AV Receiver ARC/eARC Not Working: Denon, Onkyo, Yamaha, Pioneer, Marantz, Sony (2026)

ARC fails silently. Your receiver doesn't announce "ARC not working" — the TV just quietly plays audio through its own speakers instead, and you're left guessing which of a dozen settings is wrong.

On a receiver the answer is usually one of three, and which one depends on your brand in a way most guides get wrong. The menu paths and defaults below were checked against manufacturer manuals in July 2026; where a brand doesn't document something, this guide says so rather than guessing.

Troubleshooting a TV and soundbar instead? That's a different guide.

Quick answer

• Use the receiver's ARC-capable HDMI output. It's one specific jack — HDMI OUT MONITOR 1 on most Denon/Marantz, HDMI OUT MAIN on Onkyo/Pioneer, HDMI OUT A (TV) on Sony. The second output does not carry ARC.
• Turn on HDMI Control. On Denon and Marantz it ships Off. Enabling it prompts a restart — do the restart, or the setting won't take.
• Point the receiver's input at the TV feed. This is where brands diverge sharply, and where most advice online is wrong for your brand. See step 3.
• Set the TV's audio output to the receiver and its digital audio format to Bitstream/Pass-Through.
• Power cycle 30 seconds, receiver first, then the TV.

The rule that explains half of these failures

ARC depends on HDMI-CEC. eARC does not. Two manufacturers document this in almost the same words.

Denon: ARC "plays back the audio from the TV on this unit based on the HDMI Control function," while eARC "utilizes dedicated eARC function control to play back television audio from this unit without passing through HDMI control."

Yamaha: "When using ARC, set the HDMI Control and ARC function to 'On'. When using eARC, you may set the HDMI Control to 'Off'."

Two useful consequences. If you're on ARC and CEC is off or in a stuck state, you get silence — CEC isn't a convenience feature there, it's load-bearing. If you're on eARC, the popular advice to "disable CEC to fix handshake problems" is harmless for audio, though Yamaha warns the receiver will stop auto-switching to the TV input.

It also means an eARC problem and a CEC problem are different problems. If your remote's volume keys stopped working but audio still plays, that's CEC — not ARC.

Step 1: The right HDMI output

Receivers have multiple HDMI outputs and typically only one carries audio back from the TV. Sending it out the wrong jack produces exactly the symptom you have: perfect picture, no sound.

Onkyo is refreshingly blunt about the second output: "Note that this jack is not ARC-compatible." Sony's STR-AN1000 adds a trap worth knowing — Control for HDMI "is enabled only when [HDMI OUT B Mode] is set to [Main]." If you've been using output B for a projector, CEC quietly stops working.

Port naming genuinely varies within a single brand, so read the label rather than trusting a port number from a forum post.

Step 2: Enable HDMI Control

Every brand calls CEC something different, and two of the names in wide circulation are wrong.

Denon and Marantz — HDMI Control. Path: Settings → Video → HDMI Setup → HDMI Control. Default is Off. These two brands run the same platform — their manual pages are byte-identical — so anything here applies to both.

Two things people miss. Enabling HDMI Control prompts a restart, and the setting doesn't take effect until the receiver has fully rebooted. And HDMI Control reverts to Off after a factory reset, so if you reset the receiver to fix ARC, you've just switched off the thing ARC needs.

Yamaha — HDMI Control. Two different menu trees depending on model:

• RX-V4A, RX-V6A, RX-A2A: HDMI → HDMI Control
• RX-A4A, RX-A6A, RX-A8A: Video/HDMI → HDMI Control → HDMI Control

Yamaha's default is On, and ARC defaults to On too — which is why Yamaha owners rarely have the Denon problem. Standby Sync is a separate setting (Off / On / Auto, default Auto). Yamaha's own note: "On: Enables HDMI Control. The settings in 'ARC' and 'Standby Sync' are applied."

Onkyo and Pioneer — HDMI CEC. Same setting strings, different navigation:

• Onkyo: Setup → 5. Hardware → HDMI → HDMI CEC (the menu is numbered)
• Pioneer: Home → System Setup → Hardware → HDMI → HDMI CEC

Default On. Onkyo's manual adds: "This function is effective only when the device is connected to the HDMI OUT MAIN jack."

Two naming corrections here, because both are repeated everywhere. Onkyo's menu says "HDMI CEC," not "RIHD" — RIHD appears once in the whole TX-NR6100 manual, in a device-compatibility list, not as a menu item. And Pioneer's is not "Kuro Link." That's the legacy Pioneer name from the plasma era; current Pioneers run the Onkyo platform and say HDMI CEC. If you're hunting the menus for "Kuro Link" on a current VSX, you won't find it.

Sony — Control for HDMI. Sony draws a real distinction: Bravia Sync is "an extended function developed by Sony based on the Control for HDMI function," and Control for HDMI is "a standard used by CEC." Bravia Sync is the TV-side brand; the receiver setting is Control for HDMI.

• STR-AN1000: Setup → HDMI Settings → Control for HDMI
• STR-DH790: AMP MENU → <HDMI> → CTRL.HDMI → CTRL ON (front-panel text, no on-screen menu)

Step 3: The input-assignment trap

This is the step that actually differs by brand, and where generic advice does real damage. "Assign HDMI to the TV Audio input" is repeated constantly online. On two of these brands it's wrong, and on Denon it will break eARC.

Denon and Marantz — do NOT assign HDMI to TV Audio. Straight from the manual, identical across the X1800H, X2800H, S760H and CINEMA 50:

"When 'HDMI Control' or 'ARC' is set to 'On' in the menu, 'HDMI' cannot be assigned to 'TV Audio'." "The eARC function does not operate when 'HDMI' is set as the 'TV Audio' input source."

Denon's own troubleshooting spells out the fix: "To enable eARC function operation, remove the HDMI input connector setting, then restart this unit and the television." So the two things to do are select the TV Audio input source, and make sure HDMI is not assigned to it under Settings → Inputs → Input Assign. The default assignment is – / OPT1 / – / DIGITAL, which is correct — if someone "helpfully" set it to HDMI, that's your bug.

Related: TV Audio Switching (default On) auto-switches the receiver to the TV Audio input on a CEC command — but it requires HDMI Control to be On. With Denon's Off default, the receiver won't switch to TV Audio by itself at all.

Onkyo and Pioneer — this is your most likely culprit. The setting is Audio Select, at Setup → 4. Source → Audio Select, and the manual is explicit:

TV (Default Value: OPTICAL) "ARC — When giving priority to input signal from ARC compatible TV." "The setting can be selected only when '5. Hardware' - 'HDMI' - 'Audio Return Channel (eARC supported)' is set to 'On' and also the 'TV' input is selected."

Read that twice. The TV input defaults to OPTICAL, not ARC — so out of the box, an Onkyo or Pioneer is listening to an optical cable you probably haven't connected. Worse, the ARC option is invisible unless Audio Return Channel is already On and you're actively sitting on the TV input. People turn ARC on, go looking for the audio source setting, don't see an ARC option because they're on a different input, and conclude the receiver is broken.

Yamaha — ignore this step entirely. TV Audio Input (Function → Input Setting → TV Audio Input, default AUDIO 1) is the optical/analog fallback, not an ARC setting:

"With eARC/ARC function: the TV audio is played back with eARC/ARC, regardless of setting in 'TV Audio Input'."

Changing it while chasing an ARC problem accomplishes nothing.

Sony — it's an interlock. On the STR-AN1000, Audio Return Channel "can be set only when the [Input Mode] of the TV input is set to [Auto]." If the ARC setting is greyed out, that's why.

Step 4: The TV side

The receiver can be configured perfectly and still get nothing, because the TV never sent anything. Two settings matter:

• Audio output → the receiver. Samsung: Sound → Sound Output → Receiver (HDMI). LG: Sound → Sound Out → HDMI(ARC) Device. Sony: Display & Sound → Audio output → Speakers → Audio System. Vizio: Audio → Digital Audio Out. TCL/Hisense: Sound → Sound Output → HDMI ARC.
• Digital audio format → Bitstream / Pass-Through, not PCM.

Use PCM as a diagnostic, not a destination. If PCM produces sound and Bitstream doesn't, the link is fine and you have a format the receiver won't decode. If neither produces sound, the link is the problem. Once you're done testing, put it back on Bitstream/Pass-Through or you'll lose surround.

Full TV-side detail, including which port is eARC on each brand: HDMI ARC/eARC not working.

Step 5: Power cycle, receiver first

1. Power off the TV and receiver, then unplug both at the wall.
2. Wait 30 seconds so the capacitors discharge and the HDMI handshake state clears.
3. Power on the receiver first, let it settle, then the TV.
4. Give it up to 60 seconds.

Onkyo makes a point that applies to every brand: after enabling HDMI Control, the TV power cycle is not optional. "The setting saves, but ARC won't activate until both devices renegotiate on the next cold start."

Brand notes

Denon and Marantz

Sibling brands on a shared platform, so the menus, defaults and quirks are the same. Multi-room is HEOS on both — and HEOS is entirely separate from ARC. A HEOS failure doesn't break ARC, and an ARC failure doesn't break HEOS streaming. Don't troubleshoot one to fix the other.

Firmware goes through the HEOS app (Settings → My Devices → your receiver → Check for Updates) or a FAT32 USB stick. If the receiver can't reach the network for the update, it's often sitting on a 5 GHz band at the edge of range — move it to 2.4 GHz or use Ethernet.

eARC models here support it regardless of the ARC menu setting: "Using an eARC function-compatible television enables audio playback… regardless of 'ARC' settings in the menu."

Onkyo and Pioneer

Same platform, and Onkyo is the only brand in this group publishing real per-version ARC/eARC release notes — which makes firmware a genuine lead rather than a stock suggestion. From the TX-NR6100 changelog:

• March 2026: "Fixed an issue where Standby Through was turned off unexpectedly."
• October 2021: "Fix the no sound and video issue via eARC connection from SONY TV."
• July 2021: "Fixed the problem where High Bit Rate Audio such as Dolby TrueHD would not be output when 4K or 8K resolution signals were input."

If you have an Onkyo and a Sony TV with no eARC audio, that October 2021 line is your answer — update.

Losing ARC after standby is a known behaviour on several TX-NR models: the CEC handshake resets on standby and not every TV re-establishes it on wake. Re-select the receiver in the TV's audio output menu, or disable auto-standby under Setup → Hardware → Power Management. Users report that toggling the TV's CEC (SimpLink, Anynet+, Bravia Sync) off and back on re-establishes it without a full power cycle.

On end-of-life models — the TX-NR646, 656, 676 and 686 no longer receive updates — if you're on the last available firmware and ARC still misbehaves, a fix isn't coming.

One note on Pioneer's outlook: Premium Audio Company and Pioneer ended their licensing agreement in July 2025, Pioneer's firmware asset host no longer resolves, and the newest Pioneer firmware document findable is from April 2024 — against Onkyo's March 2026. Treat Pioneer home-AV firmware as effectively frozen.

Yamaha

Standby Through keeps the HDMI path alive while the receiver is in standby. If you only lose audio when the receiver is off, that's the setting — or simply expected behaviour, since ARC audio needs the receiver powered.

Multi-room is MusicCast, with one documented limit worth knowing: "Multi-channel content (5.1-ch, 7.1-ch, etc.) is down-mixed to 2-channel sound for playback in other rooms without affecting the master room." That's the accurate version of "Atmos doesn't distribute."

If audio drops specifically when you change inputs, that has its own guide: Yamaha receiver audio drops when switching HDMI inputs.

Sony STR

The single highest-value Sony fact: only HDMI OUT MAIN / HDMI OUT A (TV) carries the return channel. The second HDMI output is for a projector or second display and does not carry ARC or eARC. If your cable runs from the TV's ARC port to the receiver's other output, that alone is the bug.

eARC on Sony STR receivers is firmware-gated, and the jack itself tells you. Sony's help guide: "If the HDMI OUT A (TV) jack on your receiver is labeled 'ARC,' update the software of the receiver." A jack reading eARC/ARC means the firmware already supports it.

This is worth dwelling on, because it contradicts something you'll read everywhere. The STR-DN1080 is a 2017 HDMI 2.0a receiver and it supports eARC — Sony publishes a dedicated eARC setup page for it (Setup → HDMI Settings → eARC → On). eARC needs roughly 37 Mbit/s and rides the cable's Ethernet conductors, not the video lanes, so it never required HDMI 2.1 in the first place. The same firmware path applies to the STR-DH790.

Other Sony quirks: Control for HDMI sometimes resets to Off after a firmware update, and defaults to Off after a factory reset — check it first if ARC died right after either. And if ARC drops every time you change TV inputs, that's a CEC timing issue; setting Pass-Through to On in HDMI Settings usually settles it.

A diagnostic worth knowing: the DH790's front panel can display "Dolby Atmos" while the source is really DD+. The panel tells you what it's decoding, not what quality arrived.

No 4K120 through the receiver? The bypass is real

If your console blanks at 4K120 through the receiver, you can invert the topology: run the source straight into the TV, and let the TV feed audio back to the receiver over eARC. The TV gets full video, the receiver becomes an audio endpoint. This isn't a forum hack — Yamaha recommended it themselves: "These AV receivers currently support HDMI eARC, which allows 4K/120Hz sources to be connected directly to a compatible TV, with the audio fed to the AVR via eARC."

Before you reach for it, though, check the two things far more likely to be your actual problem in 2026:

The port. 8K/4K120 is only supported on some inputs. Denon's X2800H: "8K video is supported on three of six HDMI inputs." Yamaha's RX-V6A: "'8K Mode' is applied to only the HDMI 1-3 jacks." Sony's STR-AN1000 restricts it to the GAME and MEDIA BOX inputs. Onkyo's TX-NR6100: inputs 1–3 only.

The per-input format setting, which ships limited. Denon calls it 4K/8K Signal Format (default Enhanced, i.e. 4K60 — you want 8K Enhanced). Yamaha calls it HDMI Video Format (default 4K Mode 1 — you want 8K Mode). Sony calls it HDMI Signal Format (you want Enhanced format). A black screen at 4K120 is far more often the wrong port or a default format setting than a hardware limit.

The genuine hardware bug, if you have one of the affected units: a batch of 2020 receivers shipped with an HDMI 2.1 chip whose FRL implementation was defective, so 4K120 failed even though the receiver was sold as 8K-ready. It was found by c't/Heise in October 2020 with the Xbox Series X and RTX 3080. PS5 was never affected.

Affected: Denon AVR-A110, X6700H, X4700H, X3700H, X2700H, S960H; Marantz AV7706, SR8015, SR7015, SR6015, SR5015, NR1711; Yamaha RX-V4A, RX-V6A, RX-A2A, TSR-400, TSR-700. Onkyo and Pioneer shipped nothing affected — their first HDMI 2.1 models arrived in January 2021, after the bug was public. Yamaha's RX-A4A/A6A/A8A are second-generation and unaffected. Denon and Marantz units built after roughly May 2021 shipped clean.

Denon and Marantz remedied it with a free external SPK618 adapter; Yamaha with a free HDMI board exchange — with an under-reported catch: the replacement board tops out at 24 Gbps, so it mitigated rather than fully fixed those models. Both programmes were warranty-gated on 2020 hardware, so in 2026 assume they've lapsed.

Two honest limits on the bypass. It depends entirely on what your TV will pass back — Samsung TVs don't pass DTS, so a Blu-ray player's DTS-HD MA through a Samsung TV is a dead end. And streaming apps output DD+ regardless, so you're not losing lossless you were otherwise getting.

A separate issue that firmware won't fix: QMS

Distinct from the 4K120 bug, and often confused with it. The Nuvoton chip in a range of receivers implements QMS as originally defined in HDMI 2.1, which is incompatible with the revised HDMI 2.1a QMS used by the Apple TV 4K (2022) and 2023-and-later LG OLEDs. Confirmed by Jeff Park, CTO of HDMI Licensing. It is not firmware-fixable. The 4K120 bug is fixed; this one persists.

Quick reference

What ARC and eARC each carry

Onkyo publishes the clearest official statement of this, and it corrects a claim you'll see constantly:

"ARC compatible audio formats: PCM, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio" "eARC compatible audio formats: PCM, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Atmos, DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS:X, Multichannel PCM"

Note where Dolby Digital Plus sits. Atmos carried inside DD+ passes over plain ARC — that's how every streaming app delivers it, and your receiver will decode real height channels from it. "Sound but no Atmos means you're on ARC" is simply wrong as a diagnosis. What ARC genuinely cannot carry is lossless Atmos in TrueHD, or DTS:X — those need eARC, and they come from UHD Blu-ray rather than apps.

So if Netflix gives you Atmos and your Blu-ray player doesn't, that's expected on ARC and not a fault.

Optical carries Dolby Digital 5.1 and stereo PCM. It cannot carry Atmos or DTS:X at all, and it gives you no CEC volume control. It remains an excellent isolator, though: if sound returns over optical, the fault is on the HDMI/CEC side, not in the receiver.

Ecosystems

Onkyo and Pioneer settle the "can I rebroadcast TV audio?" question directly: "This unit does not support the following DTS Play-Fi functions… Line In Rebroadcast" — which is precisely the feature that would do it.

When it's the hardware

Bisect before concluding anything is broken:

1. Feed a source directly into the receiver. If that plays, the receiver's decoding and speakers are fine and the problem is the TV's return path.
2. Try optical from the TV. If sound returns, the fault is the ARC/CEC side.
3. Test a second device on the same TV port.

Symptoms that lean hardware: ARC works briefly after power-on then drops every time; audio cuts when the HDMI cable is touched; every HDMI input works but the ARC output never returns audio.

If a CEC conflict is suspected, disable CEC on the receiver and test ARC manually. If it works, re-enable it and disable CEC on your source devices one at a time — a console or streamer fighting for the bus is a common cause.

FAQ

I enabled HDMI Control and still have no sound. On Denon, did you let it restart? The setting doesn't apply until the receiver reboots. On Onkyo or Pioneer, the input is probably still on its OPTICAL default — go to Setup → 4. Source → Audio Select, select the TV input first, then set it to ARC.

Which port is ARC on my receiver? The one labelled for it: MONITOR 1 on most Denon/Marantz, HDMI OUT MAIN on Onkyo/Pioneer, HDMI OUT A (TV) on Sony. The second output never carries it.

Does the STR-DN1080 support eARC? Yes, via firmware — despite being a 2017 HDMI 2.0a receiver. Check the jack: if it reads ARC, update the software; if it reads eARC/ARC, you already have it. eARC never needed HDMI 2.1.

Sound works but there's no Atmos. Check what the receiver's front panel reads. If it shows DD+ during a streaming title, that is Atmos — the lossy version every app sends, and it passes over ARC. If you want lossless TrueHD Atmos from a disc, you need eARC and an eARC-capable TV, or feed the player straight into the receiver.

Why does my Onkyo lose ARC after standby? The CEC handshake resets on standby and some TVs don't re-establish it on wake. Re-select the receiver in the TV's audio output, or turn off auto-standby under Setup → Hardware → Power Management.

What's Pioneer's name for HDMI-CEC? HDMI CEC. Not "Kuro Link" — that's the legacy plasma-era name and it doesn't appear in current Pioneer manuals.

Is it "RIHD" on Onkyo? The menu says HDMI CEC. RIHD is an old name that survives in a compatibility list, not as a setting you can toggle.

I get no 4K120 through the receiver. Check the port first (only some inputs support it), then the per-input signal-format setting, which ships defaulted to 4K60 on every brand here. Only after that consider the 2020 chip bug — and only if you own one of the specific affected models.

Can I use optical as a backup? Yes, and on an ARC-only receiver you lose very little: the same compressed Dolby Digital, minus CEC volume control. You cannot get Atmos or DTS:X over optical at all.

Audio plays but the TV remote won't change volume. That's CEC, not ARC. The TV needs the receiver selected as its audio output before the volume keys follow it.

It worked, then stopped after an update. Check HDMI Control first. On Denon it reverts to Off after a factory reset, and Sony's Control for HDMI is reported to reset after some firmware updates.

Related guides

• HDMI ARC/eARC not working — TV and soundbar side
• ARC vs eARC: which do you need, and cables
• Denon AVR ARC/eARC not working
• Onkyo TX-NR ARC not working
• Sony STR receiver ARC/eARC not working
• Pioneer VSX Elite no sound from TV over ARC
• Yamaha receiver audio drops when switching HDMI inputs