Updating TV to 4K, do I need to update A/V receiver?

[BaggieBoy]

I currently have a Sony KDL-40NX723 with the following connections:

HDMI 1: ARC connection to Sony stand soundbar
HDMI 2: Humax Freesat
HDMI 3: Sony STR-DH820 A/V Receiver (5.1 speakers)

Connected to the A/V Receiver is a Apple TV 4K (1st gen), a Sony Blu-Ray and an Apple Mac mini

Now I'm just about to pull the trigger on a Sony XR55A80J and I realise the Sony A/V Receiver will not support 4K video. However I'm wondering if I can still use it for audio only? The only 4K source will be the Apple TV so I will need to connect it directly to the TV, but how is the best way to still get surround sound when using the Apple TV?

My thoughts on connecting to the new TV are:

HDMI 1: Humax Freesat
HDMI 2: Apple TV 4K
HDMI 3: Sony STR-DH820 A/V Receiver

I was thinking I could use an optical connection from the TV to the A/V receiver to get surround sound when using the Apple TV.

Or should I just bite the bullet and update the A/V receiver to a 4K capable model?

Appreciate your thoughts.

 

[tvdavid]

no if you use ARC over hdmi though some TVs no longer do DTS if your happy with DD plus you will be OK.

 

[mikej]

It doesn't look like your AVR supports HDMI-ARC ? If you only have one 4K source and are happy with 5.1 audio, then there's no reason why you can't do what you suggest but there are other benefits of getting an ARC or eARC-enabled AVR, including being able to adjust for lip-sync issues, being able to control the AVR volume with the TV remote and having it turn on and off with the TV. One other big benefit of connecting all your sources to the AVR is that you then just need a single HDMI cable from AVR to TV which makes your set-up neater.

Basically, with just the one 4K source and a standard 5.1 system, the most benefits of upgrading your AVR will come from adding eARC rather than 4K I think, although that could obviously change in the future.

This table shows the difference between optical (toslink), ARC and eARC in terms of supported audio formats and features.

 

[BaggieBoy]

Thanks both. Turns out that the current AVR does support ARC.

I reconfigured the cabling to route TV audio to the AVR via ARC (TV HDMI 1) and connected the Apple TV directly into the TV via HDMI 3 and it all works perfectly so far.

So I think I'm ready to go 4K.

 

[BaggieBoy]

Installed my new XR55A80J today using the old AVR via ARC and all is working well so far. The bonus is that I didn't even need to change my Logitech hub configuration, as my old TV was a (10 year old) Sony, it just worked without any changes.