I think that for most people, the audio support on their smart TV is an afterthought. From one angle, it stands to reason — it's your speakers pumping out the sound, and it's the movie, show, or game that's supposed to dictate the formats available. Your TV's main job is video, allowing audio to pump through unobstructed. Right?
Well, no. Your TV's codec compatibility is actually extremely important, to the point that it could be diminishing everything you've paid for, including that expensive soundbar and that premium streaming plan with spatial audio. There are a variety of ways in which this interference can happen, though there may also be settings you can change to fix things.
Talking at cross purposes
The common compatibility issues
One of the most fundamental barriers you're likely to encounter is spatial audio support. If your TV's HDMI ports only offer ARC instead of eARC, any HDMI-based speaker or receiver you plug in will only be able to receive the compressed (a.k.a. lossy) versions of Dolby Atmos or DTS:X. That's not necessarily a big deal, since most streaming services rely on compressed audio anyway. If you're trying to watch a Blu-ray disc, however, you won't be getting the best possible audio quality, no matter how good your speakers are. ARC simply doesn't have enough bandwidth to handle lossless formats like Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio,…