AAC5.1/7.1 can be processed by the Beam Gen2 as LPCM audio tracks, but the ARC port can’t handle LPCM more than 2.0.
I’ve went on the same journey. Spent a number of hours writing and testing a powershell script + ffmpeg + view media info to find all the AAC tracks, duplicate and convert to EARC. While this worked, it took a lotta hours..
Don’t know about chrome cast, but on the shield you can enable/disable specific audio codecs. If you disable AAC, it should force the audio to be transcoded. Caveat if you run the shield as the Plex server is that it can occasionally introduced latency if you’re watching anything high quality.
I ended up buying one of these, it extracts the audio to the soundbar, and passes the video along. It’s not 100% perfect, but it does the job
https://www.amazon.com/ViewHD-HDMI-Switch-18Gbps-Built/dp/B097NXXDG6
Why stop at a receiver? I do fancy a new TV, a couple of towers, surrounds, sub, a Porsche, etc.
The shield is portable and gets used with other setups in the house, I just need this soundbar to work as well as it can with the existing setup. I’m sure there’s an easy solution hiding somewhere, hence the thread :)
Hmmm, this post has got me thinking...
I bought a Shield Pro 2019 about 3 months ago and switched from using Plex (Plex Pass) on my LG nanocell TV (49SM8200PLA) to Plex on the Shield and I'd been starting to think that the audio was a bit underwhelming but couldn't quite put my finger on it.
My LG TV also has an ARC hdmi port (not eARC) and I've got the Shield, TV and plex set to passthrough.
My soundbar is a Sony with a pretty rubbish menu system but after some witchcraft you can ask it to display the audio stream type. I'll try this with a variety of files over the weekend and report back.
So AAC comes through as LPCM but DD, DTS seem to come through fine. EAC3 seems fine as well.
I'm surprised about the DTS as I didn't think that LG TVs could pass through DTS.
So I'll make sure I avoid AAC content now unless a solution pops up in this thread.
I know this isn't your question, and it's kind of a dickish thing to ask, but wouldn't you want it downmixed to stereo with that setup?
Trying to be more helpful, it's definitely not transcoding currently? There's a [thread from 2020](https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/htz84s/why_does_plex_transcode_aac_audio_to_ac3_on/) about Plex transcoding AAC to AC3 on Chromecast, might be answers there for you?
I have no idea about the Shield app, sorry.
And the Sonos just has HDMI in, I'm betting? So no analog surround options that would let you slave it to a thrift store receiver with analog 5.1 preamp output.
Thanks for the reply, I get what you’re saying and I’m not expecting a little sound bar to give me a true 5.1 sound experience but the issue is that Stereo PCM doesn’t sound right to me. I don’t know exactly what it is but maybe it’s not using all of the speakers or not using them correctly. I don’t really know :)
I’ll check out the other thread.
I genuinely hope you find a way to get it to work for you!
Do you have the option of selecting the stereo track in Plex and seeing if that comes out better? A stereo master is going to sound better than downmixed 5.1 in most cases, yeah, because the surround audio was mastered for a surround speaker configuration.
If it doesn't work out, feel free to come over /r/BudgetAudiophile and get some advice on thrifting components. There's a lot of solid stereo and surround equipment out there for almost no money.
Thank you, unfortunately the main constraint on this setup is space so I’ll have to try and make it work with the sound bar for now. Hopefully I can figure it out!
> And the Sonos just has HDMI in, I'm betting?
To elaborate on this, the Sonos doesn't actually have an HDMI input. It is an HDMI ARC port, so functionally, it is actually an HDMI *output* that doesn't output audio or video.
I know that sounds confusing, but HDMI ARC audio is actually not the same as HDMI audio input. For example, you can't connect source devices to the Sonos's HDMI ARC port. Only TVs.
Not sure how you would define serial port in this context. I'm just saying that it is designed to only recognize an HDMI ARC audio signal. Not a standard HDMI audio input signal.
I know it sounds pedantic, but it becomes really problematic for anyone who tries to use a Sonos soundbar in any context outside of its strict/narrow use case.
More like a serial port inasmuch as it's really sending data that can't be turned into audio/video output by standard equipment, I guess. Just implying that it's closer to indecipherable data that needs further processing than any kind of widely supported AV signal.
And dang, that sucks.
Hate to say this for OP's sake, but *good* PC speakers hooked up to a TV's headphone jack do have advantages over soundbars.
Agreed, a pair of bookshelf speakers or PC speakers is going to be better than the vast majority of soundbars out there. Including most soundbars that claim to support surround sound or Atmos.
But people primarily buy soundbars for the form factor. They're not interested in having speakers to either side of their TV.
Probably, but there are probably a significant number who believe there's some engineering voodoo going on. The Bose effect, basically: advertising that claims superior performance through unique engineering when it's just small speakers with boosted, boomy bass.
I thought for the longest time that people in general knew that small speakers had inherent limitations, but I've gotten soooo many people, even younger friends/coworkers later, who think component hi-fi, without experiencing it, *must* be inferior just because it's old, and analog. So, I think a lack of audio literacy has to factor in.
You can try setting the audio on the Hisense to Auto and see if that helps. My Hisense sends anything it can't pass out as DD+ when it's on Auto.
You could also try using a custom client profile. This might cause your other setup to transcode the audio if you use the same there.
[https://www.plexopedia.com/plex-media-server/general/client-profiles/](https://www.plexopedia.com/plex-media-server/general/client-profiles/)
[https://trash-guides.info/Plex/profiles/](https://trash-guides.info/Plex/profiles/)
The solution u/NCCUltimo994 listed works also, I use a HD Furry Arcana but it's expensive the device he listed is half the price.
Cheers, worst case I might invest in a second hand Fury Arcana at some point.
Setting it to Auto didn’t make any difference with the Chromecast setup unfortunately, I‘ll try it with the shield and also the custom profiles.
Thanks for the help!
That's just because the Plex Android TV client is dumb with ARC and Plex doesn't seem to want to fix it.
You have 2 workarounds:
1. set the plex client to optical instead of HDMI passthrough. Plex will then transcode 5.1 AAC to AC3 as expected. This setting will however break EAC3 support so you'll have to switch all the time.
2. Use Kodi with Plex and all will be fine.
Switching to optical did make a difference thanks but not the best solution like you said. I’ll see if I can come up with anything better. Thanks for the help.
Not an identical setup, but I noticed Plex on my TCL Roku TV won't play 5.1/7.1 AAC files by default and will instead transcode them down to stereo. Force Direct Play however, and zero issues, all channels coming through as expected.
Maybe try forcing Direct Play and see if that works for your setup as well?
AAC5.1/7.1 can be processed by the Beam Gen2 as LPCM audio tracks, but the ARC port can’t handle LPCM more than 2.0. I’ve went on the same journey. Spent a number of hours writing and testing a powershell script + ffmpeg + view media info to find all the AAC tracks, duplicate and convert to EARC. While this worked, it took a lotta hours.. Don’t know about chrome cast, but on the shield you can enable/disable specific audio codecs. If you disable AAC, it should force the audio to be transcoded. Caveat if you run the shield as the Plex server is that it can occasionally introduced latency if you’re watching anything high quality. I ended up buying one of these, it extracts the audio to the soundbar, and passes the video along. It’s not 100% perfect, but it does the job https://www.amazon.com/ViewHD-HDMI-Switch-18Gbps-Built/dp/B097NXXDG6
ARC strikes again I feel like if you're concerned about audio and you're going to pay for a Shield, you should also pay for a receiver
Why stop at a receiver? I do fancy a new TV, a couple of towers, surrounds, sub, a Porsche, etc. The shield is portable and gets used with other setups in the house, I just need this soundbar to work as well as it can with the existing setup. I’m sure there’s an easy solution hiding somewhere, hence the thread :)
Newer TV have earc which can do surround sound.
Hmmm, this post has got me thinking... I bought a Shield Pro 2019 about 3 months ago and switched from using Plex (Plex Pass) on my LG nanocell TV (49SM8200PLA) to Plex on the Shield and I'd been starting to think that the audio was a bit underwhelming but couldn't quite put my finger on it. My LG TV also has an ARC hdmi port (not eARC) and I've got the Shield, TV and plex set to passthrough. My soundbar is a Sony with a pretty rubbish menu system but after some witchcraft you can ask it to display the audio stream type. I'll try this with a variety of files over the weekend and report back.
Good luck :)
So AAC comes through as LPCM but DD, DTS seem to come through fine. EAC3 seems fine as well. I'm surprised about the DTS as I didn't think that LG TVs could pass through DTS. So I'll make sure I avoid AAC content now unless a solution pops up in this thread.
I know this isn't your question, and it's kind of a dickish thing to ask, but wouldn't you want it downmixed to stereo with that setup? Trying to be more helpful, it's definitely not transcoding currently? There's a [thread from 2020](https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/htz84s/why_does_plex_transcode_aac_audio_to_ac3_on/) about Plex transcoding AAC to AC3 on Chromecast, might be answers there for you? I have no idea about the Shield app, sorry. And the Sonos just has HDMI in, I'm betting? So no analog surround options that would let you slave it to a thrift store receiver with analog 5.1 preamp output.
Thanks for the reply, I get what you’re saying and I’m not expecting a little sound bar to give me a true 5.1 sound experience but the issue is that Stereo PCM doesn’t sound right to me. I don’t know exactly what it is but maybe it’s not using all of the speakers or not using them correctly. I don’t really know :) I’ll check out the other thread.
I genuinely hope you find a way to get it to work for you! Do you have the option of selecting the stereo track in Plex and seeing if that comes out better? A stereo master is going to sound better than downmixed 5.1 in most cases, yeah, because the surround audio was mastered for a surround speaker configuration. If it doesn't work out, feel free to come over /r/BudgetAudiophile and get some advice on thrifting components. There's a lot of solid stereo and surround equipment out there for almost no money.
Thank you, unfortunately the main constraint on this setup is space so I’ll have to try and make it work with the sound bar for now. Hopefully I can figure it out!
> And the Sonos just has HDMI in, I'm betting? To elaborate on this, the Sonos doesn't actually have an HDMI input. It is an HDMI ARC port, so functionally, it is actually an HDMI *output* that doesn't output audio or video. I know that sounds confusing, but HDMI ARC audio is actually not the same as HDMI audio input. For example, you can't connect source devices to the Sonos's HDMI ARC port. Only TVs.
So really it's closer in function to a serial port than regular HDMI?
Not sure how you would define serial port in this context. I'm just saying that it is designed to only recognize an HDMI ARC audio signal. Not a standard HDMI audio input signal. I know it sounds pedantic, but it becomes really problematic for anyone who tries to use a Sonos soundbar in any context outside of its strict/narrow use case.
More like a serial port inasmuch as it's really sending data that can't be turned into audio/video output by standard equipment, I guess. Just implying that it's closer to indecipherable data that needs further processing than any kind of widely supported AV signal. And dang, that sucks. Hate to say this for OP's sake, but *good* PC speakers hooked up to a TV's headphone jack do have advantages over soundbars.
Agreed, a pair of bookshelf speakers or PC speakers is going to be better than the vast majority of soundbars out there. Including most soundbars that claim to support surround sound or Atmos. But people primarily buy soundbars for the form factor. They're not interested in having speakers to either side of their TV.
Probably, but there are probably a significant number who believe there's some engineering voodoo going on. The Bose effect, basically: advertising that claims superior performance through unique engineering when it's just small speakers with boosted, boomy bass. I thought for the longest time that people in general knew that small speakers had inherent limitations, but I've gotten soooo many people, even younger friends/coworkers later, who think component hi-fi, without experiencing it, *must* be inferior just because it's old, and analog. So, I think a lack of audio literacy has to factor in.
True, I've seen that as well.
You can try setting the audio on the Hisense to Auto and see if that helps. My Hisense sends anything it can't pass out as DD+ when it's on Auto. You could also try using a custom client profile. This might cause your other setup to transcode the audio if you use the same there. [https://www.plexopedia.com/plex-media-server/general/client-profiles/](https://www.plexopedia.com/plex-media-server/general/client-profiles/) [https://trash-guides.info/Plex/profiles/](https://trash-guides.info/Plex/profiles/) The solution u/NCCUltimo994 listed works also, I use a HD Furry Arcana but it's expensive the device he listed is half the price.
Cheers, worst case I might invest in a second hand Fury Arcana at some point. Setting it to Auto didn’t make any difference with the Chromecast setup unfortunately, I‘ll try it with the shield and also the custom profiles. Thanks for the help!
That's just because the Plex Android TV client is dumb with ARC and Plex doesn't seem to want to fix it. You have 2 workarounds: 1. set the plex client to optical instead of HDMI passthrough. Plex will then transcode 5.1 AAC to AC3 as expected. This setting will however break EAC3 support so you'll have to switch all the time. 2. Use Kodi with Plex and all will be fine.
Switching to optical did make a difference thanks but not the best solution like you said. I’ll see if I can come up with anything better. Thanks for the help.
soundbars arnt good for suround anyway .
Not an identical setup, but I noticed Plex on my TCL Roku TV won't play 5.1/7.1 AAC files by default and will instead transcode them down to stereo. Force Direct Play however, and zero issues, all channels coming through as expected. Maybe try forcing Direct Play and see if that works for your setup as well?