New TV Old Receiver Issue - Classic Problem - Please Help

[BrandonNY]

Hey guys,

I am running into an issue that is a common problem but does not often have the same answer. I have an old receiver which I am trying to connect to a new television I bought. The difference in tech-generations makes this difficult. If you have advice on how to fix the situation I would greatly appreciate it (saves me from buying a new receiver or the wrong converters).

Here is the low down:

New TV:
Samsung Model NoN60E7000FF

Old Receiver:
Onkyo Model No: TX-SR501
http://filedepot.onkyousa.com/Files/own_manuals/TX-SR501_E.pdf

The only device I would connect to it would be a PS3 for gaming and blue ray.

Images of the ports on TV and Receiver:
can be found here

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[TLS Guy]

Hey guys,

I am running into an issue that is a common problem but does not often have the same answer. I have an old receiver which I am trying to connect to a new television I bought. The difference in tech-generations makes this difficult. If you have advice on how to fix the situation I would greatly appreciate it (saves me from buying a new receiver or the wrong converters).

Here is the low down:

New TV:
Samsung Model NoN60E7000FF

Old Receiver:
Onkyo Model No: TX-SR501
http://filedepot.onkyousa.com/Files/own_manuals/TX-SR501_E.pdf

The only device I would connect to it would be a PS3 for gaming and blue ray.

Images of the ports on TV and Receiver:
can be found here

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

In reality because of increasingly onerous DRM, you need a new receiver with HDMI connectivity.

You problem is that you can go from your PS3 to your receiver using the multi to component cable supplied by SONY. This will give you video and audio to your speakers. You will not be able to get audio to your TV. So if you just want to see video and use speakers connected to your receiver, you will get by to an extent. However flags can now be placed in program material, that will not allow analog output. That means a forcing of HDMI.

In addition newer equipment now has no analog outs.

Your best solution is actually to get a receiver with HDMI inputs and output.

 

[Adam]

Welcome to the forum, Brandon! Very cool that you included photos of all of the connections.

I don't agree that you need to buy a new receiver, or that you would ever use the analog connections. There are two fairly easy ways to connect this up:
1. My recommendation is to connect the PS3 to the TV using HDMI, connect the PS3 to the receiver using the optical audio output, and then go into the PS3 audio menu and set it up to output audio over the optical output. This will allow you to get 5.1 audio from the PS3
2. Alternatively, you can connect the PS3 to the TV using HDMI, set up the PS3 audio menu to output audio over HDMI (probably the default), and connect the TV's optical audio output to the receiver. I didn't specifically research your new Samsung, but my guess is that you'd only get stereo sound because most TVs will convert audio from an HDMI input into stereo for output through that optical audio output (but, you can always try it)

The advantage of an HDMI receiver would be the ability to get 7.1 audio from blu-rays, but that would only matter if you have a 7.1 system set up and the blu-ray actually has a 7.1 audio track (a lot of them don't).

 

[BrandonNY]

Thank you Adam:

That first option may work connecting the ps3 to the tv via hdmi ad then the ps3 optical audio output. I will have to try that. So far the only success at all that I was having was connecting the optical cable from the audio optical out from the tv to the receiver but this resulted in only the left and right front speakers playing. I will let you know how it goes, thanks again.

 

[BMXTRIX]

Adam's solution is the correct one.

The PS3, and a fair number of other digital devices have HDMI and digital audio connections. Even devices with component video (cable box) will likely have HDMI and a digital audio connection available which you should utilize for your audio.

Take HDMI directly from the device (PS3, Cable box, Blu-ray player, etc.) directly to the TV.
Take digital audio, either optical or coaxial, and run it from the device into your A/V receiver.
The PS3 is one of the only devices on the market that require that you change the audio settings to have the audio coming through the digital optical audio (Toslink) output. The rest output through HDMI, optical/coaxial digital, and analog audio at the same time.