LG giveth and taketh away. While LG’s new 2025 TV range boast some of brightest OLED TVs on the market, the electronics brand has seen fit to remove a feature from the audio side – DTS audio.
This omission was found by Vincent Teoh during his YouTube review of the LG G5 when looking at the TV’s EDID files. EDID is data that allows a TV to communicated to an external source (say a soundbar or Blu-ray player) on what it can do/support.
LG had brought DTS back into the fold in 2023, partly due to the announcement that DTS IMAX Enhanced audio was coming to the Disney+ app.
However, that support hasn’t materialised yet via LG’s webOS smart platform (it is supported on Google TV and Android TV models). It would seem that not many LG TV owners were making use of the audio format, hence LG’s decision to drop it.
Is LG dropping DTS Audio a big deal?
Is LG removing DTS support from its TVs a big deal? Yes and no.
For home cinema fans, DTS is still regarded as the better audio format compared to Dolby, offering higher quality sound and better dynamic range with soundtracks. I’ve certainly noticed that DTS soundtracks played on a TV or through a soundbar sound more impactful, and in a number of cases louder while Dolby can often sound reined in by comparison.
For those with physical media collections, DTS is well-supported whether it’s standard DTS or DTS-HD Master Audio or the immersive format in DTS:X. Removing DTS means that you won’t be able to get native DTS support for the highest possible performance, with DTS audio interpreted by your TV or sound system as PCM or LPCM.
And even as LG added DTS support to its TVs back in 2023, there didn’t appear to be as much interest in promoting IMAX Enhanced certification with its soundbars. Even though the S95QR, UCS9S and US95TR were IMAX Enhanced certified, at least for the latter there was no mention of the soundbar supporting that feature on LG’s website. Perhaps LG didn’t view it as a primary reason for buying its sound systems.
And then there’s the presence of Dolby. Right out the gate, Dolby made it it’s mission to support as many devices and services as it could with Dolby Atmos. With the rise of streaming apps, that allowed Dolby to get in on the ground floor in a growing market and edge DTS out of the way in the process. Many audio brands don’t bother adding DTS support to their soundbars, preferring Dolby because it is on every disc and streaming platform.
So for the average consumer, new LG TVs lacking DTS support won’t make much of a difference. For the home cinema fan with an extensive disc collection, it’ll be a miss. Then again, there is Sony and Philips who still support DTS on their TVs and sound systems as an alternative.
