BLUETOOTH TO 7.1? (2 Viewers)

[ChiMan]

Hey guys, I have aquired the Harman Kardon AVR 435 recently and done gone and setup 8 speakers in my office.
I am amazing. (inputs here, Coaxial, Optical, RCA, no HDMI)

I am also an idiot because I did not account for needing digital signal to use Dobly 7.1!

My two senders are the Macbook Pro 2012 (running Catalina, ports - no HDMI. Usb-3, mini-jack, AirPlay, Bluetooth) and an iPhone 12 Pro Max (no mini-jack, lightning connection, AirPlay, Bluetooth).
Seeing as I want to use both these devices to send signal to my AVR my first thought was Bluetooth.I don't even know if bluetooth sends 7.1 to start with, does it? As a last effort I can submit to only using the Macbook to send signal.

I am in a sea of open tabs from Audio extractors to DAC's to Splitters to Toslink cables. I have no idea if what I want to do is possible, send 7.1 signal from both of my two devices to my AVR via Bluetooth.
I do have a seperate logitech bluetooth receiver (here with RCA output). But somehow I do not think it can be used and it is a pain cause it constantly hijacks my other bluetooth connections.

What is possible for me to do? Not using 7.1 is not an option because I spent too long setting up all the speakers and wiring.Thank you in advance for you expertise and taking the time to help me out.

JC

 

[Lord Dalek]

You can't send multichannel over bluetooth so forget the cellphone. The only way that thing is going to produce surround sound is via an HDMI out or a Chromecast/Roku/Airplay/whatever (which you can't use anyway). That brings us to the only option you have really without HDMI which is to buy an external USB 7.1 soundcard with an optical out. You can buy a good quality Sound Blaster for about 150 bucks or a crappy Taiwanese one for less than 50.

THAT SAID...

Why the hell are you messing around with a 20 year old POS Harmon Kardon?!? That's obviously proving to be more trouble than its worth (and its worth 15 bucks at your local Goodwill store probably).

 

[DaveF]

That receiver has multichannel pre-inputs. If there’s a TOSlink splitter —like if that’s a thing — that could work from your laptop.

 

[JohnRice]

That receiver has multichannel pre-inputs. If there’s a TOSlink splitter —like if that’s a thing — that could work from your laptop.

BTW, there are lots of fake “surround” dacs with 5 or 7 channel analog outputs, but they aren’t discrete surround channels. They’re matrixed from two channel. I don’t know if I recall ever seeing a genuine surround dac Like you describe.

 

[ChiMan]

You can't send multichannel over bluetooth so forget the cellphone. The only way that thing is going to produce surround sound is via an HDMI out or a Chromecast/Roku/Airplay/whatever (which you can't use anyway). That brings us to the only option you have really without HDMI which is to buy an external USB 7.1 soundcard with an optical out. You can buy a good quality Sound Blaster for about 150 bucks or a crappy Taiwanese one for less than 50.

THAT SAID...

Why the hell are you messing around with a 20 year old POS Harmon Kardon?!? That's obviously proving to be more trouble than its worth (and its worth 15 bucks at your local Goodwill store probably).

Hey Lord sorry for the late reply.
Thank you for your response. I will forget about the phone. (was not really essential anyway).
As for the AVR, well, it was a hand me down and something I am just playing around with in my office. I am trying to make it work without spending on a newer model as I can not really justify buying a 7.1 for an office haha.

I have been still researching and also found your solution of AirPlay. So I am currently looking for an Apple TV 4th generation or 4K. (these are the only two models that do 7.1).
After finding one I will need to get an audio extractor with HDMI in and optical out.

MacBook - AirPlay - Apple TV - HDMI - Extractor - Optical - AVR
In theory it works and I will also have an Apple TV for the misses.

About getting a new AVR, I really have NO idea where to start that process and honestly do not have the bandwidth to find one for me. This HK sells in DK for around 150USD (small country syndrome)

 

[ChiMan]

That receiver has multichannel pre-inputs. If there’s a TOSlink splitter —like if that’s a thing — that could work from your laptop.

The thing with a splitter is that the sound coming from my MacBook is analog and a splitter does not convert that to Digital.

I need to use AirPlay

 

[JohnRice]

The thing with a splitter is that the sound coming from my MacBook is analog and a splitter does not convert that to Digital.

I need to use AirPlay

AirPlay doesn't support multi channel audio. Two channel, 44.1KHz 16 bit is the limit.

 

[DaveF]

The thing with a splitter is that the sound coming from my MacBook is analog and a splitter does not convert that to Digital.

I need to use AirPlay

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012) - Technical Specifications

• Headphone port
  • Support for Apple iPhone headset with remote and microphone
  • Support for audio line out (digital/analog)

It's been a long time since I've done this, but I thought the optical output (in the headphone port) support digital multi-channel (TOSlink).

 

[DaveF]

And now that I'm looking at your AVR pic again, of course there's no need for a splitter. Just optical out to optical in. It's a free / cheap experiment to see if it works.

 

[ChiMan]

And now that I'm looking at your AVR pic again, of course there's no need for a splitter. Just optical out to optical in. It's a free / cheap experiment to see if it works.

Hey,
You are right a quick solution to try. In the end I found a SONY STR-DG820 cheap and am using that.
MacBook - AppleTV (via AirPlay) - SONY AVR (via HDMI)
I have not had time to setup the AVR and my quick tests only result in 5.1 and not true 7.1. But I think this is a AVR setup issue and not an AirPlay issue as I have the 4th generation AppleTV

 

[Clinton McClure]

Have you tried using a thunderbolt —> HDMI dongle from your MacBook Pro? I’ve used one before to connect a MacBook Pro to a TV but I’m not sure if multi-channel audio is supported that way.

 

[YANG]

this is the first time i come across that 7.1 discrete information can be sent thru BlueTooth connection... when the engineers behind BlueTooth development couldn't make the wireless connection so stable and economical that would surpass the current common RF transmission used by majority of audio gear makers...

 

[Todd Erwin]

this is the first time i come across that 7.1 discrete information can be sent thru BlueTooth connection... when the engineers behind BlueTooth development couldn't make the wireless connection so stable and economical that would surpass the current common RF transmission used by majority of audio gear makers...

As @Lord Dalek stated above:

You can't send multichannel over bluetooth