Between September 2020 and December 3, 2025, I had been unable to get a consistent HDMI ARC connecting working between my TCL Roku TV (model 55S25S) and my Yamaha ATS-1070 soundbar. I have touched on this failure in several articles centered on using an optical audio cable connection instead of HDMI ARC. I finally have HDMI ARC working. I present my story below, but note that because I am not 100% what “fixed” the problem, this is a story instead of a how-to guide.
HDMI ARC and Optical Audio Backstory
Back in October 2020, I discussed my failure to get an HDMI ARC connection between my Yamaha ATS-1070 soundbar and TCL Roku TV (model 55S25S) working consistently in an article about purchasing an optical audio cable for a more old school connection. My HDMI ARC struggles resurfaced in a couple of other articles on the subject of my TV soundbar. In January 2023, I wrote about temporarily replacing my Yamaha ATS-1070 with a Majority Bowfell soundbar after (A) the optical audio cable port became unusable and (B) I ran into the same issues I had before in trying to get HDMI ARC to work. In September of that same year, I wrote about returning to the Yamaha ATS-1070 after I removed the broken door from the optical audio cable port and secured the cable connection with a Post-It Note. Again, I was fighting with the optical audio cable port because I could not get HDMI ARC working consistently.
My Post-It Note fix for the optical audio cable port proved to be enduring, with the only flaw being it is annoying to have to re-configure it every time I move my soundbar for dusting. That is to say I did not need to get the HDMI ARC connection, otherwise known as my audio white whale, working in order to use my soundbar. But I finally got it working, and below I will explain how and why.
How I Use My TV
I have been using my 55 inch TCL Roku TV (model 55S525) since I purchased it in December 2019. It succeeded a 43-inch Samsung plasma TV I had been using since June 2009 (I remember the start-date because the first major event I remember watching on it was the 2009 Wimbledon Final between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick) after the older TV began to have some issues. I used my current TV as a “smart TV” until some time in 2021, when I disconnected it from the internet and began using my workstation computer to supply the “smarts” (the same computer on which the vast majority of New Leaf Journal articles are drafted). Since the summer of 2023, I have been using two Beelink mini PCs (my current one has an N100 CPU, 16 GB RAM, and runs Fedora Linux with the KDE Plasma desktop environment) as the “brain” of the computer. This article is not about using a TV with a Linux PC (a topic I covered indirectly in an article on fixing my TV’s refresh rate at 4K resolution), but the fact that my TV is not connected to the internet is relevant to the issue at hand.
(I acquired the Yamaha ATS-1070 soundbar in September 2020. I had previously been using the TV’s built-in speakers.)
Not allowing my TV to connect to the internet, which effectively turns my “smart” TV into a “dumb” TV (using “dumb TVs” is however the “smart thing” to do) affects our story in two ways. Firstly, I cannot use the Roku remote which came with my TV. That remote only works if the TV is connected to the internet. Because my TV is not connected to the internet, I use a GE-branded universal remote. The remote is a simple IR remote with no “online” functionality.
The second issue with keeping my TV off the internet is updates, or rather lack thereof. Whether this is an issue depends on one’s use-case. For example, if you are not connecting a TV to the internet, foregoing updates may be a good thing (you never know what may come with an “update”). However, it is possible that updates could improve the TV in ways that would benefit offline use-cases.
Updating My TV the Offline Way
In the summer of this year (2025), it occurred to me that I had probably not updated my TV in 4-5 years (if ever). I have some issues with a couple of the HDMI ports, although I have come to suspect the issue is just that the ports are finicky and sensitive (this usually work fine as long as the HDMI cable has some slack). But at the time, I was open to the possibility that it could be a software issue. I additionally considered that some of my issues related to past attempts to get HDMI ARC working could have been a software issue. I looked into updates for my TV and saw that a new version of the firmware (at least relative to my TV’s firmware) was available. Moreover, the TV menu has an option for installing updates offline via a USB stick, which was good both in the sense that I did not have to take my TV online to update it and the fact that offline updates were supported suggested that nothing in the update would break my set-up. I installed the update (the process, which involved inputting a code despite being offline, was slightly annoying).
Irritating Sound Issue When Switching Inputs
I thought little about the update for the next several months. Regarding HDMI ARC, I had it on my to-do list but it was not a big priority since the optical audio connection worked well with my now-famouts Post-It Note fix. I was compelled to start thinking about HDMI ARC due to a minor annoyance which brings together multiple parts of my TV set-up.
I began playing Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE: Encore for the Nintendo Switch recently (see my posts on the prologue, chapter 1, intermission 1, chapter 2, and intermission 2 on The Emu Café Social). When I am using my TV with my mini PC, I seldom if ever changed the volume on the soundbar. Instead, I left the soundbar at its default volume and adjusted the volume on my computer. The soundbar volume was such that setting the volume to 40-60 out of 100 on my computer was usually just right. However, that same “default” volume setting on my soundbar was way too loud with the Switch. Thus, when I used the Switch, I had to lower the volume on the soundbar itself. Because the soundbar was connected by optical audio, I could not do this by adjusting the volume on the TV. My universal remote is not set up to work with my soundbar (I vaguely recall having tried at some point), so I use my soundbar’s remote (which is just as well since there are a few soundbar-specific features beyond basic volume control). While this worked, one niggle is that I could not see a numerical value for the soundbar volume. Thus, I resorted to counting how many times I pressed volume down for the Switch, usually 12-15, and then would go up the same amount when switching back to my computer (I like 40-60 being the default volume setting on my desktop).
What would resolve my volume annoyance when switching between input devices? HDMI ARC – in theory, of course. One perk of HDMI ARC besides improved sound quality (for whatever it is worth I doubt anything I play on my TV would see a big quality jump from optical audio to HDMI ARC) is that you can control the soundbar volume with your TV remote, or more broadly it effectively unifies the TV-soundbar volume control instead of leaving everything to the soundbar (note the sound comes from the soundbar in both connection cases, the difference is how the volume is controlled).
The Successful HDMI ARC Set-Up
On December 5, 2025, I was left without electricity in the room containing my workstation computer and TV for a few hours. I took the opportunity to do some dusting while I waited for the power to return so I could resume my day job. As part of my dusting, I removed the soundbar from its normal position, which required me to take out the power cable and the optical audio cable and Post-It Note. Once the power returned and I returned the soundbar to its place of honor, I decided to test HDMI ARC before re-configuring my Post-It Note fix for the optical audio cable. First, I had to find a long enough HDMI 2.1 cable (long enough that there would be some slack due to my issues with the HDMI ports on the TV). I found such a cable and used it to connect the Yamaha AT-1070 to my TV. I powered the TV and the soundbar on and then changed the sound input source from the TV’s own speakers (optical audio was not plugged in and thus not an option) to HDMI ARC.
Unsurprisingly, HDMI ARC worked at first. But I was not excited just yet. HDMI ARC always worked initially in my prior attempts. The issue was that I would lose the connection, either on its own or when I switched input sources. The test was not whether I could get HDMI ARC to work, but whether it would keep working. To my great satisfaction, it did keep working. I switched the TV input source to my mini PC and HDMI ARC worked as expected. I then switched to my Nintendo Switch and the ARC connection continued working. I tried turning both the TV and soundbar off and when they were both resumed, the HDMI ARC connection was quickly re-established. There appears to be no further issues: HDMI ARC now just works with my set-up.
While there may be some small difference in sound quality, I was able to test the real quality-of-life interest when I switched to my Switch. Per usual, the soundbar volume which I had been using with my computer for several days was too loud with the Switch. I used my soundbar remote to reduce the volume. But I did not need to “count” how many times I pressed volume down to keep track. On the top right of my TV screen, the TV UI showed a numerical value for the soundbar volume. It had been 34 or 36 initially and I reduced it to 20-22 for the Switch.
Of course, this would not be a N.A.F. TV-soundbar story if everything worked perfectly. I had assumed that I would be able to use the volume controls on my universal remote, which controls the TV, to adjust the soundbar volume. Not so. I discovered that the volume control on my universal remote appears to do . . . nothing. I tried different remote set-up codes to see if any would deliver full functionality, but thus far every working code allows me to control everything on the TV except the sound. I vaguely recall having been able to use my universal remotes to control the sound when I had HDMI ARC temporarily working in prior tests, so I am not sure whether the issue is that I have not found the “right” set-up code for my remote with my TV or perhaps that the update I installed a few months ago affected the functionality. This is a minor issue in the end, however. My soundbar remote is very small and it has certain controls which, beyond volume, would not be accessible from my TV remote in any event (most significantly a toggle for adjusting the built-in subwoofer and toggles for the clear voice and bass extension). While I will still look to see if I can get the basic volume control working with my TV remote, the fact that I can still use the soundbar remote makes that missing feature a very minor annoyance.
Conclusion
I wish I could tell readers why HDMI ARC works for me now when it did not before, but I cannot say with certainty. I know for a fact that I used an HDMI 2.1 cable on a couple of my previous failed attempts (and I suspect all of the attempts), so we can rule out “old HDMI cable” as the culprit for the earlier failures. Without anything else to point to, I am inclined to guess that the TV firmware update I installed a few months ago may have resolved the HDMI ARC connection issues I had before, but that is still just my best guess.
Regardless of the how, I am glad to finally have HDMI ARC working. If it ever misbehaves again, I still have my optical audio cable, ready to be secured by pieces of the many hundreds of Post-It Notes in my desk. I suppose all is well that ends well in the end. My early struggles with HDMI ARC led to my writing several soundbar-themed articles and one relatively popular article for fixing a relatively common issue with optical audio cable inputs. The glass-overflowing take would be that my HDMI ARC failures force me to learn about different audio inputs and share what I learned with readers of The New Leaf Journal.
