[bajaed]

By a salesman at Electronic Express, that unless you have a 7.1 system you do not need an active HDMI reciever.


In other words he said that a reciever with HDMI pass through and optical audio connections would sound just as good(all other things being equal) as one with active HDMI on 5.1 and smaller systems.


Is that true?

 

[localnet]

No

 

[localnet]

7.1 my arse! There are only a handful of guys that can even pull off a 7.1, and there are very very few movies, I don't even know of one that even supports it.


And what is an "active HDMI receiver"?


What are you looking to do?


Mike

 

[boarder1995]

+1 NO.


Pulling a signal whether it be 5.1, 7.1 or 7.1 down converted to 5.1, through HDMI will sound better than the compressed audio you'll get through optical/digital inputs. That's how I understand it.

 

[maxcooper]

What is the source of the programming material?


An HDMI cable or an optical cable will both carry Dolby Digital, DTS (but not DTS-HD MA), and 2-channel PCM data equally well. That covers most kinds of programming, including DVD players and cable/satellite TV boxes. So what you were told is basically true for these cases (perhaps with a few caveats I mention below).


However, a Blu-ray player or some other source (???) of Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA audio requires HDMI audio support. Optical cannot carry this kind of data. You can still use optical to connect a Blu-ray player, and the audio will equal that of a DVD player (which is to say, it will sound very good). But you won't be able to hear the HD audio tracks that Blu-ray makes possible. What you were told is not true for this case.


7.1 or 5.1 is mostly unrelated, though one of the caveats I referred to above would be if you have your player decode the soundtrack and send multichannel LPCM to the receiver. This seems like an unlikely edge case, but you might want to do this if your player has better decoding/matrixing support for 7.1 than your receiver. You would need a receiver with HDMI audio support for this configuration.


The other possible caveat is related to audio lipsync. I think my receiver has some kind of auto-sync feature that only works when using HDMI audio. However, this also is an edge case you probably don't need to worry about, and I doubt the feature is substantially more useful than the manual delay setting that is usually available for optical digital inputs.


So you probably don't have to worry about those caveats. I included them for completeness, and that is all I can think of.


I am suspicious that someone may be trying to sell you a really old receiver... but it could also be someone trying to help you spend your money wisely and not replace a receiver that you already own. More context would help us help you. Was someone trying to sell you a receiver? Do you have a blu-ray player?


-Max

 

[Benz63amg]

LMFAO that dumb a$$ salesman, for god sake, dont belive a word he says, he doesnt know a thing man.

 

[bajaed]

I just bought a blu-ray player the other day. I have an older Hk AVR325 that I am getting ready to hook up to my new speakers. I was looking at recievers with HDMI connections for a future upgrade. The salesman initially pointed me towards "active" HDMI units instead of cheaper ones that just had pass through HDMI. When I asked him what the difference was and told him I just had a 3.1 setup and would not be going more than 5.1 he said I would not be able to hear a difference unless I had a 7.1 system.


I had never heard that before.

 

[cyphrex]

You can have an active,HDMI receiver ~ Uh a receiver that actually accepts audio over HDMI whether bitstream or LPCM based on the blu-rays settings and processes it and sends it to the amps speakers (and I recommend it over any receiver that just has HDMI passthrough to the TV only) regardless if you are running a 7.1, 5.1, 3.1 or even just 2.0!!!! The surround receivers have speaker configuration menus that allow you to custom tailor how your speakers are set up along with auto eq technologies.

Ignore the sales doofus and buy a receiver that really fits your needs. You really want a fully HDMI capable AVR if you plan to add more HDMI sources in the near future. It will make life so much easier. I have three myself and there will be four if I decide to get that OPPO BP-83 later.

 

[BAMAVADER]



Quote:
Originally Posted by cyphrex /forum/post/16833230


You can have an active,HDMI receiver ~ Uh a receiver that actually accepts audio over HDMI whether bitstream or LPCM based on the blu-rays settings and processes it and sends it to the amps speakers (and I recommend it over any receiver that just has HDMI passthrough to the TV only) regardless if you are running a 7.1, 5.1, 3.1 or even just 2.0!!!! The surround receivers have speaker configuration menus that allow you to custom tailor how your speakers are set up along with auto eq technologies.

Ignore the sales doofus and buy a receiver that really fits your needs. You really want a fully HDMI capable AVR if you plan to add more HDMI sources in the near future. It will make life so much easier. I have three myself and there will be four if I decide to get that OPPO BP-83 later.

In defense of the salesman, a 3.1 system isn't even going to be surround so an HDMI receiver with the new codes would probably be a waste if the OP was not going to go to at least 5.1 but the 7.1 comment I don't understand. Probably meant to say 5.1. I mean CD 2.0 quality will be just as good as 2.0 DD True HD/dts-HDMA because I mean lossless is lossless but again the new codes and HDMI would be worth it for 5.1


good luck...

 

[MichaelJHuman]



Quote:
Originally Posted by bajaed /forum/post/16832746


By a salesman at Electronic Express, that unless you have a 7.1 system you do not need an active HDMI reciever.


In other words he said that a reciever with HDMI pass through and optical audio connections would sound just as good(all other things being equal) as one with active HDMI on 5.1 and smaller systems.


Is that true?

It's hard to guess what someone was thinking.


I can state some general things, though.


As mentioned by some people, if you plan on using a Blu-ray player, HDMI allows you to play lossless audio audio tracks. Optical does not properly support this.


However, optical is reportedly excellent because Dolby Digital and DTS via optical, from a Blu-ray disc, are generally higher quality than on DVD, and therefore closer to what lossless gives you. I am aware of only one serious listening test for this, and I have a link to it in the stickied AVR FAQ.


HDMI provides more than just lossless audio. In theory, it provides the best theoretical transmission of digital video. That is, video from a DVD, Blu-ray, video game, or digital television source. Using component video, or worse, composite video involves conversion to and from analog. Is it a big difference? Not really, especially with component video, which is excellent. But it's something to think about if you are running video through your receiver, which many of us do.


HDMI also provides for less cable clutter, so I use it for ALL my audio/video sources - Tivo, DVD, PS3 and XBox 360.


HDMI can have issues, unfortunately.


I say all of this so you can make a better informed decision.


I certainly think an HDMI receiver WITH HDMI audio (and not just video passthrough,) is going to be helpful in a number of ways as described above. And HDMI will (likely) be the connector of choice for at least the next two years. I have no illusions it will remain so, because the CE industry will force yet another standard down our throats for their own financial gain - the pace of creature freep has accelerated drastically since I started buying AV receivers.

 

[danielo]



Quote:
Originally Posted by bajaed /forum/post/16832746


By a salesman at Electronic Express, that unless you have a 7.1 system you do not need an active HDMI reciever.


In other words he said that a reciever with HDMI pass through and optical audio connections would sound just as good(all other things being equal) as one with active HDMI on 5.1 and smaller systems.


Is that true?

Others have already reacted on part of it, one interesting thing is how he explains 'active' i am guessing that he means some receivers just switch. The result would a loss in audio and video even on 'old' stuff. Esp. if you look at some of the newer (2010) designs that have highend scalers/deinterlacers inside to fix 'old' video and audio processing you want to use these days.


Look at the end result of what _you_ are trying todo each use is different and the 7.1 vs 5.1 is just a weird argument without any demand you might have. For example if you use 3.1 and max 7.1 then it might be interesting to know how you can use the amps left over (bi-amp, bridge, zone2 etc etc).


For me personally even at this price level audyssey (or something simular), the new formats (either over hdmi or not), pre-outs and the best scaler/deinterlacer at the price level would be the highest on my list. Keep in mind sales people are also human and have their own goals/bias and need to know alot about all devices they sell and humans hate to admit they don't know or have no opinion on something.


Daniel.