I already own two Sonos PLAY:1 devices and love streaming music from my Plex server. Right now, I’m thinking about getting a Sonos PLAYBAR and connect the two PLAY:1 for some surround sound when I stream movies to the TV. My setup for movies looks like this:
Plex (PMS) – ethernet --> Settop-box with Android running the Plex app – hdmi --> TV.
As I read the Sonos PLAYBAR doesn’t support DTS which is a major concern for many customers. I don’t know whether this issue would affect me or not. I would simply connect the PLAYBAR to the TV through S/PDIF (and the PLAY:1 via WiFi).
Could you please help me understand the issue and tell me whether my setup should work with DTS material or not?
Thank you very much!
The old Playbar did not support it because it only supports an optical connection (not HDMI) which does not have enough bandwidth for that (https://www.cnet.com/news/hdmi-vs-optical-which-digital-audio-connection-to-use/). The new Playbar announced a week ago has HDMI so it can technically support DTS but it doesn’t currently, I assume due to licensing issues (Sonos would have to pay royalty?). The good news is Plex will transcode DTS on the fly to DD5.1.
Thank you very much for the explanation. Honestly I didn’t catch the news about a new soundbar so I was referring to the first version with optical and without HDMI . Have I understood you correctly that both versions of the soundbar should be able to play sound because Plex will convert it anyway to Dolby Digital? That would be awesome as I could expect a price drop of the first generation and get a cheap one.
Yes but Plex can’t tell if there is actually sound coming out of your speakers. So you have to tell the Plex client, what the capability of your setup is. For example, see here, my Plex client on my LG TV, I have specified that it can’t playback DTS audio (first screenshot). On the second screenshot you see that I have a movie that has DTS audio. And on the third screenshot (via PlexPy) you can see that while I am playing this movie back on my LG TV, the Plex PMS transcodes the audio to AAC5.1 and sound is coming out of my Playbar! I hope this helps!
Wow, this is perfect, thank you so much for your detailed response. I really appreciate it. As I see, the new Sonos Beam is even cheaper than the (old) Playbar, so I might also go with that one.
The new Sonos Beam is not a replacement for the Playbar or the Playbase for that matter.
It has less speakers. It is another product for them. It is a product for the lower priced/introductory market for them
Just wanted to let you know before you start researching…
. Have I understood you correctly that both versions of the soundbar should be able to play sound because Plex will convert it anyway to Dolby Digital? That would be awesome as I could expect a price drop of the first generation and get a cheap one.
