Arc vs eArc question in my living room, help!

C

champ0216

Audiophyte
I am closing on a new house and setting up my living room. I have looked and read for hours on hours and cant seem to fully understand this. I just recently bought an 82" Samsung Q8FN television and ultimately decided on it bc of price. Spent 3429 with tax. I almost got the 85" Sony 950G bc of its eArc compatibility versus the samsung and thinking id have a future proof tv. But the 950G was 5000 dollars and i was assured that eArc isnt that big of a deal.

I want to get the new Sennhaiser AMBEO soundbar when it comes out if its all its made out to be, and this will support eArc. TrueDolby atmos is kind of a big deal to me as you can see with the money that I'm spending I want to get the most bang for my buck.

Now my question, I know that in order to connect everything (xbox, blu ray player, etc) to the TV directly and just the TV to the soundbar you would need both sources to be eArc compatible. But if I connect everything to the soundbar, and just the soundbar to the TV. Will that give me TrueDolby, TrueHD and all that good stuff? Or would it still just be the compressed version of this? Is the first sentence of this paragraph even correct? Is my Samsung Q8fn without eArc, ok? Or am I being stupid and should just spend the extra $1600 on the 950G with eArc?

Thanks in advance guys!

EDIT: Before you tell me to buy actual speakers, trust me id love to. But the spouse is not allowing it.
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
By all indications the Ambeo soundbar should be able to handle all audio formats and act like an A/V receiver. It has 3 HDMI inputs, so you can run 3 sources into it directly, then it will pass audio up to the TV and it should work fine.

Unfortunately, there is no manual that I found, and it is a 'coming soon' product, so there is no guaranty of how anything will actually work. But, TrueHD and DTS-MA have been out long enough to be well established formats. Atmos is pretty much showing up in everything as well. I wouldn't have much in the way of concerns that it will work in your room.

How it ACTUALLY sounds considering it is a speakerbar is definitely one of those questions that you will have to read reviews and listen to so you can find out.
https://en-us.sennheiser.com/ambeo-soundbar
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
As far as a huge audio difference for not having the lossless codecs, not really. Maybe with a good speaker setup (and proper ceiling speakers for Atmos) it'd be something to consider. Altho I think some Atmos metadata can be had thru lesser codecs like Dolby Digital + that regular ARC can handle. What did you decide on for a bluray player to provide the lossless codecs?
 
C

champ0216

Audiophyte
As far as a huge audio difference for not having the lossless codecs, not really. Maybe with a good speaker setup (and proper ceiling speakers for Atmos) it'd be something to consider. Altho I think some Atmos metadata can be had thru lesser codecs like Dolby Digital + that regular ARC can handle. What did you decide on for a bluray player to provide the lossless codecs?
I hadn't decided yet, do you know if an XBOX One X would provide the lossless codecs for atmos? I know its capable of atmos and blue ray movies. But finding that little info about the codecs has been more difficult than you'd think.
 
C

champ0216

Audiophyte
By all indications the Ambeo soundbar should be able to handle all audio formats and act like an A/V receiver. It has 3 HDMI inputs, so you can run 3 sources into it directly, then it will pass audio up to the TV and it should work fine.

Unfortunately, there is no manual that I found, and it is a 'coming soon' product, so there is no guaranty of how anything will actually work. But, TrueHD and DTS-MA have been out long enough to be well established formats. Atmos is pretty much showing up in everything as well. I wouldn't have much in the way of concerns that it will work in your room.

How it ACTUALLY sounds considering it is a speakerbar is definitely one of those questions that you will have to read reviews and listen to so you can find out.
For 2500 bucks it better be the best soundbar I've ever heard.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
I hadn't decided yet, do you know if an XBOX One X would provide the lossless codecs for atmos? I know its capable of atmos and blue ray movies. But finding that little info about the codecs has been more difficult than you'd think.
Not up on game console capability...
 

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