HDMI Audio Extractor Help (1 Viewer)

[Dimitrios_S]

My very old Denon receiver has never been able to handle HDCP, so I have never used the HDMI switcher built into the receiver and up until now it hasn't been a problem. I have always taken video sources directly into the Television and then whatever source I was using I would either take the coax audio or optical audio into my Denon recover. This has served me well for the past 14 years. My receiver only acted as a audio switcher, not ideal, but i have made it work for years.

Now I find myself in a pickle, because I want to replace my ROKU 4 with a new ROKU box and none of the new ROKU boxes have an optical audio output. It is strictly HDMI. So I was wondering if any of the HDMI audio extractors like this:

https://www.amazon.com/J-Tech-Digit...17583937&sr=8-1&keywords=hdmi+audio+extractor

Are worth buying. I know i can replace my receiver with a newer unit, but that would require tricking the wife into buying it and I don't want to fight that battle today.

I emailed Roku and they don't recommend anything. So I am taking the pulse of this community to see if anyone out there has had personal experience with these devices.

 

[Todd Erwin]

It is probably time for a new receiver, sad to say. The audio extractor may seem like a good idea, but my expreience is that they can be more of a hassle and introduce more problems (such as lip-synch and handshake issues) yhan they are worth.

The good news is that even the more basic receivers from Denon, Yamaha, and even Sony (they are actually starting to get good user reviews again) have lossless audio, 4K pass-through and HDCP 2.2 support. And now is a good time, since last year's models should be going on clearance if they haven't already.

Denon AVR-S530BT at Amazon is currently $229.00
Yamaha RX-V383BL at Amazon is currently $279.95
Sony STR-DH770 at Amazon is currently $198.00

 

[Dimitrios_S]

Thanks for the reply Todd. Your experience is the sort of thing I feared, didn’t anticipate an issue with handshaking. The lip sync issues were my biggest worry.

Thanks for the info and you are right it is well past the point where I should replace my receiver.