Optical Might Be Better Than HDMI ARC For You... Here's Why

When should you use a Digital Optical Cable instead of HDMI ARC or eARC? In this video we'll look at the pros and cons of each connection type and what to do when ARC is giving you problems. HDMI eARC gives you the best audio formats such as Dolby Atmos and DTS X. How do you connect Digital Optical? What about HDMI Fibre Cables? All these things will be covered. When HDMI ARC is not working well there are ways to combine Optical and HDMI together to keep the control over the Soundbar or Home Theatre System from the TV remote.

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Timestamps:
0:00 Optical VS HDMI ARC
0:20 Digital Optical
2:44 HDMI ARC
4:05 HDMI eARC
4:47 HDMI + Optical
5:09 Which Cable To Use?

[bassinbillRC]

A Toslink cable is what I used on my older Pioneer VSX-D508 in our living room. It impressed my buddy while watching Mr. Brooks using DTS decoding from the DVD. Now I am using the same optical digital toslink cable from our Samsung UHDTV 50" flatscreen to our Vizio soundbar. Very good sound with NO hum nor RF interference of any kind. Never knew this format came out in 1985. Still a good idea to use today.

[Kamperization]

I’ve bought the LG C3 along with top of the line Soundbar by LG the optical IMO allows for better surround sound quality over hdmi and it’s noticeably different on my setup not sure why but I love the optical output better

[chaoswitch]

This is great to hear! I use digital optical because my ARC HDMI broke, and I honestly can't tell the difference in sound at all. Though, DOLBY ATMOS is supposed up be best, which you need ARC to function. It bothers me psychologically even though I don't notice the difference. Ugh! Stop my inanity lol

[deepblueskyK]

Like mentioned in the video's description: This is just a workaround for people who have problems with their HDMI-Arc connection. Anyway, there is still a severe downside when using an optical connection if you want to enjoy any of those modern 3d sound formats. Optical doesn't provide enough bandwith for Atmos, DTS:X or Auro.
I just hope there will be a 'better' standard for HDMI-eArc in the future that makes connecting soundsystems and TVs/ streaming devices less of a pain to deal with.

[bdk]

I think I have the opposite of what most want. I don't want to turn my sound bar on every time I'm watching TV. The built in speakers are fine unless I want to watch a movie that's why I just use optical.

[vidhu]

I prefer optical because i can use both tv spekaer and sound system at the same time if i do that. My tv speaker gives better width because of inbuilt dolby atmos, my home theatre gives me the surround & bass. So adding it gives me a better experience at low cost

[allisonclark]

Hi Josh, I have a Sony 2011 KDL46Ex520 television and for the past 2 days have been trying every troubleshooting idea to connect a Yamaha ATS-2090 sound bar. Thanks to your video I have used the optical cable and now everything works. Thank you so much 😊

[andrewmieczkowski]

The optical on your consumer devices, which is called S/PDIF or Toslink, has a max distance of 10m without degradation, if you are lucky.

[derceto]

My issue with ARC that made me switch to optical was this: My (slightly older) receiver was able to handle DD5.1 over ARC but not DD+. It could handle any audio format up to TrueHD and DTS-HD MA, including DD+ on any HDMI input, but not on ARC because it was out of spec. Now, my TV sends both DD5.1 (which works fine) and DD+ (not working) over ARC, no matter how I configure, but always sends DD5.1 over optical, transcoding all audio format supported. Fortunately, the remote can be configured to send the volume up/down/mute signals for the receiver when audio output is set to optical, so there's no need to use the receiver's remote.

[buildingscottbonnars]

Brilliant video mate, I have been a home theatre / AV installer for 24 years. I have generally preferred optical but you have clearly explained reasons why, especially eARC can be better. Thanks for your efforts.

[jonathanwiliams]

Very, very good informative video! Thank you. I have all my devices using HDMI to my TV but optical from my TV to my audio receiver. It was really just happenstance from the ages of my components, but it sounds like I have the best designed system, and I didn't even realize it! Sweet.

[fender]

I currently have the HDMI + optical setup mentioned at the end of the video. I'm using a 13 year old Denon AVR1612 with a 4k Samsung TV. The Denon has HDMI ARC, which is enabled, and ARC is enabled within the TV, but no matter what input I select on the Denon, audio from the TV will not pass through the HDMI cable via ARC. Interestingly though, I can use the TV remote to control the volume of the stereo, so the control side of ARC is working. That's where the optical cable comes in. For some reason, audio is still sent out of the TV via the optical jack even though the TV's audio output is set to "HDMI control" and not "optical". So with the Denon programmed to receive audio through the optical input, I'm able to get sound through the stereo but still control the volume via the TV. It almost seems like this shouldn't work but it's actually working out great. I'm getting true 5.1 surround sound via the optical cable and the sound quality is perfectly fine. I can definitely see how ARC can be problematic. I had to turn off ARC on every other device hooked up to the TV or things were turning on and off without me wanting them to. Luckily the Denon had a setting to have ARC on, but power control off. Another thing I ran across was when switching inputs on the TV, the stereo's input would also change, and it was changing to modes that didn't support surround sound. This was remedied by going into the settings for the Denon and actually "deleting" the other inputs, so it couldn't automatically change over to them. All in all seems like this can be a good setup for someone experiencing some issues with slightly older equipment.

[FeedScrn]

If you don't need the optical cable, with AV Receivers... HDMI I found to be better - because the receiver uses HDMI for OSD display.

[wendellwendellb]

Maybe for a sound bar, but, for those who really have a good Home theater setup, they are going to use HDMI all day every day. Once I found out how to get sound through HDMI on sets I have in different rooms, I disconnected the Optical cable!

[thomasjacques]

I’m still a 2 channel guy and I connect ALL my sources to my new 85” Samsung tv then just feeding the audio to my new Emotiva PT1 pre-amp that feeds their A2 power amp which feeds my BOSE 901s which I will never part with. It’s easy and sound fabulous.

[LeonXfilm]

I got a lot of electronic noise using ARC until I changed to optic

[waltervanlille]

One hidden bonus of optical: When lightning destroys all your HDMI ports on your TV as well as your receiver, you can still fall back onto your optical connectors.
Found this out the hard way.

[craigarnold]

Very nice overall view of the issues. I often find optical the best work around even if I have to use an audio remote and a tv remote. I did this with a mid 90's Sony 5.1 receiver and 4 diffferent TV's from an NAD cathode to an LG C8. While it could handle mp3 it did not work at all with mp4 the C8 can send down it to the reciever even with optical. I kinda knew it probably did not have the codec but I got 25 years out of that system. I updated to a sound bar which allowed me to get more exotic with where the TV could be and had issues as it would only work if things were plugged in a certain way. Unfortunately the sound and speed of changing a tv channel or skipping things while watching recordings got clipping via HDMI where optical plays nice and quick. But no 7.2. But the C8 does not even have arc. So that will have to wait till I update to another tv. This one is basically used for sports, not movies, where I do a fair amount of time shifting to the live stream.

[darkdeath]

I'm in the weird world of needing audio extractor for HDMI 2.1, as the series x has issues with digital audio. There aren't so many of them and they all have different price ranges and most don't even have stuff released in Canada.

[Alfred_Pennyworth]

If you want Atmos then you need eARC not Optical, otherwise there’s not much difference. Despite what people say very few can actually hear any difference anyway. Many say they can but blind testing proves otherwise.