Listen to Dolby Atmos audio from your TV on Sonos

This article outlines the main factors that determine if your Atmos-supported product can play Dolby Atmos audio from your TV. These factors include the HDMI connections on your TV, streaming service capabilities, and physical source devices like Fire TV, Roku, or Apple TV.

Sonos Arc, Arc SL, Arc Ultra, Beam (Gen 2), and Era 300 (as surrounds) all support playback of Dolby Atmos audio when used in a Home Theater setup. When used with TV Audio Swap, Sonos Ace also supports playback of Dolby Atmos audio.

If your Sonos speaker is receiving an Atmos signal from your TV, it will be displayed within the Sonos App on both the “Now Playing” screen and within the “About My System” menu.

HDMI ARC and HDMI eARC

ARC and eARC are protocols responsible for sending audio over an HDMI cable to home theater sound systems. Your Sonos home theater speaker must be connected to HDMI ARC or HDMI eARC to play any Dolby Atmos content. Not all TVs have HDMI ARC or HDMI eARC, so check your TV’s user manual to see which HDMI connections you have. The table below shows which physical connections are required for Dolby Atmos compared to other home theater audio formats.

Most Dolby Atmos audio can be played through HDMI-ARC using the Dolby Digital Plus codec. HDMI-eARC is required to play lossless Dolby Atmos audio using the Dolby TrueHD codec.

Streaming services

Some TV and movie streaming services support Dolby Atmos audio. Some services may require a specific subscription tier to get access to Dolby Atmos content. Note that even if a service supports Dolby Atmos, some shows and movies may not have Dolby Atmos audio. Check with your streaming service provider to see if they support Dolby Atmos.

Source devices

Getting Dolby Atmos audio can also depend on the physical source device playing the content. For example the Amazon Fire TV Cube supports Dolby Atmos content, but older generation Fire TVs do not. Some TVs do not support Dolby Atmos audio even if the source device (e.g. Roku Ultra) does. In most cases the TV will re-encode the audio to Dolby Digital 5.1. Check with the manufacturer of your device to see if it supports Dolby Atmos.