HDFury4K Arcana 18GBPS

I bought this to fix sync issues between my LG C1 OLED and Sonos Arc. It was a last ditch effort that I was sure wouldn't work since nothing was fixing the problem (for those with the same equipment and issue, the only thing that will fix the problem is tinkering with audio delay from one TV show or movie to the next. There is no single solution). The 4K Arcana, to my surprise and relief, actually solved the problem. More than that, the audio is noticeably improved, so I'm additionally grateful for that.There are no overall issues with the Arcana. It is expensive and honestly shouldn't need to exist given the simplicity of the issue it's designed to fix, but the issue exists and it does fix it, so it's worth its cost. The user interface is a little intimidating at first because of how primitive it appears ("I paid $300 and this is what they gave me? No way this works"), but it is ultimately an impressive piece of equipment.Another small complaint some might have: using this with an Apple TV sometimes throws off the apple remote so that your TV won't turn off along with the Apple TV. This issue fixed itself for me, but I was willing to keep turning the TV off on its own in exchange for synced sound. Not a dealbreaker in the least.

I tried to like it but it was way more bother than it was worth. Read many reviews that said basically the same but thought I would take a chance. It was utterly disappointing. When it worked with my Sonos home theater system, which was rare, it sounded great and picture quality was good. The problem was it would randomly drop picture or sound or both and I would have to reboot everything to get it to function again. And using an hdmi switcher for blu ray, PS and Firestick was a nightmare. If you tried to switch from one source to another the Arcana would have to be rebooted every time. Very aggravating. So I sent it back until a more viable alternative becomes available. For now I’ll use the optical output from the projector sacrificing Dolby Atmos but at least it works flawlessly so we can enjoy a show or movie without all the hassle.

I bought a Sonos Arc 2 for my 5+ year old Samsung TV (UN49M5300AF) and a Amazon Fire TV Cube (3rd Gen) to improve the sound for my TV setup. The TV only has an ARC port (no eARC) and only supports Dolby Digital Plus, so in principle I should have been able to get Dolby Atmos (compressed), which I would have been happy with. However, it turns out that Amazon Prime and Netflix only deliver Dolby Atmos sound to 4k TVs (WTF Amazon and Netflix?!), so I was never getting Dobly Atmos sound because the TV is only 1080p. I had no interest in buying a new TV because getting rid of the current TV seemed like a waste of a perfectly serviceable TV.The Arcana solves this problem beautifully. The Arcana allows me to tell the Fire TV Cube that the Cube is talking to a 4k TV. This unlocks Dolby Atmos sound from Amazon and Netflix. The Arcana also downscales the 4k picture stream for the 1080p TV.In addition, the Arcana solves lip syncing issues. Before adding the Arcana, I could never get perfect lip sync. I tried all adjustments possible (the Fire TV Cube, TV, Sonos), but I had to adjust for shows/movies that had different audio standards (PCM 2.0, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus). The only somewhat reliable way to solve the lip sync issue was to match the TV sound standard to the source standard (where possible). Doing this for every show was obviously a pain, and meant that I wasn't able to get the full performance of the Sonos Arc 2 sound system. With the Arcana, I have none of these problems. I get the highest quality sound with no lip sync issues.I did have to change some of the default settings on the Arcana to get the setup to work. From memory, I changed the following settings from the default values:* Audio: eARC only* Scaler: 4K30 422 12b SDR* HDR: Force 1000 nitsThe firmware version on the Arcana is 0.87. Many older reviews (and a friend of mine) say they have problems with the Arcana and connected devices having to be turned on in a particular order. I have not had this problem with my setup. I suspect that HDFury has solved many of these problems in later firmware versions.The manual for the Arcana is very technical and one can tell it is written by somebody whose native language is not English. You should read the manual (which is available online) very carefully to make sure that the Arcana is a device that will support your use case. This device is not what I'd call a plug and play device like most consumer devices. In my opinion, you need to be willing to read the manual, maybe look up some technical terms and acronyms, and play around with the settings. In short, this is a technical box that requires a user that is interested in going beyond just plugging it in and hoping it will work.I'm super happy with this little box and can highly recommend it for a setup like this (if you're willing to put the time in to configure it for your set up).