.

I created this topic because now that I have a TV that supports Dolby Atmos I feel like I might miss out on the experience having a beam instead of the ARC.

Has anyone maybe upgraded already having full 5.1?

Thank you in advance for all the answers.

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Best answer by Simmz 12 April 2021, 13:38

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I have almost the same setup, except I have gen 3 sub and a LG OLED CX. I went from a playbar to the arc and it was a big difference. So yes, would expect it to be even more so going from a beam. So if you have the space and can afford it, I would say definitely go for it. Atmos in true hd is also a big difference from dd+, so if you can get any content in that it’s definitely worth watching/listening in that format.

I have almost the same setup, except I have gen 3 sub and a LG OLED CX. I went from a playbar to the arc and it was a big difference. So yes, would expect it to be even more so going from a beam. So if you have the space and can afford it, I would say definitely go for it. Atmos in true hd is also a big difference from dd+, so if you can get any content in that it’s definitely worth watching/listening in that format.

Thank You for your answer! This seems really worth upgrading!

As the CX has eARC passthrough it would support Atmos through TrueHD from blu-rays I assume, but in your experience, any of the apps available on the LG interface support it? Or does it stream in DD+ from the TV itself when Atmos content is available?

Userlevel 4
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Unfortunately all the streaming apps use Dolby Atmos - dd+. Down to bandwidth restrictions and all that jazz. There’s all these articles and comments of people saying you won’t notice any difference between Dolby Atmos - dd+ and Dolby Atmos - True HD, but that is definitely a load of **** If I watch the same movie on say Netflix or Disney+ then I watch it on a Bluray, the difference is massive!

I tend to rip all my blurays these days, so I utilise a Nvidia Shield with plex in a NAS solution so all my media library is digital. Had to go down the shield route as one of those only devices that can play MKV’s with the Dolby Atmos - Tue HD format.