Your questions: connecting audio to your home cinema

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In a perfect world, different methods for connecting audio to your home theatre system would have the same results. In reality, that’s not the case! Find out what you need to get the best quality audio when you connect TVs, soundbars, receivers and Blu-ray Disc™ players.

Dolby Atmos®

Dolby Atmos is one of the leading cinema audio codecs. Now, with Atmos-compatibility for home cinema, you can experience it in your own living room.

There are two types of Atmos stream:
• TrueHD, the higher quality stream

• Dolby Digital Plus, a compressed format that is less data heavy; your data connection doesn’t have to work as hard, but the sound quality is not quite as good.

Streaming sound

Want to watch 4K HDR picture quality movies and TV? This is offered by some streaming services. However, at present, streaming services only transmit Dolby Digital Plus. In addition, ARC – the cable connection that can handle 4K HDR pictures – cannot handle TrueHD. (Ordinarily, you’d use the TV’s HDMI ARC connection to send audio from the TV to your sound system.)

*Devices must be compatible with 4K HDR, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Atmos to enjoy these features.

 

What’s the solution?

If you use your TV to send sound to your sound system (see diagram) it will ‘down-convert’ – taking the source signal and decreasing the quality to what the device can reproduce.

Instead, if you want to enjoy the best sound from your Blu-ray player, connect it to a compatible soundbar or receiver that can decode and output uncompressed Dolby Atmos soundtracks*. Meanwhile, connect your sound system to your TV using ARC.

*Devices must be compatible with 4K HDR, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Atmos to enjoy these features.

 

If you connect your Blu-ray player to your soundbar/receiver to achieve the best sound quality, what happens to picture quality?

For best quality, look for products with 4K pass-through. This feature lets 4K data move through a 4K system unaltered, so the best possible picture is sent from device to display.**

Not using a streaming service?

No problem. Just use ARC as normal to send the terrestrial TV signal to your soundbar for the best sound quality.

What happens with Blu-ray™?

Unlike streaming services, Blu-ray Discs can handle TrueHD. Again, don’t connect straight from the Blu-ray Player to the TV and don’t use an ARC connection to connect the player through to the sound system.

*Devices must be compatible with 4K HDR, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Atmos to enjoy these features.

Any questions? Ask us in the comments below – or, if you’re watching a movie with an amazing Dolby Atmos soundtrack, let us know!

NOTES:
*For example, UBP-X700 and UBP-X800 Blu-ray players, STR-DN1080 AV receiver, HT-XF9000, HT-ZF9 and HT-ST5000 soundbars.

** The STR-DN1080 audio receiver and the HT-ST5000, HT-ST800, HT-NT5 and HT-CT790 sound bars have 4K pass-through built-in. To check your product, visit the Sony support website or find the 4K pass-through logo on the product box.