If your TV or soundbar only supports ARC, you will only be able to pass the compressed DD+ version of Dolby Atmos from your TV to your soundbar. Even the latest LG and Samsung soundbars dont support enough data bandwidth over their HDMI ports to carry 4K 120Hz and/or VRR through to screens, despite many of their latest TVs supporting such cutting-edge graphics features.
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If both your TV and soundbar support eARC, you will be able to use it to ship full, uncompressed Dolby Atmos for even more detailed sound. To be clear, this is by no means universal with ARC. Very convenient and futuristic, but the version of Dolby Atmos used is the lower quality DD+ one. In short, if you have a games console, 4K Blu-ray player or streaming device you want the maximum quality from, it might be that you don't want that to pass through your soundbar. Thank you for signing up to TechRadar.
Its become infamous over the years for causing sound to become dislocated from the pictures with some AV setups, so that actors lips move out of sync with the words youre hearing them say. New York, How good soundbars sound with music, though, can depend massively on which sound preset you use. Just because your soundbar might say its receiving Dolby Atmos, though, doesnt necessarily mean its receiving the best version of Dolby Atmos. In that time hes reviewed hundreds if not thousands of TVs, projectors and speakers, and spent frankly far too long sitting by himself in a dark room.
A lot of higher-end soundbars have this built in, and Sonos soundbars can do this through the Sonos app, though only if you have an iPhone, sadly. Having just sung the praises of the HDMI passthrough systems carried by some soundbars, there can also be a downside to them that you may need to know about depending on the capabilities of your TV and sources. LG and Sony soundbars, for instance, support passthrough of Dolby Vision, but not HDR10+.
In which case youll likely need to make sure your soundbar is set to a mode that sticks to straight stereo playback.
Exactly the same applies, of course, with Dolby Vision.
Or, in some cases, they only support one of these premium HDR formats, not both. First, some TVs and soundbars provide options for adjusting the audio timing to try and fix potential sync errors, and this is a good place to start. This wont matter, of course, if your TV of choice doesnt support HDR10+ (many dont). Naturally, we want to make sure you're getting the most out of your hard-earned home theater gear, so here we look at five of the most common errors, to help you avoid making your own soundbar faux pas. While its true, though, that any half-decent soundbar will likely sound better than pretty much any built-in TV sound system as soon as you get it out of the box, there are actually any number of mistakes people make when setting up and using their soundbars that can stop them from sounding their best. On paper, the audio return channel (ARC) technology thats part of the HDMI connection specification is a fantastic idea. The Sony HT-A7000 soundbar supports 4K 120Hz passthrough, but not variable refresh rates. Samsungs high-end soundbars impressively support both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. HBO just canceled this comedy, despite its 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating, Vizios cheaper Elevate Dolby Atmos soundbar puts the Sonos Arc on notice, Disney Plus and company just dealt another big blow to Netflix, The worst Marvel movie is reportedly getting a sequel, PS5 lawsuit claims Sony knowingly hid a major defect in the console, Don't buy PS Plus this Prime Day I mean it, Free Samsung Galaxy update turns your handset into an even better camera phone, 'Like Jaws meets Close Encounters': critics hail Jordan Peele's Nope, Confirmed: Netflix has lost a lot more subscribers, How to determine the salary range you should ask for in an interview, The best tech tutorials and in-depth reviews, Try a single issue or save on a subscription, Issues delivered straight to your door or device. The key point is that whether you get the best Dolby Atmos version or can depend on your soundbar connections. However, theres no reason in principle why they cant do double duty as quality music players. However, these adjustments can be hard to find and dont always fully solve the issue, though. Please refresh the page and try again. A more common misunderstanding concerns our old friend, HDMI ARC technology. So youll lose the picture quality benefits associated with the extra scene by scene picture information HDR10+ signals carry. In a perfect world your soundbar will have an auto-calibration system, where mics in the main soundbar or remote control listen to test signals and automatically adjust the soundbars output accordingly. Though, as a sign of how messy the HDR situation remains, Samsungs TVs dont actually support Dolby Vision! To keep you on your toes, weve heard soundbars that sound better with music in their upmix modes than they do in stereo, and have also found that some soundbars sound better in different modes with different musical genres. Dolby Atmos soundtracks are arguably the pinnacle, alongside DTS:X, of the current sound quality world. But thats currently it in terms of cutting-edge gaming support via HDMI loopthrough in todays soundbar market. Unfortunately, however, very few soundbars currently can do this. Sign up to get breaking news, reviews, opinion, analysis and more, plus the hottest tech deals! The Sony HT-A7000 is one of the few soundbars that can handle 4K 120Hz over HDMI.
After all, it lets TVs that support ARC send their sound out via ARC-certified HDMI connections to external devices such as soundbars and AV receivers, reducing cabling headaches and essentially turning your TV into a convenient audio switching device. The True HD version is uncompressed, and so delivers the cleanest and most dynamic sound.
The whole idea of adding one of the best soundbars to your TV setup is that theyre supposed to make getting better sound quality in your living room easy. In many setups it works just fine. If your source can output it and your TV can play it but your soundbar cant pass its extra scene by scene picture data through, then again youll lose the picture quality advantage Dolby Vision can give you unless you can go the ARC route. Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, The upmix process can just as often, though, sound pretty nasty on soundbars that dont have good-enough audio processing, or where that processing is tuned more for movie audio. The bottom line is that it pays not to be lazy. In reality, though, ARC isnt always the blessing it sounds. If you own a PS5, an Xbox Series X or a PC with a recent high-end graphics card, as well as a TV capable of handling 4K resolutions at 120Hz refresh rate with VRR, then you will want your soundbars HDMI passthrough to be capable of passing such cutting-edge visuals through to your display. You will receive a verification email shortly. Visit our corporate site (opens in new tab). Dolby Atmos can actually be carried in two types of container: one called Dolby Digital+, the other called True HD. So make sure you're not accidentally putting yourself in a position where your Dolby Atmos audio quality isn't as high as it could be, because if you've invested in one of the best TVs and a lovely Dolby Atmos soundbar, you want the the audio to be spectacular as the visuals. If you have one particular source that comes through with a delay, and if your soundbar has an HDMI passthrough port, connect your source directly to the soundbar, so that it can strip the sound out before passing the video on to your TV. There was a problem. TechRadar is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Most soundbars let you adjust the relative volumes of their various channels via remote controls or apps on your phone, so assuming yours does, sit yourself in your favourite viewing position and cycle through the channels your soundbar supports tweaking each in turn until youve got the most balanced overall sound.
Getting the most balanced and therefore immersive sound from a soundbar will therefore require you to compensate for the imbalances and eccentricities of your particular room layout. With all this in mind, the best way to limit audio sync issues is to use your soundbars HDMI passthrough system, if it has one. This is clever and, where the remixing processing is particularly impressive, it can deliver surprisingly immersive and convincing results. Fortunately, if this affects your soundbar when using ARC, there are things you can do about it.
In fact, a growing number of soundbars support both hi-res audio files and direct streaming from popular music apps. It continues, however, to be one of the most common audio complaints we hear about. TechRadar is supported by its audience. Heres why you can trust us. Experiment with different presets if you switch to playing music, rather than just sticking with whatever preset your soundbar might think is the best one. Some soundbars have an HDMI input as well as an HDMI connection to the TV, and they can pass through video to the TV, but take the sound along the way. While pretty much all soundbars will find themselves tucked underneath a TV screen, the exact room conditions they find themselves placed in can vary almost infinitely.
Which means the sound they produce can also vary dramatically as it bounces off surfaces in your room.
Many soundbars are designed predominantly with movie and TV soundtrack playback in mind. The other issue with HDMI passthrough is that while the vast majority of soundbars with it now support passing through HDR, many dont support passing through the premium HDR10+ and Dolby Vision HDR formats.
For instance, some multi-channel soundbars provide default sound modes that essentially remix stereo music to take advantage of all the channels a soundbar provides.
And that goes double now that so many soundbars create audio channel effects specifically by reflecting their sound off walls and ceilings. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
So even if your TV supports HDR10+, if you loop an HDR10+ signal through a soundbar that doesnt support HDR10+, then your TV wont actually receive HDR10+. There are actually two types of ARC HDMI connection: the standard/original version, and a newer eARC version found with more recent HDMI connections.
Trying to pass such signals through will almost without fail see them stripped back to at best 4K 60Hz with no variable refresh rates. Experience suggests, too, that sometimes once source can cause audio lag in a system while others dont, so you could find yourself having to keep changing the audio lag settings (if your gear supports them) repeatedly.
The DD+ option is a compressed version, typically used for streamed content. John has been writing about home entertainment technology for more than two decades - an especially impressive feat considering he still claims to only be 35 years old (yeah, right).