Review on 🔊 Black Sonos Arc Smart Soundbar: Premium TV, Movies, Music, Gaming & More by Tina Blake

Both consumers and professional critics have praised the sound of the Sonos Arc Atmos soundbar, so I won't go further than to say I totally agree. I pre-ordered my Arc soundbar and received it upon release before it quickly sold out everywhere. The BIG question is whether or not it will work with YOUR TV, and the answer is. that is hard. 1) If your TV doesn't have an ARC port: Sonos ships an optical-to-HDMI adapter with the Arc, so you can connect the Arc to your TV, but you'll lose Atmos audio capabilities as it doesn't travel over optical can. Issue.2) If your TV is 2016 or earlier: Your TV does not support Dolby Atmos, so it will not "pass through" Atmos even from another source like Apple TV.3) If your TV is 2017/2018 and has ARC : These are the most difficult years. Your TV must natively support Atmos and Atmos to ARC pass-through. Here's the problem: ARC doesn't have the bandwidth to support the native Atmos signal - it requires a higher bandwidth eARC connection on the latest devices. So your TV needs to do the Atmos broadcast processing via Dolby Digital+, which actually works well and is well within the ARC bandwidth specification. Similarly, Apple Support states that "Apple TV Atmos transmits at high bandwidth, which is not supported by ARC". That's true, but if your TV natively supports Atmos pass-through, it will process the Apple TV's incoming signal the same way, and Atmos/Dolby Digital+ will be sent to the Sonos Arc. If buying a Sonos Arc depends on getting Atmos audio, be sure to call tech support for your device and ask for built-in Atmos support and skip it. I got a quick response from LG on my 2017 E7P, which supports both and works well with Arc. The Sonos app shows you what signal is being sent to the Arc soundbar in real time, so there's never a question of whether or not you're getting Atmos sound. If your TV has eARC: Congratulations! Even if your TV's internal speaker system isn't Atmos, you should be able to stream Atmos signals from other sources like Apple TV, 4K Blu-ray players, etc. without the processing required by Sonos Arc. Better yet, eArc (and Sonos Arc) have the bandwidth to handle native Atmos/Dolby True HD signals for the best sound quality. However, you can currently only get your own Atmos from 4K Blu-ray discs, not from any streaming services. Thank you for taking the time to read my review and I hope you find it helpful in your purchase decision. I try to answer questions in the comments if there are any.