We don't do a ton of Sonos, but I have a project where the homeowner is already invested in Sonos products and likes it a lot. In the past with the older Connect:amp, I know sending analog audio from a TV was a no go, it added a delay that on anything other than a tiny system (few zones) I could not get rid of. So the new one uses ARC which apparently works well despite my fears of ARC in general.

Problem is I am using an HDMI extender for the STB, and an AVProEdge extender that does ARC, or Toslink/Analog audio back to the TX over HDBaset. Since Id have to run an additional extender just for ARC, which is dumb.....Does the new AMP allow you to bypass the processing delay and just pass the analog audio directly to the amp for that one zone? I cant seem to find a definitive answer that leaves me very confident to go on an assumption.

Putting the STB and or the AMP at the source is not an option here, they must go at the head end rack.

Anyone have any experience with Analog TV audio into the new AMP?

Not sure if it helps...

In one setup we had, there was a 4x4 matrix involved, and we had to feed the Amp the audio coming out of the 4th HDMI output of the 4x4 so we could pick which source to listen to. Well, the output is the wrong direction for ARC (I did try it), so we ended up sending the 4th output to an audio extractor and then sent it's analog audio output to the Amp. It works well, but the guy has to remember that he needs to switch back to the analog input when he goes back to watching TV if he switches to audio. It would be cool if Sonos gave you the option which input the 'TV' label defaulted to..but that feature isn't there yet (I think).

Also, you can send *just* the ARC over a Cat cable with a couple of those HDMI adapters that have the screw down terminals. It's a little tedious to figure out the pinout (I wrote it down, if you're interested), but in another situation, we had an STB and the Amp in a rack about 75' away from the display, and had only pulled one HDMI. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty surprised when it worked as well as it did, but if you sit down with a chart of the HDMI pins, you can see that you can carry the CEC control data and the audio signals over 8 (or less, can't remember) conductors.

In surround mode Arc’s latency will be about half of CONNECT:AMP’S latency.

Well being that no surround mode is necessary, that probably gets closer to where I want to be. I just wish there was a way to tell the one unit to send the analog audio straight to the amp and bypass the multi-zone functionality on the units line in, and remove the delay that happens.....which I assume is what is happening when ARC is used.


As for the idea of using a cat6 and "faking" and ARC HDMI return, I guess I could go that route. SWFL Mike, if you have the pinout that would be awesome. Just pre-wiring now so I have some time to test that out (totally trust your saying it works, my concern is over what distance?). Much appreciated.

Mike, I'm interested in the pinout if you still have your notes. I have a job coming up where sending ARC to an Amp over cat6 will solve a problem. I've searched the pinout online - I think I can figure it out but would appreciate confirmation. Thanks for any help.

Sent you an email to the address in your profile. Let me know if that's not current and I'll resend.

Any chance of you posting it? If not, can you also email me please? Thanks.