Samsung HW-A650 - Any audio quality loss using Optical vs ARC?

A

Argo33

Audiophyte
Hi folks. I think I know the answer to this already but I want to confirm. This soundbar supports the following:

Dolby Audio™ (supporting Dolby® Digital)
DTS
DTS Virtual:X
PCM 2ch

Is there any audio quality loss using Optical instead of HDMI with ARC? I understand I lose some of the "features" of ARC such as input switching and all of those kinds of things but I'm mainly interested in making sure there is no audio quality loss using optical over ARC. Some of the ARC "features" are distracting and I think I'd prefer to just use Optical. Given that this soundbar doesn't support DTS-HD or TrueHD and I believe Optical can pass any of the above formats that are supported, I don't think there is but looking for confirmation. Thanks.
 
Cos

Cos

Audioholic Samurai
There should be no audio quality loss due to the fact that no streaming servcies use lossless audio. Instead of using ARC, you are just using your Optical Out. It's love/hate on this site, I use it to power on/off my gear and have been using it for years w/o issue, others not so much
 
A

Argo33

Audiophyte
There should be no audio quality loss due to the fact that no streaming servcies use lossless audio. Instead of using ARC, you are just using your Optical Out. It's love/hate on this site, I use it to power on/off my gear and have been using it for years w/o issue, others not so much
Hey thanks for the reply. Yeah I think I’m a love/hate person as far as ARC goes. Needs a bit more tweaking i think. I guess I was thinking about my Plex server which does have some videos with lossless audio but I don’t care about that for this setup. Thanks again for the input.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Yep, lossy 5.1 can be carried by optical just as well as by ARC. Agree that ARC/HDMI-CEC can be a pain.
 

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