Both Apple and Sonos offer excellent devices, speakers and multi-room systems. I’ve already written about how difficult it is to choose between the two brands.
However, as soon as you want to combine different manufacturers, things get complicated. For example, if you want to operate a games console with the Apple HomePods or play the sound from the Apple TV on Sonos speakers.
That’s why I’ll show you here how to make the connection without any problems.
Apple TV with older Sonos soundbars
In most cases, the Apple TV should be connected to a Sonos soundbar so that the sound from Netflix & Co. no longer comes from the TV, but directly from the soundbar.
However, some televisions do not have a corresponding output for HDMI or an optical Toslink cable that could be connected to the soundbar.
And the Apple TV also only has an HDMI output that goes to the TV or projector.
Various Sonos inputs
The Sonos soundbars receive the sound either via an HDMI or an optical Toslink cable. The Sonos Playbar and Playbase only have a Toslink input.
Beam and Arc, on the other hand, only have HDMI inputs, while the new Sonos Ray again only has a Toslink input.
A Toslink cable is an optical, digital cable, similar to a fiber optic cable. In simple terms, zeros and ones are transmitted via light pulses. In contrast to analog copper cables, there is no loss of quality and therefore the best digital sound.
If the TV or projector does not have a separate output for HDMI or Toslink, the only option for older soundbars such as Sonos Beam (Gen 1), Playbase and Playbar is to use an audio splitter.
This is a small and fairly inexpensive additional device that splits the sound from the HDMI cable into two paths and thus provides an additional audio output.
An HDMI cable then goes from the Apple TV to the “HDMI-IN” of the splitter. Another HDMI cable goes from the “HDMI-OUT” of the splitter to the TV or projector.
In addition, a Toslink cable from the “SPDIF-OUT” splitter goes into the Sonos soundbar and supplies it with an audio signal.
If the soundbar does not have a Toslink input but an HDMI input, simply use the supplied Sonos adapter from Toslink to HDMI.
In addition, a small switch on the splitter can be used to set how many sound channels are passed on: 5.1 CH (i.e. surround sound), 2 CH (stereo) or simply PASS, which means that the channels from the input are output unchanged.
In my case, this works very well with the Sonos Playbar, and 5.1 is also displayed in the Sonos app for surround movies.
The audio splitter requires an external power supply via the USB cable supplied. If there is no socket available for a USB power supply, in some cases the USB port of a TV, router or similar can also be used. In my case, I used the USB port of the Fritzbox router.
Connect Sonos Arc with Apple TV
A TV is normally connected directly to the Sonos Arc via the HDMI output. This is not a problem with newer models.
However, it gets complicated with older devices: As newer soundbars such as Sonos Arc and Sonos Beam (Gen 2) can also play Dolby Atmos, the audio splitter shown above is not sufficient as it cannot pass on HDMI eARC.
The selection of available audio splitters for Sonos Arc and Sonos Beam (Gen 2) is unfortunately still very small. I recommend the OREI Matrix device, which offers several HDMI inputs in addition to the Atmos functionality.
Connect Apple TV to Sonos via AirPlay
Of course, the newer Sonos speakers can also be connected to an Apple TV via AirPlay.
AirPlay is a wireless audio technology from Apple that transmits sound from various sources via WLAN.
However, this type of transmission is not without its pitfalls, which is why I generally recommend the more stable solution via cable to a soundbar, as described above.
Connect Sonos wirelessly
While the Apple TV is playing a movie or music, the newer Sonos speakers can be selected via AirPlay.
The quickest way to do this is via the Siri Remote: Simply press and hold the Home button (the one with the screen symbol) and select the AirPlay symbol in the Control Center.
All Sonos speakers that are connected to the home WLAN should be visible here and can be activated directly.
Setting is not saved
Unfortunately, unlike Apple’s HomePod, a Sonos speaker cannot be permanently selected for playback on the Apple TV.
After each restart, the setting has to be made again, which is why the cable variant described above is much more convenient.
If a Sonos speaker is controlled via AirPlay and the sound from the TV is played at the same time, there may also be a slight audio delay.
However, this can often be compensated for using the “Wireless audio synchronization” function in the Apple TV.
Autoplay for automatic switching
There is a practical function in the Sonos app called TV autoplay. This ensures automatic switching as soon as an audio signal is detected on the soundbar.
So if music is playing on the soundbar and the Apple TV suddenly emits a sound, the soundbar switches the music off and the TV sound on.
Lars Grudzinski has been working as a sound and lighting technician since the 90s, was a DJ for electronic music, has a large collection of vintage speakers, and has been working for various radio stations in Germany for 20 years. At home, he enjoys high-quality home theater products such as soundbars and projectors and has installed an extensive Sonos system in his own home.