5.1 Headphone Output from...title doesn't have enough room to explain

[Redgie]

Right so my current situation is my HTPC outputting from a HD6450 via HDMI bitstreaming 1080p stuff, some of which is 2.0 some of which is DTS-HD 5.1 you know the drill..

Anyway, what I now want is a set of headphones on my bed-side table. Simple right?

Sadly, my AV Receiver (Sony STR-DN1000) only has a single audio output other than the speakers, and that is Headphone out, which outputs in 2.0 lossy.

So the question is, how do I get an output to a set of 5.1 headphones without changing the AV Receiver. My current (Ridiculous) idea, is to split the HDMI output from the HTPC, convert one output to optical, feed that into a headphone amp, and that in turn into the headphones base. However for obvious reasons, this idea is far from perfect.

Is there any other method that springs to mind? It seems wasteful to spend £120 on a set of headphones only to listen to stereo audio (It's a birthday present btw, sort of one of those "Want don't need" scenarios).

Help HT Gods

 

[Vonhelmet]

I'm looking at a similar thing, as I have wireless surround sound headphones for my XBox 360, but am about to get a receiver and all that jazz rigged up... Similarly to your situation, there is no optical out on my receiver. I can't see any other way of doing it than to run HDMI into the amp and also leave the current optical that I have going into my headphones base station.

To be honest, I can't see another way around it... You need optical out to go into your headphones, and you don't have it at the point that you need it, so you're going to have to work your way back up the chain until you're at a place where you have it. That means splitting the HDMI output, or running an optical directly off the soundcard, if you can.