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>it's not that hard to run an audio cable back from the TV to an audio receiver

Wait until you find out that many consumer sound bars (Sonos comes to mind) only support the latest and greatest digital audio formats over eARC.

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OK but audio technology of the 80s sounds better than the "latest and greatest formats" on a shitty soundbar so who cares?

Speak for yourself but I'd rather have LPCM surround audio than deal with proprietary formats like Dolby Digital and DTS which are the only way to get surround without using eARC over HDMI.

This has literally nothing to do with any kind of sound bar, toast0's reply to your original comment explains the situation in detail.

There is another way: decode it in your media centre and send it analogue to your amplifier. Remember when media centres were actually capable? It has to be decoded to analogue somewhere. Dolby digital and DTS are not the only way to get surround (also good stereo is better than shit surround, but let's assume you mean good surround).

The whole thing about HDMI is a circular argument. You can only use HDMI because you can only use HDMI. There's nothing technical stopping another cable supporting this stuff. That was my original point. We're in this situation for silly reasons, not technical reasons.

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