More complicated than I thought ...

[Bolthouse]

I grew up with HTIB systems and sub/satellite PC speaker systems; Bose, Cambridge SoundWorks, Klipsch, etc. I'm very used to systems that are optimized for simplicity, just plug and play.

Additionally, I'm a very technical person. I've been building my own PCs for almost 2 decades, work in media production, live production, marketing and pyrotechnics.

This is to say; I know enough, to know that I know very little, when it comes to hi-fi and good home theater systems.

I recently purchased (second hand) the following gear:

Yamaha RX-V4600 Reciever
Energy e:XL-S10 Powered Subwoofer
2 X Acoustic Energy AESPRIT 309 Tower Speakers (Front Left/Right)
2 X Acoustic Energy AESPRIT 301 Bookshelf Speakers (Rear Left/Right)
Acoustic Energy AESPRIT 307 Center Channel Speaker

My TV is a Samsung UA55F7500BJ and all my media is streamed through the TV (Amazon, Pandora) or Apple TV (Hulu, Netflix, HBO, YouTube). I live in Hong Kong, so I use a VPN router to access my media. While I have a 500 Mbps fiber connection, my average bit-rate with the VPN router is usually 1.5 - 3 Mbps.

When I'm streaming music, the system sounds great.

However, when I'm streaming movies and TV shows, I'm really unsure as to weather or not I'm getting a good audio signal and/or my receiver is properly decoding that signal?

My brain really starts to hurt when I try to identify the variables in my setup. Was the movie/TV show mixed with surround sound? What surround format is the content being delivered in? Does my current bit-rate support a surround format? Is my receiver set to properly decode the format being delivered?

With all these variables, I feel like I have to constantly adjust my receiver when viewing content, to compensate for these varying conditions.

It's gotten so complicated, my wife often reverts to the TV speakers because the sound system is too difficult to maintain.

Is this what hi-fi is? Do I have to play "audio engineer" when watching a move?

A little guidance/advice would be appreciated.

 

[tyhjaarpa]

Many TV shows are stereo sound only.. Same goes for older movies as well. Also it is possible that all channels don't provide anything better than stereo sound to start with. I myself would put receiver on auto mode and just listen in stereo sound if nothing better is available and when they actually provide surround your receiver should provide correct sounds in auto mode.

 

[markw]

Most TV's only pass two channel audio from their digital outputs. You might want to see if yours is among them,

The best workaround for this is to feed all your multi-channel sources to the receiver, not the TV, use the receiver as your switching device, and feed the receivers video output to the TV.

 

[Bolthouse]

Most TV's only pass two channel audio from their digital outputs. You might want to see if yours is among them,

The best workaround for this is to feed all your multi-channel sources to the receiver, not the TV, use the receiver as your switching device, and feed the receivers video output to the TV.

I had thought this might be the case, but I can't find anything specifically saying so. Having done a little more research on the topic, it seems like Samsung TVs only pass through a stereo PCM signal.

I did a little test and found that my TV (via the Amazon app) was outputting full Dolby Digital, with 5.1 channels showing as active on the receiver.

When I played a movie through Netflix on my Apple TV (connected to the TV, not the receiver), the receiver was only showing 2 channels with Pro Logic decoding.

I'll take your advice and feed everything into the receiver.

Thanks!

 

[herbu]

I'll take your advice and feed everything into the receiver.

Good call. Your receiver is smart enough to handle it automatically. But YOU can take credit w/ your wife.

 

[Bolthouse]

I tried running everything into the receiver via HDMI, but my TV didn't have an HDMI out and for some reason the Apple TV wasn't being detected by the receiver.

As I was fiddling around with settings, I discovered that the Apple TV has an option for Dolby Digital output. It was set to "auto", but wasn't automatically enabling when available. I switched it to "on" and it worked fine after that.

I ended up having to run the Apple TV through the TV as before to get a video signal, but with the one setting changed, everything works out. Even when passing through the TV.

Now everything seems to be switching and detecting properly.