PC out to Old 5.1 4K Sony Receiver

[Wittwe AB Grw]

OK I’m kind of wanting to output from my PC to my old Sony 4K receiver. Because my got some decent amplified sub and some not too bad satellites by pioneer.

 

In the past just output, HDMI from the graphics card to the receiver to the TV. But I have a force superior TV to the Sony stereo receiver. The TV has 4K HDR10+ HDMI 2.1. And this receiver is like from 2013 2014, which obviously wouldn’t put out the best picture.

 

So aside from getting a brand new receiver, to output to the two point one HDMI, is there anyway to make my 3.5 mm output jacks, connect to my receiver and give me 5.1. Again it’s not ideal, but due to lack of space, I am combining products to make the best of a small room.

 

I am including the graphics card that I’m using as well as some other board. And if I can find the model on this ancient receiver, still on the back panel, somewhere will included as well. It’s for watching movies and listening to music videos from YouTube mostly. Again it’s not the ideal situation but this is what you do when you don’t have massive amount of money. you pick and choose your battles. And figure out how to do this. It would be a nice upgrade for some of my PC games. And believe me, I wish I could just pick up and receiver with atmos sound.

 

thank you in advance.

 

p.s. using dictation so hoping that filters out my texting problem.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Can you run 2 HDMI cables? One to the TV and and one to the reciever for audio? Thats likely the best solution for best audio and video.

[Wittwe AB Grw]

13 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Can you run 2 HDMI cables? One to the TV and and one to the reciever for audio? Thats likely the best solution for best audio and video.

Wasnt sure if thats a option in windows 11

[GuiltySpark_]

At least with Nvidia Control Panel you can select which output is used for audio. 

 

There are many ways to do this, another of which being optical S/PDIF, assuming your board has that as an option. 

 

Keep this all in mind though, modern PC gaming has little to no support for home theater style discrete surround sound. There is nothing in games today to encode into Dolby Digital or DTS anymore that can be processed by your receiver. If you wanted to play movies with Dolby Digital/DTS audio tracks, that's fine. 

 

For PC stuff you're better off with a good 2.0/2.1 setup.

[Alex Atkin UK]

36 minutes ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

Keep this all in mind though, modern PC gaming has little to no support for home theater style discrete surround sound. There is nothing in games today to encode into Dolby Digital or DTS anymore that can be processed by your receiver. If you wanted to play movies with Dolby Digital/DTS audio tracks, that's fine. 

 

For PC stuff you're better off with a good 2.0/2.1 setup.

You are so very wrong about that, if the receiver supports HDMI then chances are it supports PCM 5.1, so no fancy codecs are required - it just works.

 

Most games support surround sound and Windows handles the rest.  For newer receivers, Windows 11 even supports Atmos natively, you just have to install the Dolby app from the Windows Store.

[GuiltySpark_]

2 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

If the receiver supports HDMI then changes are it supports PCM 5.1, so no fancy codecs are required - it just works.

Sure, you'll get audio. But if proper surround sound is the goal unless you have something creating and encoding 5.1 discrete channels in real time, like the ill-fated Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect did, its not truly surround sound. Sadly that whole movement died years ago. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

5 minutes ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

Sure, you'll get audio. But if proper surround sound is the goal unless you have something creating and encoding 5.1 discrete channels in real time, like the ill-fated Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect did, its not truly surround sound. Sadly that whole movement died years ago. 

Encoding to lossy formats died yes, because HDMI made it redundant.   It works exactly the same as analog 5.1 within Windows, it just sends it purely digital over HDMI so can use the superior DACs in surround receivers. 

 

I've been doing it since about 2015, you get a vastly better experience.  I'm constantly surprised people don't realise this is a thing.

[GuiltySpark_]

3 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Encoding to lossy formats died yes, because HDMI made it redundant.   It works exactly the same as analog 5.1 within Windows, it just sends it purely digital over HDMI so can use the superior DACs in surround receivers.  I've been doing it for years, you get a vastly better experience.  I'm constantly surprised people don't realise this is a thing.

Sure, the bandwidth is there but what on the games end is processing positional 5.1+ audio? That's the part i'm focusing on.

[Alex Atkin UK]

18 minutes ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

Sure, the bandwidth is there but what on the games end is processing positional 5.1+ audio? That's the part i'm focusing on.

I don't think I've found a game in the last 20 years that doesn't (I used analog 5.1 back then), perhaps some smaller indie titles.  Its literally a standard part of game engines, seeing as consoles have also supported it for generations.

We went from software encoding lossy surround over SPDIF (through licensed encoders that came with the motherboard), to analog 5.1, to HDMI PCM 7.1, to Windows 11 supporting Dolby Atmos for Home Theater.  It never went away.

 

My Sony receiver is an STR-DN1080, while its only HDMI 2.0 it supports eARC so I plug the PC into the TV and that passes the audio back to the surround receiver.

[MarkPol88]

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Can you run 2 HDMI cables? One to the TV and and one to the reciever for audio? Thats likely the best solution for best audio and video.

Problem with that setup is you need to have receiver set as second monitor in Windows. You can position it in such a way that your cursor won't travel to it by accident but it still is bothersome.

[Wittwe AB Grw]

1 hour ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

At least with Nvidia Control Panel you can select which output is used for audio. 

 

There are many ways to do this, another of which being optical S/PDIF, assuming your board has that as an option. 

 

Keep this all in mind though, modern PC gaming has little to no support for home theater style discrete surround sound. There is nothing in games today to encode into Dolby Digital or DTS anymore that can be processed by your receiver. If you wanted to play movies with Dolby Digital/DTS audio tracks, that's fine. 

 

For PC stuff you're better off with a good 2.0/2.1 setup.

Actually using a good THX Certified set of Klipsch > ProMedia 2.1 THX Certified Computer Speakers.

Have speakers at 10% with windows audio at 20% and its got some bump for sure.

———————

 

yeah, used my receiver long ago, but at the time either had a direct HDMI connection, or a optical cable connection. But I am seeming to be lacking an optical port on this motherboard by ASRock. but for main reason is enjoining movies with light gaming. Really not looking for precision accurate audio.

 

some mes fav movies are sing series for examples. And the tv (LG > 75" Class QNED80 URA series 4K UHD TV - 75QNED80URA) isn't bad but defenly can be impruved for sound. Eventially would love a nice eark hdr10+ 7.2.2 reciver more than 3-4 hbmi sorces. 
 

ps5 is amazing on my LG > 75" Class QNED80 URA series 4K UHD TV - 75QNED80URA vissually. But audio experince so lack luster that bought a SABRENT USB External Stereo Sound Adapter • AU-MMSA to plug in my Klipsch > ProMedia 2.1 THX Certified Computer Speakers to my ps5. Which puts more on par with the visuals.

 

Have always enjoyed eye candy with decent audio. No moneys for best, but decenr over tv still better over tv speakers.  

[Alex Atkin UK]

Audio has always been important to me, a few years back I bought some Q-Acoustic speakers, still the budget end but costing a fair bit and was shocked how much I'd been losing out from my receiver using a mishmash of cheap speakers.

[Psittac]

Not going to read all of this RN, but has anyone considered toslink? He said 2.1

[Blue4130]

4 hours ago, Psittac said:

Not going to read all of this RN, but has anyone considered toslink? He said 2.1

If you are not going to read it, why bother replying? He doesn't have toslink.

[MarkPol88]

10 hours ago, Psittac said:

He said 2.1

Yeah, he did - HDMI 2.1.

Besides, correct me if I am wrong, but AFAIK most games would not output LFE signal through toslink so you are essentially left with 2.0 sound.

[Wittwe AB Grw]

Yeah, sadly this motherboard does not have toslink ability. It’s only got three audio ports on the 3.5 mm jacks. And then the HDMI on the radeon 6600 xt.

 

So I’m really kind of not sure if there’s an adapter that I can get to turn the triple 3.5 mm jacks into an RCA system that will be decodable by the Sony receiver.

 

but yeah, the ideas to hook up my Yamaha 200 W powered subwoofer, as well as my Yamaha satellite speakers to the Sony STR-DN1080 with 4K pass-through. Promise it is such an old style of 4K pass through that it will not include all the HDR goodness. I’m guessing we have to get some speaker wire and some sub signal RCA hook up to the sub. That was kind of hoping to find out if there’s an adapter that will help other than just running dual HDMI cable. So that’s really the situation I’m running into.

 

If I could just run e-arc or hdmi 2.1 through the dumb receiver and get all the quality out of this 75” 4K HDR10+ TV then it would be so much easier. But yeah, that is one of the things on my list down the road is a nice ER HDMI 2.1 Dolby Atmos receiver.

 

also found out that my Sony STR-DN1080 was released in 2017, so it’s a bit newer than I thought. But still don’t think it’s compatible with HDR 10+ an HDMI 2.1.

 

 

[MarkPol88]

Hm, I already recommended it in other topic but I guess I can point to it in this one as well:

https://www.amazon.com/Splitter-HDCP2-3-Vision-Scaler-Monitors/dp/B0C996Q4YP/ref=sr_1_4

I use this splitter in similar fashion as your needs - I hooked up my PS5 to it and then one HDMI cable goes to Sony TV so it would pick it up as 4k 120Hz HDR and then another goes to Yamaha AVR which do not support HDMI 2.1.

That makes only one output from the computer or console which is then duplicated to AVR with sound and Windows/console is none the wiser.

 

But a little disclaimer - I was able to output full 4K 120Hz with chroma 4:4:4 BUT without VRR.

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, Wittwe AB Grw said:

.

 

So I’m really kind of not sure if there’s an adapter that I can get to turn the triple 3.5 mm jacks into an RCA system that will be decodable by the Sony receiver.

 

 

The 3.5 jacks are analog and the signal is already decoded by that stage.

[Wittwe AB Grw]

5 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

The 3.5 jacks are analog and the signal is already decoded by that stage.

Well, I meant like the three mini jack split over into the receiver, which has two RCA jack input. Or HDMI.

[Wittwe AB Grw]

7 hours ago, MarkPol88 said:

Hm, I already recommended it in other topic but I guess I can point to it in this one as well:

https://www.amazon.com/Splitter-HDCP2-3-Vision-Scaler-Monitors/dp/B0C996Q4YP/ref=sr_1_4

I use this splitter in similar fashion as your needs - I hooked up my PS5 to it and then one HDMI cable goes to Sony TV so it would pick it up as 4k 120Hz HDR and then another goes to Yamaha AVR which do not support HDMI 2.1.

That makes only one output from the computer or console which is then duplicated to AVR with sound and Windows/console is none the wiser.

 

But a little disclaimer - I was able to output full 4K 120Hz with chroma 4:4:4 BUT without VRR.

This seems like a nice viable option that I must’ve missed. Variable refresh rate is not sure that’s actually enabled in the settings on my particular set up. i try to keep it like about 45 to 60 FPS on a cap. To improve performance. Most of the stuff i play honestly doesn’t do better than that anyways because of it only being a 6600 XT.

Edited February 15 by Wittwe AB Grw
Grammar

[Blue4130]

10 hours ago, Wittwe AB Grw said:

Well, I meant like the three mini jack split over into the receiver, which has two RCA jack input. Or HDMI.

But you'd need to get it back to a digital signal somehow. The 3.5 jacks only do analog out. The coaxial RCA input is digital.

[Wittwe AB Grw]

5 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

But you'd need to get it back to a digital signal somehow. The 3.5 jacks only do analog out. The coaxial RCA input is digital.

Ahh, i see. Optical would be ideal. Sadly my asrock doesn't include one.

[Wittwe AB Grw]

Had a oud thought. Could i use the single hdmi on rx 6600 xt to the reciver but still use my displayport to hdmi 2.1 cable for video to the tv?!?

 

card has 3x displayport 1.4 and 1 HDMI 

[MarkPol88]

23 hours ago, Wittwe AB Grw said:

Had a oud thought. Could i use the single hdmi on rx 6600 xt to the reciver but still use my displayport to hdmi 2.1 cable for video to the tv?!?

 

card has 3x displayport 1.4 and 1 HDMI 

That is exactly what I described in this post (and what I am currently running for my PC):

On 2/13/2024 at 11:33 PM, MarkPol88 said:

Problem with that setup is you need to have receiver set as second monitor in Windows. You can position it in such a way that your cursor won't travel to it by accident but it still is bothersome.

To expand on this - you need to have two displays in Windows - one is your TV, other is AV Receiver.

Then you need to tell Windows that Receiver is your primary audio device and everything should work fine.

If you do not want your cursor to get trapped on second screen (which you will not be able to see) you can position screens in such way, that they are not overlapping in any way - as shown on this video (just first find from youtube, not an endorsement):

 

[Wittwe AB Grw]

On 2/26/2024 at 9:05 AM, MarkPol88 said:

That is exactly what I described in this post (and what I am currently running for my PC):

To expand on this - you need to have two displays in Windows - one is your TV, other is AV Receiver.

Then you need to tell Windows that Receiver is your primary audio device and everything should work fine.

If you do not want your cursor to get trapped on second screen (which you will not be able to see) you can position screens in such way, that they are not overlapping in any way - as shown on this video (just first find from youtube, not an endorsement):

 

This sounds like you’ll be the perfect solution for the situation. Now I just gotta order the speaker wire and everything else needed.
 

was it would be an issue because of that only using a display port to an HDMI adapter on the main screen and then an HDMI cable to the receiver for sound. But that little corner method in the video seems like they’ll be the perfect solution for my need.