Both your TV and the soundbar or receiver must have ARC for it to work. If the HDMI port has ARC, it should be marked as such. A two-way street, if you will.Ĭheck the HDMI connections on the back of your TV, soundbar, or receiver. With ARC, the HDMI cable connected to the TV can send the TV audio back to the audio system. On the left is a traditional non-ARC setup, requiring an HDMI cable from an Xbox to be connected to the audio system, another to send the video to the TV, and an optical cable to send the TV apps audio back to the audio system.

If you have a soundbar or receiver of fairly recent vintage that has HDMI, it probably has ARC, too. Check out our how to buy a soundbar guide and soundbar vs. The point of ARC is to send audio created by or switched through your TV to an external audio device, namely a soundbar or receiver.Īnd because the sound on most TVs is terrible, we strongly recommend getting at least a soundbar to improve the TV experience. If you only listen to audio using your TV's speakers and don't have a receiver or soundbar, then the feature is superfluous. The eARC standard, which is a part of HDMI 2.1, improves on the original in a few key ways including supporting Dolby Atmos, and we'll discuss this in more depth shortly.

Hdmi speakers for pc