SpannerBracket
Novice Member
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2012
- Messages
- 7
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Hi,
I've recently set up a sonos beam, sub and a pair of play 1 speakers in a 5.1 surround set up. Everything is using WiFi, except the HDMI ARC connection between the TV and Beam.
Both the Beam and my LG OLED b7 don't support eARC and it doesn't look like support will ever come for these (no HDMI 2.1 and no seemingly no desire from LG to backport limited eARC support for this model).
Equally, the Beam doesn't even support Dolby Digital Plus, so right now there isn't much bandwidth being used for audio - although it doesn't sound too bad to my ears.
This did get me thinking though. Why is the industry spending so much time on wired audio standards like eArc when so many wireless audio speakers are flooding the market.
The eARC standard supports up to 37Mbps data transfer. Most user's home WiFi connections can sustain that kind of bandwidth, and this is only likely to improve as 802.11ac makes way for 802.11ax.
Sonos have proven they can deal with audio latency and sync over WiFi.
Surely all the ingredients are there, and someone needs to come up with a standard for audio transmissions to a wireless speaker/receiver over WiFi. I can understand video signals remaining over the wire due to the bandwidth involved, but having audio limited by physical cabling seems arcane in our modern software defined world. With this approach audio improvements could be delivered through software without the long delay of waiting for enough manufacturers and consumers to update their cabling.
Is anyone aware of something being developed in this space? - it's almost impossible to google this topic...
Thanks,
SpannerBracket
I've recently set up a sonos beam, sub and a pair of play 1 speakers in a 5.1 surround set up. Everything is using WiFi, except the HDMI ARC connection between the TV and Beam.
Both the Beam and my LG OLED b7 don't support eARC and it doesn't look like support will ever come for these (no HDMI 2.1 and no seemingly no desire from LG to backport limited eARC support for this model).
Equally, the Beam doesn't even support Dolby Digital Plus, so right now there isn't much bandwidth being used for audio - although it doesn't sound too bad to my ears.
This did get me thinking though. Why is the industry spending so much time on wired audio standards like eArc when so many wireless audio speakers are flooding the market.
The eARC standard supports up to 37Mbps data transfer. Most user's home WiFi connections can sustain that kind of bandwidth, and this is only likely to improve as 802.11ac makes way for 802.11ax.
Sonos have proven they can deal with audio latency and sync over WiFi.
Surely all the ingredients are there, and someone needs to come up with a standard for audio transmissions to a wireless speaker/receiver over WiFi. I can understand video signals remaining over the wire due to the bandwidth involved, but having audio limited by physical cabling seems arcane in our modern software defined world. With this approach audio improvements could be delivered through software without the long delay of waiting for enough manufacturers and consumers to update their cabling.
Is anyone aware of something being developed in this space? - it's almost impossible to google this topic...
Thanks,
SpannerBracket