Receiver with ability to convert/send HDMI/digital signal to Preouts?

So I finally sat down and unboxed my Pioneer VSX-1121-k receiver last week (purchased on Black Friday 2011), and started setting it up in the family room. I was trying to use the preouts on the receiver to hook up my wireless Klipsch lightspeakers and also my Sennheiser RS170 wireless headset. For the life of me, I could not get any sound to come out on the lightspeakers or wireless headsets using the preouts on the back of the receiver. After some searching online, I just now discovered that the Pioneer (and apparently many other non-high-end receivers) does not convert digital input signals to analog signals necessary for use with the preouts.

I suppose I can try running analog audio connections for each of my digital devices and see if I can make that work, but I'm curious whether there are any reasonably priced receivers that have the ability to convert digital input signals to analog for use with the pre-out connections--hopefully one with Airplay support as well. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Thanks, jdsmoothie. I'm getting myself even more confused now. I did some more research, and noticed that the Pioneer manual (p.21) specifically states that the receiver cannot down-convert a digital-to-analog signal with the zone 2 outputs. However, the manual does not state any similar restrictions when describing the speaker channel preouts (p.20), which is what I've been trying to use. I called Pioneer tech support, and the rep said my set up should work (HDMI input to receiver, and wireless headsets connected via front channel L/R preouts), but he might be wrong (he was just consulting the manual).

Do you know whether the same HDMI restrictions would apply to connections using the discrete channel preouts (rather than the zone 2 outs) as well? I haven't tried other non-HDMI digital input sources yet, but will do so tonight.

Thanks. I'll have to work on my setup some more tonight to see if I can get this working using the front L/R preouts. I did find this other thread however which seems to reach a different conclusion (i.e., that the preouts also only work for analog input signals), but it seemed bizarre to me that the preouts would be so limited: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1413973/pioneer-vsx-1121-k-line-level-output-to-second-amp-or-best-way-to-drive-outside-speakers

Maybe it's just user error on my part in not being able to get this to work, but not sure what I'm doing wrong unless there is a setting that has to be changed to "turn on" the preouts. I was able to get audio coming out of my front L/R speakers that were connected via speaker wires, but no audio at all from the lightspeakers that were connected to the front L/R preouts.

ahhh, i see now. i'm an idiot. thanks for clarification. now i just have to figure out how to make this actually work on my setup! is there any reason why the signal from the front L/R preout would not be sufficient to connect via an rca-to-1/8" headphone connector that is connected to my RS 170 wireless headphone transmitter? i've seen references to headphone amplifiers, and wasn't sure whether something like that was necessary when connecting the RS170 transmitter to the preouts on the receiver.

Happily, I was able to get the wireless headphones to work last night connected to the front L/R preouts. Not sure what changed since my prior attempts, but probably user error on my part. I need to try hooking up the lightspeakers again, but am assuming those should work with the preouts now that I'm able to get the wireless headphones work. Thanks for your help!

Okay, thanks for the head's up. Hopefully I don't blow anything up!