What is even the point of older 7.1 AVRs?

[JZStudios]

Aside from the fact that only a handful of movies on DVD had 6.1, much less 7.1, it seems impossible to actually get 7.1 over the optical connection and there's not a direct connect for a bunch of stereo pairs like PC motherboards. I guess Windows 10 broke optical surround, but even the PS3 and PS4 won't output 7.1, and all of the matrix/DSP modes on the AVR are 6.1 at most based on the manual.

Unless I'm missing something, it seems like 7.1 never actually existed in home AVRs until HDMI came around with LPCM.

[Stahlmann]

Afaik 7.1 just never gained traction. 5.1 is an established standard and anything that requires "more" surround just uses Dolby Atmos, which can use as many surround speakers as you want.

[JZStudios]

5 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

Afaik 7.1 just never gained traction. 5.1 is an established standard and anything that requires "more" surround just uses Dolby Atmos, which can use as many surround speakers as you want.

Well apparently the optical connection just straight can't handle 7.1, it can barely do 5.1. This particular 7.1 AVR has a lot of Cinema DSP modes and they only do 6.1. It supposed to upscale, but it only upscales to 6.1, so there's no actual reason for these things to exist. At this point, HDMI will carry Atmos and 7.1 discretely.

[BuzzingBee]

Back then Dolby Pro Logic IIx can truly upmix up to 7.1, maybe THX Neural Surround as well but they were obscured and later acquired by DTS.

 

Older AVRs also had multichannel analog inputs which may still be useful for PC

[JZStudios]

10 hours ago, BuzzingBee said:

Back then Dolby Pro Logic IIx can truly upmix up to 7.1, maybe THX Neural Surround as well but they were obscured and later acquired by DTS.

 

Older AVRs also had multichannel analog inputs which may still be useful for PC

This only had 5.1 analog inputs, and it would play direct 5.1 audio as 7.1, meaning it was adding something somewhere I didn't want.

[BuzzingBee]

6 hours ago, JZStudios said:

This only had 5.1 analog inputs, and it would play direct 5.1 audio as 7.1, meaning it was adding something somewhere I didn't want.

That sounds odd, because multi-channel analog inputs are direct connections and wouldn't be affected from sound processing like surround upmixer. If you connect 5.1 analog input, it should output 5.1 too.
My only other guess is your AVR actually supports 7.1 analog, but when looking at the back of AVR it may only have 6 total connections for 5.1 sound, so it can get confusing. When your AVR is set muli-channel analog to 7.1, then front connections on multi-channel input turned into surround-back, which may explain why you're hearing sounds from surround-back speakers. As for front connections it is moved to DVD input or depending on what AVR manual says.

[dalekphalm]

On 6/9/2021 at 7:50 PM, JZStudios said:

Aside from the fact that only a handful of movies on DVD had 6.1, much less 7.1, it seems impossible to actually get 7.1 over the optical connection and there's not a direct connect for a bunch of stereo pairs like PC motherboards. I guess Windows 10 broke optical surround, but even the PS3 and PS4 won't output 7.1, and all of the matrix/DSP modes on the AVR are 6.1 at most based on the manual.

Unless I'm missing something, it seems like 7.1 never actually existed in home AVRs until HDMI came around with LPCM.

TOSLINK has enough bandwidth for Dolby Digital 7.1 or DTS 7.1 - these would have been available on many Blu-Ray discs and some DVD's.

 

6.1 though? I can't imagine hardly anyone ever used that. What would be the point? The centre channel is far more important than adding rear channels.

[JZStudios]

16 hours ago, BuzzingBee said:

That sounds odd, because multi-channel analog inputs are direct connections and wouldn't be affected from sound processing like surround upmixer. If you connect 5.1 analog input, it should output 5.1 too.
My only other guess is your AVR actually supports 7.1 analog, but when looking at the back of AVR it may only have 6 total connections for 5.1 sound, so it can get confusing. When your AVR is set muli-channel analog to 7.1, then front connections on multi-channel input turned into surround-back, which may explain why you're hearing sounds from surround-back speakers. As for front connections it is moved to DVD input or depending on what AVR manual says.

I wasn't using the analog. I was using optical trying to get 7.1. It just seems ridiculous, it's a good receiver otherwise, but the 7.1 functionality doesn't seem to actually exist on these older models when all of the upsampling DSP's are only 6.1.

 

7 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

TOSLINK has enough bandwidth for Dolby Digital 7.1 or DTS 7.1 - these would have been available on many Blu-Ray discs and some DVD's.

 

6.1 though? I can't imagine hardly anyone ever used that. What would be the point? The centre channel is far more important than adding rear channels.

Not based on any modern hardware support then. The PS4 recognized it as only 5.1 and the manual said all the DSPs were 6.1. Win10 only recognizes optical as stereo now, because why would something built on the bones of Win7 have the same functionality? If MS hadn't forced me I'd still be on 7.

[BuzzingBee]

5 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

TOSLINK has enough bandwidth for Dolby Digital 7.1 or DTS 7.1 - these would have been available on many Blu-Ray discs and some DVD's.

 

6.1 though? I can't imagine hardly anyone ever used that. What would be the point? The centre channel is far more important than adding rear channels.

Toslink can only support up to Dolby/DTS 6.1 and PCM 2.0. For Dolby Digital+, TrueHD, DTS-MA and PCM 5.1/7.1 require HDMI cable.

Agreed with second statement as 6.1 wasn't really popular in the first place. 

5 hours ago, JZStudios said:

I wasn't using the analog. I was using optical trying to get 7.1. It just seems ridiculous, it's a good receiver otherwise, but the 7.1 functionality doesn't seem to actually exist on these older models when all of the upsampling DSP's are only 6.1.

 

Not based on any modern hardware support then. The PS4 recognized it as only 5.1 and the manual said all the DSPs were 6.1. Win10 only recognizes optical as stereo now, because why would something built on the bones of Win7 have the same functionality? If MS hadn't forced me I'd still be on 7.

My bad as we're dealing with digital connection.

Yeah... there's no way to get 7.1 out of optical. For PS4/5 you would have to stick to Dolby/DTS 5.1 then use surround upmixer to 6.1.

 

As for PC, because optical cable only supports pcm 2.0 it's why there isn't 5.1+ available on configure tab. I don't have experience to explain what Win7 had that was removed in win10, so I'll speculate that if there was 5.1 speaker configuration available then it was testing through Dolby or DTS as optical never supported pcm 5.1+. You could get it to test 5.1 if you go over Properties > Support Formats then click Test on DTS audio and Dolby Digital. 

But unlike consoles, PC doesn't offer Dolby or DTS audio actively for gaming. You'll need to get a sound card that supports Dolby Digital Live or DTS connect so that it would convert audio to either format then getting extracted and played in AVR.

Personally I would rather use multichannel analog on PC to avoid headaches from shopping a sound card and knowing that analog's audio latency is better than Dolby/DTS.

[JZStudios]

16 hours ago, BuzzingBee said:

As for PC, because optical cable only supports pcm 2.0 it's why there isn't 5.1+ available on configure tab. I don't have experience to explain what Win7 had that was removed in win10, so I'll speculate that if there was 5.1 speaker configuration available then it was testing through Dolby or DTS as optical never supported pcm 5.1+. You could get it to test 5.1 if you go over Properties > Support Formats then click Test on DTS audio and Dolby Digital. 

But unlike consoles, PC doesn't offer Dolby or DTS audio actively for gaming. You'll need to get a sound card that supports Dolby Digital Live or DTS connect so that it would convert audio to either format then getting extracted and played in AVR.

Personally I would rather use multichannel analog on PC to avoid headaches from shopping a sound card and knowing that analog's audio latency is better than Dolby/DTS.

I'm aware it only does stereo PCM, but Win7 and the audio drivers did 5.1. When I was looking at this I saw some things mentioning a hacked Realtek audio driver that added the functionality back in. On Win7 it may not have been 5.1 PCM, but each channel was independently addressable.

There was quite a few games that supported DD on PC, always kind of confused me. I guess at this point optical is really just in the past and I really wish some new standard would be made for just an audio cable. I have a 5.1 AVR hooked up to my PC and I have to run it as a monitor since it's only 60hz and HDMI requires a video signal. Maybe the next gen AVRs will have USB-C or something, that'd be cool.

[BuzzingBee]

Yeah, AVR need another connection type for PCM multichannel support. Apart from Dolby Atmos (which not many of us have speaker setup for it) HDMI audio hasn't been advancing for around 15 years now as we still have PCM up to 7.1. On the other hand we have HDMI display advancing over time, and recently there's HDMI 2.1 available. To me it feels unfair when AVR can be "outdated" when HDMI display version is advancing while audio remained unchanged at PCM 7.1. For example if you get PS5 or Xbox Series X and your AVR has HDMI 2.0, it's either you get 7.1 PCM with 4k 60hz if connecting console into AVR, or 5.1 Dolby/DTS (if TV supports optical out or ARC) with 4K 120hz if console connecting to TV. 

 

Bottom line, there should be an alternative option for multichannel PCM like USB to avoid AVR from being unnecessarily outdated from  HDMI's new features that is unrelated to audio.

[JZStudios]

1 hour ago, BuzzingBee said:

Yeah, AVR need another connection type for PCM multichannel support. Apart from Dolby Atmos (which not many of us have speaker setup for it) HDMI audio hasn't been advancing for around 15 years now as we still have PCM up to 7.1. On the other hand we have HDMI display advancing over time, and recently there's HDMI 2.1 available. To me it feels unfair when AVR can be "outdated" when HDMI display version is advancing while audio remained unchanged at PCM 7.1. For example if you get PS5 or Xbox Series X and your AVR has HDMI 2.0, it's either you get 7.1 PCM with 4k 60hz if connecting console into AVR, or 5.1 Dolby/DTS (if TV supports optical out or ARC) with 4K 120hz if console connecting to TV. 

 

Bottom line, there should be an alternative option for multichannel PCM like USB to avoid AVR from being unnecessarily outdated from  HDMI's new features that is unrelated to audio.

My AVR doesn't even support 4k, pretty sure. Definitely not HDR, but it's hooked up to my PC so it's not a problem. I don't know what other advancement you'd really want though. There's not a lot of use cases for above 7.1, and it supports Atmos.

 

Do TVs not pass through LPCM?

[circeseye]

3 hours ago, JZStudios said:

My AVR doesn't even support 4k, pretty sure. Definitely not HDR, but it's hooked up to my PC so it's not a problem. I don't know what other advancement you'd really want though. There's not a lot of use cases for above 7.1, and it supports Atmos.

 

Do TVs not pass through LPCM?

i want the option in windows that sets hdmi as audio only instead of having to set up dual monitors

[BuzzingBee]

HDMI with ARC can only support up to stereo PCM and 5.1 Dolby Digital / DTS. Newer AVR and TV with eARC can support 7.1 PCM / Atmos / DTS:X.

 

For sound enhancements, IMO we don't need more speakers as I think majority of people with AVR still have 5.1 speakers, as it's adequate enough for surround experience for living room / bedroom. As for sound features, AVRs have improve room correction over time so that could be a reason to upgrade new AVR over old one for sound quality.

 

Aside from that, I'm fine with my older AVR with 7.1 PCM, but I had to go through hoops to get PS5 to output at 4k 60hz (and possibly 120hz) and 7.1 PCM by purchasing eARC SHARC device. Again, it would be much easier if LPCM is available through other connections not just HDMI. 

[JZStudios]

13 hours ago, circeseye said:

i want the option in windows that sets hdmi as audio only instead of having to set up dual monitors

HDMI apparently needs a video signal to work at all. Hence why I want a replacement for spdif like USB-C or something. Hell, USB-C could even carry video if it needed.

 

12 hours ago, BuzzingBee said:

HDMI with ARC can only support up to stereo PCM and 5.1 Dolby Digital / DTS. Newer AVR and TV with eARC can support 7.1 PCM / Atmos / DTS:X.

 

For sound enhancements, IMO we don't need more speakers as I think majority of people with AVR still have 5.1 speakers, as it's adequate enough for surround experience for living room / bedroom. As for sound features, AVRs have improve room correction over time so that could be a reason to upgrade new AVR over old one for sound quality.

 

Aside from that, I'm fine with my older AVR with 7.1 PCM, but I had to go through hoops to get PS5 to output at 4k 60hz (and possibly 120hz) and 7.1 PCM by purchasing eARC SHARC device. Again, it would be much easier if LPCM is available through other connections not just HDMI. 

Huh. Maybe I should run My PS4 through the AVR for Plex n stuff then. Although considering most of the movies are realistically probably DD anyways I don't think it's a huge problem.

 

Yeah, currently I have a triple monitor setup, but the primary is 144hz with sides at 60hz. I have to have my PS4 plugged in to the AVR and manually disconnect the DVI and plug in the AVR output HDMI if I want to use my PS4. Odd side effect is for some reason it completely changes the colors of my screen to be much worse. Have to otherwise have my AVR mirror one of my side monitors despite it not being plugged in to anything.

[BuzzingBee]

5 hours ago, JZStudios said:

HDMI apparently needs a video signal to work at all. Hence why I want a replacement for spdif like USB-C or something. Hell, USB-C could even carry video if it needed.

 

Huh. Maybe I should run My PS4 through the AVR for Plex n stuff then. Although considering most of the movies are realistically probably DD anyways I don't think it's a huge problem.

 

Yeah, currently I have a triple monitor setup, but the primary is 144hz with sides at 60hz. I have to have my PS4 plugged in to the AVR and manually disconnect the DVI and plug in the AVR output HDMI if I want to use my PS4. Odd side effect is for some reason it completely changes the colors of my screen to be much worse. Have to otherwise have my AVR mirror one of my side monitors despite it not being plugged in to anything.

I have another AVR for my PC at my bedroom. My main monitor is connected directly to gfx card, and my secondary monitor is connected to AVR then gfx card. My AVR also has second HDMI out which is connected to my main monitor when I want to use other devices like Chromecast.

 

Kind of strange you have to manually unplug cable for ps4. Is it because your monitor don't have enough inputs? As for weird colour changes have you tried set video to passthrough?

[JZStudios]

7 hours ago, BuzzingBee said:

I have another AVR for my PC at my bedroom. My main monitor is connected directly to gfx card, and my secondary monitor is connected to AVR then gfx card. My AVR also has second HDMI out which is connected to my main monitor when I want to use other devices like Chromecast.

 

Kind of strange you have to manually unplug cable for ps4. Is it because your monitor don't have enough inputs? As for weird colour changes have you tried set video to passthrough?

My GPU has HDMI to my AVR, and DVI to my monitor. If I plug in the HDMI out to my monitor I technically have 2 connections from my PC to the monitor and it freaks out. Could be the monitor, I don't know. So for 99% of the time my AVR's output port isn't plugged into anything and I have it mirroring my side monitor so I don't have a screen that doesn't exist.

 

I don't know if it's the AVR or HDMI in general. As far as I'm aware, there's no reason the AVR should change the colors.

[VoidX]

On 6/10/2021 at 1:50 AM, JZStudios said:

Aside from the fact that only a handful of movies on DVD had 6.1, much less 7.1, it seems impossible to actually get 7.1 over the optical connection and there's not a direct connect for a bunch of stereo pairs like PC motherboards. I guess Windows 10 broke optical surround, but even the PS3 and PS4 won't output 7.1, and all of the matrix/DSP modes on the AVR are 6.1 at most based on the manual.

Unless I'm missing something, it seems like 7.1 never actually existed in home AVRs until HDMI came around with LPCM.

Today's movies have close to 100% release rate in 7.1, as Atmos is mandatory for UHD BDs. Older AVRs have line-in for 7.1.

[JZStudios]

4 hours ago, VoidX said:

Today's movies have close to 100% release rate in 7.1, as Atmos is mandatory for UHD BDs. Older AVRs have line-in for 7.1.

You missed the part where I said DVD. I only have a handful of Blu-rays, but all of them are also 5.1. I don't even have anything that can play 4k blu-rays since Sony decided it wasn't worthwhile for the PS4 pro.

 

What line in are you talking about?

[VoidX]

14 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

You missed the part where I said DVD. I only have a handful of Blu-rays, but all of them are also 5.1. I don't even have anything that can play 4k blu-rays since Sony decided it wasn't worthwhile for the PS4 pro.

 

What line in are you talking about?

Yeah, they were made in the DVD age, but I don't think you watch DVD today. Even streaming supports uncompressed 7.1 for years now. Games support 7.1 since the full Windows audio rework in Vista, which was before BD.

 

There actually was a way to pass through 7.1 on the optical cable with DD+, but this capability only took off years later with a dumbed down Atmos. DD Live had the capability to wrap anything in this container. Additionally, analog inputs (line-in) were sometimes available for direct wiring. They are a rarity, but had no technical issues. 

[JZStudios]

12 hours ago, VoidX said:

Yeah, they were made in the DVD age, but I don't think you watch DVD today. Even streaming supports uncompressed 7.1 for years now. Games support 7.1 since the full Windows audio rework in Vista, which was before BD.

 

There actually was a way to pass through 7.1 on the optical cable with DD+, but this capability only took off years later with a dumbed down Atmos. DD Live had the capability to wrap anything in this container. Additionally, analog inputs (line-in) were sometimes available for direct wiring. They are a rarity, but had no technical issues. 

I haven't seen anything stream in 7.1, much less uncompressed 7.1. You're also missing the entire point of this thread.