Replacing home cinema TV and amp, surround questions

[[GSV]Lemming]

Boredom in lockdown is a terrible thing so the house is getting all sorts of attention. The next project is a revamp of the lounge movie setup, still on a budget though.
I am looking at a 60" LG TV, with hdmi-arc for a little future proofing, and a new av amp, onkyo tx-sr393,
to connect my BD player, 4k fire tv box and very occasional console to.
The existing 50" TV will be used elsewhere, my pioneer vsx 1014 amp is being retired.
I don't use free view, no aerial connection in lounge, so most of the time it's the fire tv on plex, prime or Disney +. I already have 5.1 speakers, monitor audio, and a big subwoofer.

I want to ensure a good 5.1 sound signal, is the fire tv via hdmi going to be suitable for this? Will it pass through surround audio signals from plex, prime and catchup apps?

I was never truly happy with audio pass through from the TV to pioneer amp in the past, it never compared to the sound from my BD player.

Any comments or questions that can give me reassurance before I go spending?

 

[lucid]

HDMI ARC isn't going to give you anything more in audio quality terms than you had with Optical audio from the TV in to the VSX1014, presuming that's what you used and it was set to give you Bitstream Dolby Digital. Where the Optical might have been set to PCM Stereo, or you were using a stereo audio out if the TV had that, then that would go quite a way to explaining why the BD player sounded better.

Your audio connection from the BD player to the Pioneer amp, were you using analogue multichannel (6x RCA cables), or digital audio via Coaxial or Optical?

Coaxial and Optical would be limited to DD and DTS audio. You'll be in for quite a treat if that's the best you've heard from your BD collection. The HDMI connection on a new amp will pass uncompressed Dolby True HD and DTS Master Audio. Those audio formats are featured on a lot of Blu-ray discs.

Where you were (are) using 6x RCA cables, then you'll already have experienced uncompressed multichannel audio.


In your new system with HDMI ARC, any audio from sources connected to the TV, or streaming apps built in to the TV, should be capable of Dolby Digital the same as DVD. You might also get 2-channel DTS. Support for multichannel DTS at DVD quality is much rarer. For ATMOS, you'll probably get Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) which is how the broadcasters and streaming services are doing ATMOS support. It's a lossy format same as DVD-quality DD but with the addition of the height channel info mixed in using matrixing in a similar way to how a stereo signal can carry Dolby Surround (ProLogic) as a hidden track.

To get anything better than this via the TV such as the higher quality audio from Blu-ray, you would need both a TV and an AV receiver with a higher grade of ARC connection called eARC. However, it's a bit pointless buying eARC compatible hardware when you have an AV receiver with multiple HDMI inputs. Why would you plug your BD player (or 4K player) in to the TV rather than direct in to the AV amp? There's no point, so having eARC in that situation is moot. Similarly, none of the streaming services do anything better currently than DD+ which standard HDMI ARC supports anyway, so again, eARC is pointless.

 

[[GSV]Lemming]

The BD player was connected by hdmi to the TV, and optical to the amp. I had no hdmi on the amp for pass through so all sources went via the TV with fire tv audio the most disappointing.

I plan to have all sources connect to the amp via hdmi this time around, the TV itself will not act as a source for any audio as I have no free view connection.

I always suspected the fire tv to TV to amp connection was giving me a poor experience although I was unable to quantify it, the mere fact the BD connection was so much better seemed to prove it.
I wanted to ensure an arc connection just in case I get free view on the TV at some point, its placement on a freestanding fireplace in the middle of a large lounge-diner makes it unlikely at this point. No way to get a cable to it without being unsightly..

I cant say I miss live TV much, so little I am interested in and its always there on catchup if I can be bothered.

Thanks for the response, it gives me an expectation that this will be a decent improvement.