Quote:After reading the stickied posts I'm leaning towards the Vero 4K+. Anyway I should also mention that I cobbled together my home theatre system from old speakers: a 2.1 Monsoon speaker, an AVR from the 80's with two Bose Speakers (2.0) and a cheap computer speaker (1.0). All connected using lots and lots of 3.5mm cable from monoprice and the 3.5mm outputs of the x86_64 computer that I use to run Kodi and which just died. As far as I can tell all AVRs are [decoder + DAC + amplifier] and never provide 3.5mm output. My speakers all have amplifiers built-in so I just need an extractor - [decoder + DAC] - with 5.1 3.5mm outputs.
Most HDMI Audio Extractors insert EDID to signal the audio formats that they support. There are both stereo-only extractors and extractors that also support stereo and Dolby Digital (and flag the right EDID data to signal to the source that DD is supported)
Does setting the audio EDID somehow limit the video capabilities of the TV sink?
Not as far as I know.
Quote:For example I assume the audio must be kept synchronized to the video, so could the extractor limit the video refresh rate negotiated between the sink (TV) and source (Kodi)? I assume also that I should look for an extractor marked as "pass through" - pass through the video EDID unmodified?
I wouldn't expect refresh rates to be impacted. The extractor will have to cope with extracting audio from 24/50/60Hz content - and as the audio is carried in the video signal in HDMI it remains synchronised. Of course your display will add delay that needs to be matched in your audio playback path.
If you run passthrough EDID then only audio formats supported by your TV will be sent by the source. (Typically this would be PCM 2.0 and DD only, though some TVs flag more than this and convert internally. I don't think (m)any TVs will flag HD Audio support, though some may flag PCM 5.1/7.1 and down convert to 2.0 or DD. UK HDTVs internally convert 5.1A AC received via DVB-T2 to 5.1 DD internally too)
Quote:Will an HDMI 1.4 pass-through audio extractor between the TV and Kodi be invisible, or will it interfere with the HDMI 2.0b stream (i.e. interfere with bandwidth, resolution, refresh rates, color resolution, 8/10/12 bit, etc) between the sink and source? And just as important, are there lossless extractors that support LPCM or DTS-HD-MA or TrueHD?
Audio extractors for HDMI 1.4 won't work with HDMI 2.0b streams as the audio in HDMI is carried in the video signal. HDMI 2.0b modes often use much higher clock rates/bandwidths than HDMI 1.4, so HDMI 1.4 audio extractors won't work for HDMI 2.0b signals.
Most low cost extractors are PCM 2.0/DD5.1 only (the very cheap ones are PCM 2.0 only) - some do include decoders to get you to 5.1 line-level audio for Dolby I think.
If you want to extract PCM 5.1/7.1 or HD Audio and HDMI 2.0b support you want something like an HD Fury device (they do a couple) or similar that splits an HDMI 2.0 signal into an HDMI 2.0 signal (carrying video) and an HDMI 1.4b signal (carrying black with audio - including HD Audio) One of the HD Fury devices is designed for this use case (HDMI2.0b source and expensive HDMI 1.4 AVR not being compatible...) There have been some cheaper devices that have been discussed - but I have no experience of them. The HD Fury devices respect HDCP (they convert between 2.2 and 1.4 though)
However you will then need an HDMI audio decoder to get you to analogue 3.5mm audio - I don't know of any non-AVRs that do this for anything other than PCM 2.0 and Dolby Digital (though am happy to be shown such a device as it may well exist)
I think finding your HDMI HD Audio/PCM5.1->5.1 line-level audio solution will be something that you need to do first. I suspect you will find an AVR will be simpler and cheaper than an HD Audio capable audio splitter and
