Hello, audiophiles and experts. Newer question on hooking up.... hardware advice/possibilities.... (1 Viewer)

[Lord Dalek]

And this will result in being able to watch tv with the tv speakers sound alone, not the speakers?
The main goal I need to to be able to just use the TV alone, which will be over 70% of the time anyway.

If your intent is to simply use your tv's built in speakers then you might ss well take the receiver back. There's obviously no reason to own it.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

You have a receiver and a 5.1 setup. Why aren't the TV speakers disabled?

Some people prefer to watch some content with the TV speakers and prefer to save the 5.1 speakers for either special content or special occasions.

I have no desire to do my casual viewing with surround sound - I don’t need 5.1 for sitcoms, reality shows or news.

With the way our home is laid out, the bedroom is directly above the home theater setup in the living room. I need to use headphones or the TV speakers only when people are sleeping upstairs.

I can’t be the only one who has this situation.

 

[DaveF]

I do not want to run the amp 24/7 with the TV, Just want the option to choose to use the 5.1 speaker or the tv speakers, while watching the roku.

Our TV and reciever are on 12 to 18 hours a day (mostly background noise for my work-from-home wife). I've measured the electrical usage with a kill-a-watt device over 40 day and 80 day durations.

With a 2009 Kuro and a 2010 receiver, it was 147 W power draw.
WIth a 2020 Sony LCD and the same old 2010 receiver, it's 103 W power draw.

The electrical use of a receiver running at low volume is maybe 60 W -- the cost is pennies compared to the hundreds of dollars the receiver itself cost.

 

[DaveF]

Some people prefer to watch some content with the TV speakers and prefer to save the 5.1 speakers for either special content or special occasions.

I have no desire to do my casual viewing with surround sound - I don’t need 5.1 for sitcoms, reality shows or news.

The words are English but the meaning is alien.

Makes me think of the people with $25,000 projectors who only use them two hours a week to watch a movie. If you got something good, enjoy it! Modern TV is mixed for full surround and looks great on large screens.

 

[JohnRice]

Yeah…

This question comes up periodically. You have the sound system, so why choose not to use it 70% of the time? Why not just use it? It’s one button push and makes the setup infinitely simpler.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

That’s why passthru is an important receiver feature for me. Everything is wired through the receiver but I can simply switch it off if I want the TV volume.

If you got something good, enjoy it!

I can’t speak for anyone else but for me it’s simple: I do not enjoy watching the type of content I mentioned above in surround sound. It’s not enjoyable for me. Therefore, I prefer not to do it. There are also plenty of times, as a member of shared household, where my choice is between using the surround system but at a volume so low that I can’t understand what’s going on because anything louder disturbs people in other rooms, or use the TV speakers and/or headphones so that I can hear everything and no one is bothered by it.

It’s not always a simple matter of whether a certain piece of equipment or setup configuration is objectively better technically speaking. Personal preference and individual circumstances also have a role to play.

 

[SandmanXXX]

With my situation, the speakers are more for event listening... movie night, special TV show watching, radio tuner during the day sometimes, movie streaming.. Elderly ladies (MILs) don't always want to listen to louder volume, at least this one, with regular tv, and with staggered sleep schedules, like the wife working mid shift, and watching tv at night later on, while her mom is sleeping not far away, things like that are exactly why I don't run the AVR 24/7. Not a question of power usage, or anything else.
Agreed if you have something nice, use it... but in my situation I have to work around things. I can say, if MIL wasn't living here, and it was just the wife and I, it would be on all the time then.
So Josh, how is yours hooked up? In order to use TV volume, in my situation?

Thanks for everyone's inputs...

 

[Josh Steinberg]

It sounds to me that you need a receiver that offers passthru when turned off. Mine does but it’s an older model without 4K so won’t help you but I didn’t think it was an obscure or hard to find feature.

All of my devices are plugged into the receiver, and then the receiver is plugged into the TV.

When my receiver is on, sound comes through the speakers hooked up to the receiver. When my receiver is off, sound comes through the TV speakers.

If I need to change inputs while wanting to use the TV speakers (for instance, going from Blu-ray to streaming box), I turn on the receiver, switch inputs on the receiver, and then turn the receiver back off.

I’m not up to date on the latest receivers - @JohnRice is leaps and bounds better at that stuff than I am - but what you’re asking for/trying to accomplish doesn’t seem like it should be hard to do. It wasn’t for me.

 

[JohnRice]

We need more details. What do you want to watch with the TV audio? Broadcast TV only? How do you receive that? Over the air… cable with external box?

 

[SandmanXXX]

It's a yamaha V685. Passthrough.
It sounds almost like hooking it up 'properly' (everything thru amp) is close to what I'd like.

So, I stream Hulu through a roku ultra.
Options wanted:
Watching anything on roku with option of TV volume only, -or- amp volume. Roku remote needs to control TV (only)

The DVD player, hdmi, can play through amp only.
I have a NVR sec camera setup, hdmi, I run only through the TV. I can run through the amp as an option, that doesn't matter.
So bare minimum Is the Roku option, watching TV and being able to choose to turn amp on, or only use the TV volume.

My harmony remote can switch things around, but that was part of what seems to not work as well.

Any help would be great adding in which hdmi ports to use, at least concerning ARC.

 

[SandmanXXX]

Ok, I got into what I did in the past, more tonight. Sitting here trying some stuff, maybe this will help my goal. The Harmony remote insists that the amp gets turned on every time something is used on it, even if I don't want to use it, such as watching the roku on tv alone. This has to be why I had some things set up before the way they are now. I will be experimenting a little more and tomorrow to see if I can get around this.

 

[kalm_traveler]

That’s why passthru is an important receiver feature for me. Everything is wired through the receiver but I can simply switch it off if I want the TV volume.




I can’t speak for anyone else but for me it’s simple: I do not enjoy watching the type of content I mentioned above in surround sound. It’s not enjoyable for me. Therefore, I prefer not to do it. There are also plenty of times, as a member of shared household, where my choice is between using the surround system but at a volume so low that I can’t understand what’s going on because anything louder disturbs people in other rooms, or use the TV speakers and/or headphones so that I can hear everything and no one is bothered by it.

It’s not always a simple matter of whether a certain piece of equipment or setup configuration is objectively better technically speaking. Personal preference and individual circumstances also have a role to play.

Out of curiosity, what makes watching non-movies with good sound less enjoyable?

Nothing wrong with having a preference - I'm just genuinely curious as it doesn't make sense to me and I've never heard of anyone preferring a lower-quality version of an experience for specific content. At present, it seems almost like saying one prefers the audio experience of gaming on a laptop with its built-in tiny garbage speakers over all else being the same except the sound coming from a nice pair of bookshelf speakers and a quality DAC/amplifier.

I do understand the idea of needing lower volume at night/ to avoid bothering other household members - but if you need X volume from the TV speakers to hear adequately, I'd think that the same volume level from a receiver could be achieved with the volume control - and the engineer in me would wager that you'd actually end up needing less 'loudness' from surround speakers aimed at you to hear clearly than from 2 tiny speakers tucked inside a TV which are not aimed at you.

Not criticizing, just genuinely curious since I've never come across this preference before.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Out of curiosity, what makes watching non-movies with good sound less enjoyable?

I don’t get any added value from surround sound on sitcoms, reality shows and news programs. I’m glad surround sound is offered on those programs for those who enjoy it but it doesn’t enhance my experience.

Furthermore, as I think I mentioned earlier, sound from the receiver speakers travels more to unwanted spaces than it does from just the TV speakers or headphones. For me to use surround sound and not disturb people sleeping elsewhere in the house, I have to turn it down so low that it’s difficult to hear clearly, or I have to spend the entire duration of the program riding the volume. It’s not relaxing for me to watch TV if I end up sitting there the entire time more focused that I might wake someone up than I am on the program.