[MrRimmer]

A little bit off topic here, but maybe some of you have already tried this (or perhaps would like to try).

HDMI audio extractor > HDMI, optical, 2ch analogue
Link

According to the description, it extracts audio stream from hdmi input, and it can do 3 things:

1) passtrough -- nothing is done, just hdmi in to hdmi out
2) 2ch -- audio is extracted from hdmi input to and sent in 2ch stereo (obviously) to hdmi out, optical, and 2xrca (wonder what DAC is used and the quality, nowadays there are very nice surprises with very high quality DACs used in cheep devices from China)
3) 5.1 -- audio is extracted from hdmi input, and send to optical and hdmi out, no analogue. The optical supports DD 5.1 and DTS.

I'm considering one of these, as it would solve my scenario, as the 5.1 mode would be perfect to have audio at the amp and tv too, while the 2xRCA for stereo amp

Of course, there are many questions:

-- is the audio extracted to optical if tv is turned off, will it work then?
-- what is the quality of the whole thing, what are the limitations, if any?

Has anyone tried this already? The price is really low, so might be worth a try.

At the company I work for we have a need to get an analog stereo signal as well as keeping the original audio signal the user needs (usually HDMI, bitstream, could be Dolby True HD or DTS-HD). We tried many of these extractors and most of them don't work as you might expect. We found 3 different behaviors:
1. Most very cheap ones will output an analog stereo signal ONLY if the source input is stereo (useless for us)
2. Some decent ones will output an analog stereo signal ONLY if the source input is basic Dolby/DTS/PCM but not DTS-HD or Dolby True HD (useless for blurays)
3. We only found one so far that worked as we needed: we could get an analog stereo signal from any sound format (including DTS-HD or Dolby True HD) and also output the original unaltered bitstream signal from the HDMI output to the AVR. It seemed to work with most equipment (you need to get their upgraded firmware to use multichannel instead of only stereo). http://atlona.com/product/at-hd-m2c. It is quite expensive but if you find another device that could do that, please let me know.

While we can't really ask customers to switch AVR, it seems to be the best solution. Some AVR (not many) can output analog sound (ie headphone jacks or analog RCA output) as well as to the speakers at the same time. That configuration is compatible with any source. I have to admit I was surprised that this feature is not available on most AVR seems it could be needed for families with hearing impaired members (you want the sounds to get to the speakers for everyone but you also need to have headphone sound for one member at the same time).

That is the main reason I visit this thread from time to time.

I too did similar research and came to the same conclusion, hence the need for dual audio - SPDIF output in 5.1 to my (legacy) AMP, and HDMI 2.0 to the TV & projector (via HDMI splitter). As of yet, nothing seems to be able to take HDMI inc. DTS-MA (or equivalent) and do this in hardware.