[meschaefer]

I have a problem that is frustrating me to no end, and I am ready to throw money at it.

I need to be able to listen to my audio collection (mostly FLAC ripped from CD) in a second room, but there are very few receivers that will send a digital signal to a second zone. I have been unable to get audio to be sent via analog and HDMI, although I have spent hours trying to configure the asoundrc file.

The higher end Denon receivers will allow me to send a 2 channel PCM signal over optical to a second zone. An A/B speaker switch would work as I don't need to send separate sources to each set of speakers, but I can't find a receiver with one that has the other capabilities that I need.

My plan is to skip sending audio over HDMI, and send it over optical instead. I just need to make sure that XBMC is sending my music as 2 channel PCM. I believe that it is, although I am not 100% sure and want to make sure before I drop $1K to "fix" this problem.

By doing this are there any proplems that are likely to arise, that I am not thinking about?

Any inp

[Crazy_Land1]

I have a problem that is frustrating me to no end, and I am ready to throw money at it.

I need to be able to listen to my audio collection (mostly FLAC ripped from CD) in a second room, but there are very few receivers that will send a digital signal to a second zone. I have been unable to get audio to be sent via analog and HDMI, although I have spent hours trying to configure the asoundrc file.

The higher end Denon receivers will allow me to send a 2 channel PCM signal over optical to a second zone. An A/B speaker switch would work as I don't need to send separate sources to each set of speakers, but I can't find a receiver with one that has the other capabilities that I need.

My plan is to skip sending audio over HDMI, and send it over optical instead. I just need to make sure that XBMC is sending my music as 2 channel PCM. I believe that it is, although I am not 100% sure and want to make sure before I drop $1K to "fix" this problem.

By doing this are there any proplems that are likely to arise, that I am not thinking about?

Any inp

Ok i think im understanding this.

Lets go back a bit here, i think this all depends on the source file you are playing not XBMC or your receiver.

For excample i have 3 xbmc boxes on 3 Yamaha receiver and 2 of them have HDMI and one doesn't.
So from what i can tell on my living room receiver that is a 7.2 when xbmc is up and running just on the main menu the audio is sent as 2 channel.

Fire up a ripped music cd and the receiver shows 2 channel.
Fire up a t.v. show recorded in mp3 2 channel and the receiver shows 2 channel.
Fire up a ripped movie recorded in mp3 2 channel and the receiver shows 2 channel.
Fire up a ripped movie recorded in 5.1 channel and the receiver shows 5.1 channel.
Fire up a blue ray disk that has 7.1 and the receiver shows 7.1 channel.

Now my living room receiver has zone A/B and i have zone B out on my back deck so i can have music out there and i have run music thru xbmc to zone B thru HDMI with no problems.

Yamaha receiver with no HDMI has zone A/B as well and was my main receiver for a time, that is hooked up to xbmc via s-video and pcm for audio and is 6.1 and does the same thing as my living room receiver.

So from that it all comes down to the source file to start with then i think the receiver plays a part but not much.

lol then again if you have and older receiver that is 2 channel then thats all your going to get is 2 channel.

I hope this helps you some

[lloydsmart]

I think there must be a more logical solution than "dropping $1k" to fix what is essentially an audio routing problem.

First of all, what receiver do you currently have? Many will send an analog signal to a second zone, even if it has come from a digital source (I think my Onkyo 705 does, but I've never tried it).

Or do you need digital in your second zone? If so, I think I misunderstood the part of your post about configuring the asoundrc file to output digital and analog at the same time.

Regardless, there's got to be a better solution than spending all that money just for this problem, or are you eyeing up a new receiver anyway? That would change things, of course.

[meschaefer]

Ok i think im understanding this.

Lets go back a bit here, i think this all depends on the source file you are playing not XBMC or your receiver.

For excample i have 3 xbmc boxes on 3 Yamaha receiver and 2 of them have HDMI and one doesn't.
So from what i can tell on my living room receiver that is a 7.2 when xbmc is up and running just on the main menu the audio is sent as 2 channel.

Fire up a ripped music cd and the receiver shows 2 channel.
Fire up a t.v. show recorded in mp3 2 channel and the receiver shows 2 channel.
Fire up a ripped movie recorded in mp3 2 channel and the receiver shows 2 channel.
Fire up a ripped movie recorded in 5.1 channel and the receiver shows 5.1 channel.
Fire up a blue ray disk that has 7.1 and the receiver shows 7.1 channel.

Now my living room receiver has zone A/B and i have zone B out on my back deck so i can have music out there and i have run music thru xbmc to zone B thru HDMI with no problems.

Yamaha receiver with no HDMI has zone A/B as well and was my main receiver for a time, that is hooked up to xbmc via s-video and pcm for audio and is 6.1 and does the same thing as my living room receiver.

So from that it all comes down to the source file to start with then i think the receiver plays a part but not much.

lol then again if you have and older receiver that is 2 channel then thats all your going to get is 2 channel.

I hope this helps you some

Perhaps I need to look into the Yamaha receivers. My current receiver, an Onkyo, will not send anything that comes in on digital input, whether it is HDMI, Optical or Coaxil to Zone 2. The only thing that is routed to Zone 2 is something that is inputted via analog.

[meschaefer]

I think there must be a more logical solution than "dropping $1k" to fix what is essentially an audio routing problem.

First of all, what receiver do you currently have? Many will send an analog signal to a second zone, even if it has come from a digital source (I think my Onkyo 705 does, but I've never tried it).

Or do you need digital in your second zone? If so, I think I misunderstood the part of your post about configuring the asoundrc file to output digital and analog at the same time.

Regardless, there's got to be a better solution than spending all that money just for this problem, or are you eyeing up a new receiver anyway? That would change things, of course.

I would love a more logical solution. While I haven't necessarily been eying a new receiver, I am not opposed to one.

I doubt that your Onkyo will send something that comes in from a digital source to a second Zone 2 (I have the Onkyo 605). Try it, i will be surprised if it does (And will gladly stand corrected). I have been fighting this issue for months, and my understanding is that there are very very few that are able to do it.

In regard to the asoundrc file issue, some people have been able to force their soundcard to send the signal out of both HDMI and analog. This would allow me to send both sets of signals to my AVR, a digital signal (for 5.1) and Analog to the second zone.