No audio pass through

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stimpson

Miller Lite Tester
Original poster
Oct 2, 2006
4,701
46
Benton, Arkansas
What exactly does that mean? My friend wants to get a low budget Home Theater reciever with at least 2 HDMI inputs. A lot of them say "no audio pass through". Why would you not want audio to go through HDMI?
 
One cable connection.

Advanced audio decoding for Blu-ray such as accepting MPCM, TrueHD and DTS Master.

There are plenty of inexpensive receivers that accept audio over HDMI.

S~
 
What exactly does that mean? My friend wants to get a low budget Home Theater reciever with at least 2 HDMI inputs. A lot of them say "no audio pass through". Why would you not want audio to go through HDMI?

The least expensive receivers will simply provide a switching path for video from the source to the television. However, they won't decode the audio from the HDMI. This forces you to add a second connection, either analog pairs or a TOSLINK optical cable from the source to the receiver.

As Stimpson said, the optical connection does not have the bandwidth to pas through the best audio formats. The analog connections don't even handle proper 5.1, but rely on the 40 year old phase matrix technology (Dolby surround) to get rear channels.

I agree with Stimpson. You can find receivers out there that will decode the audio formats at reasonable prices. Look at the Onkyo 60X line, the Denon 19XX, and similar units from Yamaha and Pioneer.
 
Any receiver that accepts HDMI 1.3, will pass decoded audio in LPCM.

I don't think that is entirely true Paul. It is also very dependent on what he means by "pass".

If he means pass the audio stream to the receiver, then no, the cheapest receivers will not pass the audio through the HDMI. That is still true with the newest generation.

If he means pass through to whatever monitor is switched through the receiver, then perhaps. A couple of years ago, they were stripping off the audio when sending it on to the monitor as a 'feature'
 
Seems pointless to have HDMI without the audio.

I'll probably be replacing the JVC RX8020V in my bedroom with another Onkyo, though probably not another 805. Nothing wrong with the receiver, just for simplicities sake. Too many cables now, too complicated.
 
Yes they do. Just video. Onkyo 307, Denon 1609, 1709, 6** series and below are only a few examples. The problem is manufacturers can pick and choose which parts of the HDMI spec they implement.

S~

And Paul and I have had this discussion on the enforcability and requirements of the HDMI spec before. We never end up agreeing though.

This is one area where I feel the spec is pretty clear. If the switching and connectors have the bandwidth to pass the signal without attenuating the higher frequencies it can claim 1.3, just like an HDMI 1.3 compliant switch. The receivers are usually pretty careful to state that this is HDMI pass through. It really is no different that bundling an HDMI switch and a TOSLINK capable receiver in one package.
 
Well, I just bought a Onkyo 607 for my bedroom, and sub. Didn't see any probs with shortchanging on HDMI or elsewhere. Massive overkill, anyway.
 
Well, I just bought a Onkyo 607 for my bedroom, and sub. Didn't see any probs with shortchanging on HDMI or elsewhere. Massive overkill, anyway.

Yep. I've got an earlier 605. The 60X series does audio decoding and also HDMI video/audio upconversion of analog sources.
 
And Paul and I have had this discussion on the enforcability and requirements of the HDMI spec before. We never end up agreeing though.

This is one area where I feel the spec is pretty clear. If the switching and connectors have the bandwidth to pass the signal without attenuating the higher frequencies it can claim 1.3, just like an HDMI 1.3 compliant switch. The receivers are usually pretty careful to state that this is HDMI pass through. It really is no different that bundling an HDMI switch and a TOSLINK capable receiver in one package.

I believe that lengthy discussion you had about that was with another member here. I don't have the technical acumen to argue something like that. In this case, I bow to your knowledge on this matter. I learn something new everyday. Thanks.
 
I believe that lengthy discussion you had about that was with another member here. I don't have the technical acumen to argue something like that. In this case, I bow to your knowledge on this matter. I learn something new everyday. Thanks.

Sorry, I went back nd found the thread. It was a hit and run new member. You made a "nerd alert" post to me, and so I have forever associated the whole thread to you. :eek:
 

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