Sonos Beam 5.1 playback

[Kevin Scott]

Assuming the TV has a USB input, load some 5.1 tracks onto a USB thumb drive and see if you can use the TV's UI to select and play them.

If the TV does not have a USB input capable of media playback, then an alternate route would be the use of a USB input on a Blu-ray player, use it's UI to select and play the 5.1 tracks, output via the player's HDMI to the TV, and that should pass through the TV's already connected HDMI eARC output to the Sonos Beam.

I'm delighted to report this worked out. WAV files only, it didn't see FLAC but this is a small complaint, I have only about 15 audio DVDs worth of material here and it fits on an external USB drive just fine. Better still, it can also play all those old SACD files I converted months ago and had no way to play. I'm glad I saved all those in WAV, FLAC and .dsd for future needs.

Thank you Mikey for your perseverance in this, clearly I give up far easily than you do and it's nice to get it cooperating with the SONOS.

 

[MikeyFresh]

I'm delighted to report this worked out. WAV files only, it didn't see FLAC but this is a small complaint, I have only about 15 audio DVDs worth of material here and it fits on an external USB drive just fine. Better still, it can also play all those old SACD files I converted months ago and had no way to play. I'm glad I saved all those in WAV, FLAC and .dsd for future needs.

Thank you Mikey for your perseverance in this, clearly I give up far easily than you do and it's nice to get it cooperating with the SONOS.

That's great, my pleasure and I guess I'm a stubborn SOB!

So in this case was it the TV that plays the files from USB, or did you have to resort to a Blu-ray player? I am thinking it's the TV and that's also why FLAC won't work, not uncommon for a TV to support only WAV, and MP3.

If you do have a compatible Blu-ray player you might just give that a whirl too, as it very well could support the FLAC files which would save you some storage space, assuming it actually works. Then again if it's just a passthrough via HDMI, the TV would still need to support FLAC in any event I guess, unless the Blu-ray player can somehow unwrap the FLAC container. The UI for browsing and selecting the music is also important there, it's possible a Blu-ray player could better the TV in that regard.

Sonos really needs to get their documentation act together, they flat out told you it was mono and stereo only, which was then fully contradicted by a link in the very support page they directed you to. I'm glad that bit ended up being accurate, all's well that ends well.

 

[Kevin Scott]

That's great, my pleasure and I guess I'm a stubborn SOB!

So in this case was it the TV that plays the files from USB, or did you have to resort to a Blu-ray player? I am thinking it's the TV and that's also why FLAC won't work, not uncommon for a TV to support only WAV, and MP3.

Yeah, the TV has two USB ports. I don't think they've ever been used.

If you do have a compatible Blu-ray player you might just give that a whirl too, as it very well could support the FLAC files which would save you some storage space, assuming it actually works. Then again if it's just a passthrough via HDMI, the TV would still need to support FLAC in any event I guess, unless the Blu-ray player can somehow unwrap the FLAC container. The UI for browsing and selecting the music is also important there, it's possible a Blu-ray player could better the TV in that regard.

Well, storage space digitally, but not physical storage space trying to cram a Blu-Ray player into the mountain of equipment I've already got in place! But I see what you mean, if digital storage becomes an issue it's probably a very good option.

Sonos really needs to get their documentation act together, they flat out told you it was mono and stereo only, which was then fully contradicted by a link in the very support page they directed you to. I'm glad that bit ended up being accurate, all's well that ends well.

I don't know who answered that, if it was a staffer or just Joe Shmoe who happened to read the post. Either way things are good now.

 

[Kevin Scott]

More Sonos fun.

It's been said, even here, that Sonos doesn't play well with others. Well, I've had my Sonos Beam "playing' with everything from Amazon Fire Stick to Kodi to Plex to the Sonos phone app to my native TV settings and although I've been happy with the sound (I have a Beam, two Play 1s set as surrounds and a sub mini) there is that nagging question of, am I REALLY getting the best sound? Is Sonos downconverting?

The thing making me wonder lately is when I play a multichannel WAV or FLAC file from my NAS through Kodi. On my TV (where the Sonos is using e-ARC) the Kodi playback (Kodi is installed on my fire stick) is reporting 5.1, PCM, 48kHz, 6912 kbps and 24 bit, but when I open my Sonos app on my phone to see what it says for the same file, it says only Stereo PCM and nothing else. Soooo...someone's lying. I hope it's the Sonos app. But how can I know?

My brother, who has a Sonos ARC, and is NOT going through Amazon Fire Stick but nVidia shield, is having the same thing happen.

Any ideas?

 

[Kpatch]

Thanks for this thread. Terrific stuff here. I’ve now included MikeyFresh in my will.

 

[MikeyFresh]

Any ideas?

Nope. Clearly you are feeding a 5.1 channel file, what then happens to it in SONOS-land is a mystery, but since the Beam isn't actually a 5.1 system, perhaps the 5.1 channels are being converted to 2.1 in order for playback to occur.

 

[JoeThePop]

I'm rather rusty on my AVR knowledge but if I'm not mistaken, a traditional AVR will take whatever format is given it (be it 5.1 or something else) and down convert it to whatever the speaker setup you have. So, if you set up your AVR as 2.1, and there is 5.1 being delivered, then the AVR takes that into account and down converts to 2.1.
I wouldn't be surprised that SONOS does the same thing.

 

[Kevin Scott]

No solution yet but more clues.

A page or so back (and that would be several months ago) I was happy to report I was able to play multichannel files through my ARC port on my TV through Sonos. I suspect now that wasn't the case, it was sounding good but possibly not in a surround sound sort of way.

We did a bit of testing and interestingly we found a file that played, and sounded good. It was an ELP song ripped from DVD and oddly it was only one channel (something I never would have guessed by how good it sounded). I couldn't tell you how or why it ended up being only one channel. But Sonos could play that file happily and called it Hi Res and that was that.

But Sonos just doesn't like multichannel files no matter what we do. Question, can we mix down our multichannel files to a single channel and still have them sounding amazing? I wouldn't have thought so, but I'm still pretty new to the world of multichannel/5.1.

Does Music Media Helper have a setting where you control that?

 

[Kevin Scott]

What this really boils down to is how to CREATE ripped files from discs or whatever that the Sonos can handle. We know it can handle them fine - if you go into Apple Music and play a song in surround, it works. And the app tells you Hi Res.

My stumbling block is that I'm conditioned to think one channel is going to be rotten sound. I hear "one channel" and I think mono. But maybe that's not the case.

I THINK what I need to do is get these files ripped using specific settings where Sonos is handling the 5.1 aspects. But it flat out refuses anything in 6 channels so I'm still a bit baffled.

 

[MikeyFresh]

What this really boils down to is how to CREATE ripped files from discs or whatever that the Sonos can handle. We know it can handle them fine - if you go into Apple Music and play a song in surround, it works. And the app tells you Hi Res.

My stumbling block is that I'm conditioned to think one channel is going to be rotten sound. I hear "one channel" and I think mono. But maybe that's not the case.

I THINK what I need to do is get these files ripped using specific settings where Sonos is handling the 5.1 aspects. But it flat out refuses anything in 6 channels so I'm still a bit baffled.

I think you need to concern yourself with which specific formats Sonos supports.

I had said in some very long ago post here that the surround tracks found on SACD and DVD-Audio that were described as "Advanced Resolution" offered up to 6 discrete channels of lossless audio. In the case of SACD, thats all they ever had, I don't remember ever seeing any lossy DTS or Dolby Digital (aka AC-3) on SACDs, though a DVD-Audio would sometimes have it.

Lossy DTS or Dolby Digital are not at all the same thing as any "Advanced Resolution" surround tracks you may have ripped, different formats.

The above pertains to what you said about playing back surround tracks from Apple Music with no issues. Apple Music to the best of my knowledge only offers surround tracks in the form of the newer format called Dolby Atmos, or so-called "spatial audio". Your Sonos is Dolby Atmos compatible, but of your other ripped tracks, you need to determine what they in fact are (Dolby Digital, DTS, Advanced Resolution, etc...) and then see if Sonos actually supports those formats and if so, in how many channels at the input.

I think you'll also find that what Apple calls spatial audio is not actually the full-on Dolby Atmos spec, it is 2-channel to the best of my knowledge.

 

[Kevin Scott]

Well, maybe the question I should be asking is: how do i encode multi channel wav files into Dolby multichannel PCM? I've got the multichannel waves, now I just need to get them into a SONOS-friendly format and theoretically that's all I should need. Really frustrating experience.

 

[MikeyFresh]

SONOS-friendly format

Before banging your head any further, you really need to know exactly what that Sonos-friendly format is, and exactly how many input channels are supported. Don't worry about what the Sonos then does in playing it back, just get settled on exactly what the input file format needs to be.

Dolby multichannel

Dolby what? Dolby Atmos... Dolby Digital (AC-3), either one? How about DTS, and if so exactly which DTS format, and how many channels input is Sonos willing to play?

 

[Kevin Scott]

I dunno, this is all I have to work from:

 

[MikeyFresh]

I dunno, this is all I have to work from:


View attachment 72630

OK so it would seem your WAV files would qualify as multichannel PCM, however I don't know what the asterisks denote there. You should seek clarification from Sonos directly, then maybe just re-rip one disc in a file format that Sonos agrees is definitely compatible, and in a compatible sample rate (I'm guessing 48kHz might be the upper limit there).

 

[Kevin Scott]

Oh sorry, the asterisked ones require eARC.

 

[MikeyFresh]

Oh sorry, the asterisked ones require eARC.

I guess thats good news then, nothing complicated there.

Dolby Digital Plus is aka E-AC-3, a 7.1 channel update to the original Dolby Digital AC-3 5.1 channel spec. I believe Dolby Digital Plus was only on Blu-rays and not standard DVDs, but I could be wrong about that. That format is also compatible with macOS, iOS, and tvOS, as well as the Edge Browser in Windows 10/11.

Dolby True HD is lossless 7.1, found only on Blu-ray discs if I'm not mistaken.

It would be a good idea to ask exactly how to play this on Sonos on a video/surround oriented site such as Quadrophonic Quad, they are pretty friendly guys there according to @Gene_StL and have deep expertise in these matters.

You might also just search for threads on this topic both there, and at the AVS forum, the answers could be there in plain sight.

 

[Kevin Scott]

I guess the story ends here, not with the happy ending I was hoping for.

Spent some time with an online chat technician on Sonos and was basically told "not yet supported", and given a ticket number. Really disappointing, but also maddening in the sense that you know the system can DO it - but only through their very controlled Apple Music streaming - and they won't allow it any other way. So it's that feeling of "your system has this capability but you're not making it available to us because reasons".

With what I've spent on 5.1/Atmos media not to mention the Sonos components themselves, I'm not a happy customer. And I do intend to let them know.