Noob question - Why can't we just have one lead to TV and then one lead to Amp?

NeilF

NeilF

NeilF

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Why can't we just have?

ALL DEVICES ---> TV ---> AMP?

ie: The TV gets the audio, plays it in stereo, and also just passes it through to the AMP (so it can play DTS etc)?

So if you watch anything/everything through the TV, and then should you want better sound... You just turn the amp on...


What am I missing?
 
NeilFawcett said:
Understood...

But that surely means to listen to anything you need to turn the amp on?

eg: 99% of the time while watching Sky, I wouldn't bother with the amp, and just listed to it through the TV?
Click to expand...

Depending on the TV, it will toggle between TV speakers and active speakers (from the amp)

So if you left the amp switched off, it would just use the TV speakers.
 
A lot of Telly's will do passthru of sound from the HDMI to one of the outs. For example. my telly will happily output via the Optical out or the Line out. But its only stereo, all the surround gets stripped.

Going the other way round the thing thats good at audio gets it first. Then your telly only has to do the visuals.

Your way your sound comes out of the telly half the time, and you'd need to fiddle with audio settings in the telly everytime you wanted to use the amp. Either way, there should be a world of difference between the built in TV speakers and the ones connected to your amp.

But that surely means to listen to anything you need to turn the amp on?
Click to expand...

Get a remote that turns both on. Or a power strip that does the same.
 
SC0TTRS said:
Depending on the TV, it will toggle between TV speakers and active speakers (from the amp)

So if you left the amp switched off, it would just use the TV speakers.
Click to expand...

Sorry. Being dim...

So we have:-

Sky --> Amp --> TV

or

BluRay --> Amp --> TV


If the amp is off, how will the sound from the Sky box or the Bluray player get to the TV?
 
lude1962 said:
some amps support hdmi pass through while on standby
Click to expand...

Understood, but how would it know which device to feed through to your TV? The bluray player? Sky? etc?

All seems a tad daft when the solution would be the TV to simply pass though the audio? ie:-

ALL DEVICES --> TV --> AMP
 
Why is the AV receiver off in any of these scenarios? You've got the equipment there, use it. :p

You can easily have all devices connected to the TV instead of the receiver if you want, it just means using your TV remote to change inputs rather than the receiver one. As said above, a lot of TVs won't output anything more than stereo to AV receivers when used in that manner.
 
TheVoice said:
Why is the AV receiver off in any of these scenarios? You've got the equipment there, use it. :p

You can easily have all devices connected to the TV instead of the receiver if you want, it just means using your TV remote to change inputs rather than the receiver one. As said above, a lot of TVs won't output anything more than stereo to AV receivers when used in that manner.
Click to expand...

eg: Because 99% the time Sky is on, the amp is not (required)?
 
NeilFawcett said:
Understood, but how would it know which device to feed through to your TV? The bluray player? Sky? etc?
Click to expand...

It would normally use the last selected input before being turned to standby. So if you needed to switch input while in standby you'd have to turn the amp on, switch input, then turn it off again.
 
NeilFawcett said:
Understood, but how would it know which device to feed through to your TV? The bluray player? Sky? etc?

All seems a tad daft when the solution would be the TV to simply pass though the audio? ie:-

ALL DEVICES --> TV --> AMP
Click to expand...

That doesn't make much sense... then you would have more cables going to the TV which would make a big mess. You would also need more longer cables, where connected to the amp you can have a bunch of short cables.

When you consider the AMP is normally next to all the other devices.

If you want to use it as you suggest, many amps offer passthrough like others have mentioned in this thread already.

Isn't the point of having an amp and speakers to... use them...? So your scenario would be in the minority - so again it makes sense to have it the way round it currently is.

Built in speakers are usually quite poor, so I don't know why anyone would want to use them - even watching normal TV like news or sports that don't really benefit from a proper sound system.
 
BBC breakfast gets piped through the amp in the mornings. Not sure why you wouldn't be using it! That strikes me as the Dad argument of not putting miles on the car.
 
99% of amps have HDMI passthrough, so if the amp is off the sound is passed through along with the picture to the TV. All amps I have ever checked have an auto setting on this that is intelligent to know which to pass through, especially as you would only have one thing actively going through it at a time anyway usually.
 
pepp77 said:
99% of amps have HDMI passthrough, so if the amp is off the sound is passed through along with the picture to the TV. All amps I have ever checked have an auto setting on this that is intelligent to know which to pass through, especially as you would only have one thing actively going through it at a time anyway usually.
Click to expand...

I guess this would when you'd employed an optical?

So for example:-
Sky HDMI --> TV
Sky Optical --> Amp
Bluray & Media Player HDMI --> Amp --> TV
Squeezebox Optical --> Amp​


So there's three camps of connections:-
Always though the amp: Bluray & Media Player devices. So the Amp has to be turned on.
Optionally through amp: Sky. So audio is though TV or Amp.
Amp only: Squeezebox audio (FLAC) playback.​




BUT! It would all be so much move conventient with:-

Bluray & Sky & media player HDMIs --> TV --> Amp.

But I think others have mentioned we're into the realms of copyright and goodness knows what that prevents the TV from allow DTS etc out the back of it?
 
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