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In Reply to: RE: Setting up Audio in the Basement posted by AbeCollins on March 28, 2021 at 16:32:58
And how do you do surround sound? I assume that you prewired for 5.1 or 7.1.
My wife only needs to turn one dial, from TV to CD and back on the preamp. Of course, it's solid state so it's on all the time and the receiver is HDMI triggered and runs the surrounds. That Sonus wold be a great center channel mounted under the way bigger TV.
Great job Abe!
One thing I've learned is that the finish work can be 80% of the job. I'll be curious it looks in 6 months. Who is the decorator?
-Rod
Follow Ups:
Thanks Rod.There are 2 sets of speaker cable pulled to the wall behind the sofa so we can eventually do true 5.1 but I don't have an AV receiver, maybe later.
The Sonos ARC soundbar has 11 speaker drivers and produces the center and left / right channels and decent bass. DSP decodes surround modes like 5.1 and Dolby Atmos. There's a separate (over Wifi or Ethernet) sub that pairs with the Sonos ARC soundbar to help mainly with deep bass effects. I can optionally purchase a set of rear surrounds for the setup that also pair over Wifi or Ethernet.
While not a full blown HT surround system, the soundbar setup is a significant improvement over the TV speakers and it does decode and produce some level of surround effects.
The gory details or TMI:
The Sonos ARC is named "ARC" because the soundbar features HDMI Audio Return Channel (eARC actually) which means I connect one HDMI cable from the Sonos to the TV's HDMI eARC port and that's it for TV audio. There are other brands that do this as well.
Audio from any other HDMI device attached to the TV like the blu-ray player and cableTV box are automatically routed down from the TV to the Sonos ARC. No need for a separate Toslink, SPDIF, or Aux analog connection to each device with a separate remote for the soundbar. The audio output from the soundbar is controlled with the TV's remote natively (no altering remote codes).
And because the TV also supports HDMI-CEC the attached HDMI devices are recognized by the TV and show up as named source devices. For example, the TV recognized that I attached the cableTV box on HDMI 1. HDMI 1 is now automatically labeled as "Xfinity Comcast HDMI 1". HDMI 2 is labeled as "Sony UBP-X700 HDMI 2". The TV remote will also control the cableTV box w/o altering remote codes. Same for the blu-ray player including basic functions like play, pause, fast forward, back, etc.
But it gets even better. I thought I would need to attach our Amazon Fire Stick over HDMI for Amazon Prime streaming and the AppleTV box over another HDMI for our AppleTV purchases and rentals. I was pleased to learn that the TV has these capabilities built-in in the form of Apps for Amazon Prime and AppleTV.... so I don't need to attach external devices to receive these streaming services. Of course there are several more included Apps like Neflix, Hulu, YouTube, Disney+, HBO Max, etc and many more to be downloaded.
The TV also handles different forms of screen mirroring for Android devices as well a AirPlay2 for Apple devices. Anything on my iPad or Mac can be mirrored to the TV including Roon. [When I mirror Roon to the TV screen, I can have audio from the soundbar system but I direct audio to my DAC in a traditional way instead, and use my 2-ch tube amp and Tannoy speakers].
This is our first "smart TV" as our previous TV is about 10 years old with no "smarts".
Edits: 03/30/21
My earlier Sonos soundbar lacks an HDMI input, which is totally ridiculous. The only way to get a signal from the TV into the Sonos was via optical, which would be fine, except my tv at the time, like many, would only output stereo over the optical! I had to go through all sorts of nonsense with an HDMI deimbedder/adapter to get it to work, all because of their idiotic design decision. This was complained about for years, so I guess they finally decided to fix it in the new model.
I can see why you are delighted with the current setup.
Part of the problem is the evolution of HDMI and its capabilities over the years.... and compatibility among the various HDMI devices on the market for the various HDMI enhancements over time.I am hardly an expert but I did some reading on HDMI and read some soundbar reviews prior to buying the Sonos ARC. If soundbars are the "easy button" of surround sound, the ARC is the "easy button" of soundbars.
The Sonos ARC lacks multiple inputs and sophisticated manual EQ adjustment but setup and basic functionality appear to be rock solid reliable compared to some others I've read about. Speech and bass are clear and the overall sound is excellent. It's a set and forget soundbar - and the TruPlay iPhone App from Sonos does a good job of automating surround tuning during initial setup.
I wanted simple and reliable with excellent sound (for a soundbar anyway) and I'm happy with the Sonos ARC + Sub.
Edits: 03/31/21 03/31/21
Sonos is perfect for its intended purpose. Beautiful design, intuitive software, dead simple to setup and use, no glitches, no hassles (except for the HDMI input in the earlier model).
If only Bluesound could hire Sonos' software designers!!
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