ARC question

Scam · 31 Aug 2015 at 18:47

So I've inherited an Onkyo TX-SR578 receiver.. Using it with my Panasonic GT60 and stereo speakers everything seems great. Everything plugged into the HDMIs into the Onkyo as expected.

I originally hooked up my TV sound into the Onkyo via optical, but realised I could use ARC. So with a bit of fiddling, this works great for the TV sound.

On my last HDMI input on the Onkyo I'm currently using a HDMI splitter going in, with my Xbox, AppleTV (and will add RaspberryPi Kodi).

My question is, would I be better off plugging these straight into the TV's HDMIs and would the ARC work for those too? (I'm hoping so?). That way it saves me the extra button pushes on the switcher. Any downsides in doing that? To be honest none of those devices get used much at all...

Thanks!

lucid · 31 Aug 2015 at 19:29

It will work but the downside is that the sound from each of those sources will be reduced to basic stereo i.e. you'll lose any DD, DTS and HD audio. Your amp can take stereo and apply Dolby ProLogicII to make it pseudo-surround, but as clever as PLII is it's never as good as discrete surround in its original form. It's up to you whether that's important or not.

Scam · 31 Aug 2015 at 20:10

Hmn OK yes I just read about that. Bearing in mind I'm only using two stereo speakers I'm unlikely to notice a difference though surely!

lucid · 31 Aug 2015 at 22:25

Probably not then

TheVoice · 31 Aug 2015 at 22:49

lucid said:
It will work but the downside is that the sound from each of those sources will be reduced to basic stereo i.e. you'll lose any DD, DTS and HD audio.

Not necessarily, my TV provides my AV receiver with a 5.1 signal via ARC from the PS4, Sky box etc that are connected to the TV.

lucid · 1 Sep 2015 at 09:38

TheVoice said:
Not necessarily, my TV provides my AV receiver with a 5.1 signal via ARC from the PS4, Sky box etc that are connected to the TV.

Yeah, it's not absolute, but it is true for the majority of TVs. A few will pass DD5.1, but I haven't found any yet that pass DTS5.1 and HD audio. What model is yours?

Scam · 1 Sep 2015 at 13:49

Well I have a Panasonic GT60 so will investigate what that does..

On a sidenote, seen as I've inherited the Onkyo my Marantz pm6010ose stereo amp is still packed away in it's box. Poor thing

I'm not 100% sure of the musical audio from the Onkyo and have started reading about attaching a stereo amp to an AV receiver. Would this be possible in an easy way? It would be nice to give my Marantz a run-out when I'm listening to my music.. :confused:

lucid · 1 Sep 2015 at 16:48

A GT60 is probably one of the rare exceptions to the rule being an upper end plasma. I would be surprised by passing DD5.1 and maybe DTS. whether that's 5.1 or just 2.0 though. It's all academic though in your case give that the AV Receiver is running in 2.0 only.

To integrate a Stereo amp with the front channels of an AV Receiver the receiver needs to have a set of Pre-Out connections. That will be a feature found on models a few steps higher than the 578.

If you don't need the audio decoding of the 576 amp then you could potentially dispense with it all together. Run all the sources in to the TV. Take optical out to a small DAC that will then convert to stereo audio. Feed that direct in to the Marantz and the stereo speakers.

Scam · 1 Sep 2015 at 18:00

Yeah, looks like it has a subwoofer pre-out only.

lucid said:
If you don't need the audio decoding of the 576 amp then you could potentially dispense with it all together. Run all the sources in to the TV. Take optical out to a small DAC that will then convert to stereo audio. Feed that direct in to the Marantz and the stereo speakers.

I was debating this, but considering I have my two floorstanding stereo speakersa I'm half-heartedly wondering if it would be worth adding (possibly) a sub and centre speaker to make some sort of ghetto 5.1. Or maybe just 4.0 but I've no idea about that. Just keeping my options open. I do have a DAC and optical cables though, I was using that before I figured out the ARC.

The sheer amount of devices attached to this setup is a bit silly so to be honest an AV receiver is probably easier:

- TV
- Sonos Connect
- CD Player
- Bluray Player
- Humax PVR
- FireTV
- AppleTV
- Xbox 360
- Mac Mini (work streaming player)
- RaspberryPi Kodi

Bearing in mind I'd never set up an AV receiver before and had to remove a super-old Pioneer plasma (and receiver box for it) I was supremely chuffed when I got everything working first time. The girlfriend just sat there and complained about how complicated it was. Women... :rolleyes:

TheVoice · 1 Sep 2015 at 18:58

lucid said:
Yeah, it's not absolute, but it is true for the majority of TVs. A few will pass DD5.1, but I haven't found any yet that pass DTS5.1 and HD audio. What model is yours?

Sony Bravia KDL-50W805C. Admittedly I haven't tried any Blu-rays yet so it's entirely possible it won't do DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD, but I'll give it a go.