Digital audio to old style R and L audio.

[Tdoriot]

Hi guys, I'm new to this forum. I'm revamping my 20 year old dedicated home theater with a projector system. I have a Technics THX receiver that has served well and is staying for the time being. I bought a new Sony Bluray player that has HDMI and digital audio out. My amp of course isn't. I bought a amazon digital to audio converter. I assume the interconnect cable is a standard RCA cable. I plugged one into the digital out and then plugged the standard into the THX receiver. All worked perfectly for about a minute, then only static. Resetting the converter does nothing. Did I blow it's brains out with the wrong cable or was the converter defective? What is the proper RCA look digital audio out to converter cable? Any help or input would be appreciated. Thanks. Tracy

 

[Adam]

Welcome to the forum, Tracy!

A standard RCA cable will work fine for that digital audio connection, so that's not the problem. It's entirely possible that the converter is defective, and Amazon is really good about exchanging items. Whenever there is a problem like this, just keep in mind that it could be due to anything involved having an issue: your receiver, the blu-ray player, the cables, or the converter. If you haven't already, you could try another input on the receiver to make sure that it wasn't that connection that went bad. Cables do have connectors go bad (from the internal solder connections failing where the wires attach to the end connectors), although I doubt that happened here. The blu-ray player might have a bad output, too. All of that said, I tend to agree with you that it's the converter and that you should exchange it for a new one.

 

[TLS Guy]

Hi guys, I'm new to this forum. I'm revamping my 20 year old dedicated home theater with a projector system. I have a Technics THX receiver that has served well and is staying for the time being. I bought a new Sony Bluray player that has HDMI and digital audio out. My amp of course isn't. I bought a amazon digital to audio converter. I assume the interconnect cable is a standard RCA cable. I plugged one into the digital out and then plugged the standard into the THX receiver. All worked perfectly for about a minute, then only static. Resetting the converter does nothing. Did I blow it's brains out with the wrong cable or was the converter defective? What is the proper RCA look digital audio out to converter cable? Any help or input would be appreciated. Thanks. Tracy

Which BD player do you have? This is important.

Those digital to audio converters are limited. They only accept two channel PCM. So your BD player has to be able to mix multichannel audio to two channel PCM audio out. Unfortunately most can't. If you send multichannel to those converters, then you get exactly what you describe.

I know you have my philosophy of if it works why change it. However there really is a forcing of HDMI. The studios through their HDCP code arm really don't want you to do what you are doing, although it is not banned yet. I believe the problem you are having is to a very large extent intentional.

The fact is, that doing what you are trying to do without HDMI compatible devices is a total PITA. So my advice is to cur your losses, quit faffing around and get an HDMI receiver.

 

[Tdoriot]

Which BD player do you have? This is important.

Those digital to audio converters are limited. They only accept two channel PCM. So your BD player has to be able to mix multichannel audio to two channel PCM audio out. Unfortunately most can't. If you send multichannel to those converters, then you get exactly what you describe.

I know you have my philosophy of if it works why change it. However there really is a forcing of HDMI. The studios through their HDCP code arm really don't want you to do what you are doing, although it is not banned yet. I believe the problem you are having is to a very large extent intentional.

The fact is, that doing what you are trying to do without HDMI compatible devices is a total PITA. So my advice is to cur your losses, quit faffing around and get an HDMI receiver.

Thanks guys for the input. It was ingesting that I had great audio for a minute ! My blue ray is a Sony BDP BX510.

You are totally correct. Since I have no hdmi switching capacity I need a HDMI switch to switch sources for my 1 HDMI input projector. I need to heal up from all the cash bleeding I've done with all my remodeling lately. In the meantime, I obviously need to read up here on updated sound. I have 5 speakers now, all in the wrong place. I reversed my theater and now have the seating on the wall where the old 50" react projection tv was. So nowi have to opposed speakers on each side of the screen. I assume these need to be moved to each side of the screen, a center channel added and the old front right and left spread apart or possibly placed in the ceiling above the rear seating. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks guys.

 

[Tdoriot]

Ok, so here's the next chapter in the sound conundrum. On the chance the digital to analog converter was roached, I went to rip shack and picked up another. I hooked that up to the Sony BDP BX510 via the coax lead. As advised I picked up a new coax cable. When playing almost any DVD, I get NO sound out of the Technics SX 1000 THX receiver. It is working because I can input analog from my direct TV receiver and it works fine. Interestingly enough Terminator 2 can be made to work by starting the movie then hitting the audio button on the Sony remote and toggling until I get great sound. The Dolby Digital 5.1 doesn't seem to work. I know the ultimate answer is a new amp, but I'm not in a position to toss another $500-$ 1,000 on a new amp. I think tommorow I am going to yard my bedroom blue ray out and try it in that position. That DVD player has the HDMI as well as 7.1 analog output. What can possibly go wrong ? Is it possible that the new Sony is defective ?

Update: reading the converter pamphlet indicates that this device won't accept anything but 2 channel with Dolby and anything good disabled. So, hopefully one of my other Bluray players will come to the rescue !

 

[TLS Guy]

Ok, so here's the next chapter in the sound conundrum. On the chance the digital to analog converter was roached, I went to rip shack and picked up another. I hooked that up to the Sony BDP BX510 via the coax lead. As advised I picked up a new coax cable. When playing almost any DVD, I get NO sound out of the Technics SX 1000 THX receiver. It is working because I can input analog from my direct TV receiver and it works fine. Interestingly enough Terminator 2 can be made to work by starting the movie then hitting the audio button on the Sony remote and toggling until I get great sound. The Dolby Digital 5.1 doesn't seem to work. I know the ultimate answer is a new amp, but I'm not in a position to toss another $500-$ 1,000 on a new amp. I think tommorow I am going to yard my bedroom blue ray out and try it in that position. That DVD player has the HDMI as well as 7.1 analog output. What can possibly go wrong ? Is it possible that the new Sony is defective ?

Update: reading the converter pamphlet indicates that this device won't accept anything but 2 channel with Dolby and anything good disabled. So, hopefully one of my other Bluray players will come to the rescue !

No the Sony is not defective. It can not present a signal to the converter it can decode under most circumstances. In addition you have a very new BD player. It has the new Advanced Access Content System (AACS) and the Content Scramble System (CSS). These systems are designed to stop you accessing audio from anything other than HDMI, with discs encoded with either of those systems. I understand that discs have been so encoded for some time, but will play on systems that do not have the codes. Now players with these codes seem to be coming to market. It is explained in not to clear terms, that the player will not mix down and you can only get audio out of the digital out if it is connected to an input that can handle multichannel PCM. So as I originally thought the type of DACS you have will only work with discs that have a two channel PCM track and that is not many.

If you use the 7.1 outputs, make sure you set that DVD player to mix down 5.1 and 7.1 to two channel, otherwise you won't hear dialog.

Your other option is to buy an older player that has two channel audio outs. So look on eBay.

I think any new player is likely to give you a headache unless you buy a modern receiver, which is what you really need to do. So bite the bullet.

 

[Ponzio]

I think any new player is likely to give you a headache unless you buy a modern receiver, which is what you really need to do. So bite the bullet.

FWIW there's a 1 day sale today on a Pioneer AVR at what I think is a pretty reasonable price. I've posted the info in the deals, Deals, DEALS forum.
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/deals-deals-deals/89122-pioneer-vsx-1023-k-7-1-channel-avr-1-day-sale.html

 

[Tdoriot]

FWIW there's a 1 day sale today on a Pioneer AVR at what I think is a pretty reasonable price. I've posted the info in the deals, Deals, DEALS forum.
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/deals-deals-deals/89122-pioneer-vsx-1023-k-7-1-channel-avr-1-day-sale.html

Hey Ponzio, all is exactly as you predicted. The new DVD is too fricking anti piracy focused. I drug a 3d Samsung player with not only 7.1 but standard R,L analog, and it works perfectly! Woohoo! Still all in all, looks like that link you sent is a killer deal! If I can get my CFO to authorize the deal, I might snag one to upgrade my sound to the current standard. Thanks for the affirmation on my players. That solved a bunch of frustration. Not to mention 1/3 the cost of the receiver you recommended in bandaid work around crap! Thanks. Tracy

 

[Ponzio]

Hey Ponzio, all is exactly as you predicted. The new DVD is too fricking anti piracy focused. I drug a 3d Samsung player with not only 7.1 but standard R,L analog, and it works perfectly! Woohoo! Still all in all, looks like that link you sent is a killer deal! If I can get my CFO to authorize the deal, I might snag one to upgrade my sound to the current standard. Thanks for the affirmation on my players. That solved a bunch of frustration. Not to mention 1/3 the cost of the receiver you recommended in bandaid work around crap! Thanks. Tracy

That's great to hear. Keep in mind that the Pioneer AVR in on sale today only. Personally I'm a Yamaha guy, so I can't speak about the Pioneer unit but 140W is 140W any way you slice it and it's new and not refurbished, another plus in my eyes. Good luck whatever you decide.

I think you want to extend your gratitude to TLS Guy & Adam, in regards to the technical aspects of your issue. I'm just the guy who possibly convinced you to spend your hard earned cash.