I have an LG Oled, blu ray player plugged into it through HDMI
I run an optical out directly from my LG OLED into a Chord 2qute DAC, but seems output is downsampled at 16/48, (some recordings at 24bit/48, so is there way to avoid avoid sample rate conversion by the LG OLED?
I don’t want to purchase an expensive “audiophile” AV receiver, I still much prefer the DAC to be my Chord, even in 2 channel stereo over any 5.1 done by any receiver.
Sorry, I’m confused. What is HDMI optical? Do you output audio directly from the bluray player to the DAC, or is the signal to the TV and from there to the DAC? What outputs are there on rhe bluray player?
I think it depends on the optical output spec of your TV, my LG OLED C3 from 2022 outputs 16/48 where-as my Samsung UA78JS9500 from 2015 outputs 24/48.
Optical output from your Bluray Player will be restricted to 16/48 as you know.
The only way I can get digital Hi-Res out of the Bluray Player is via HDMI to my AV Amp, this will pass the Hi-Res to the TV via HDMI, then the TV outputs optical signal at the TVs spec.
Check your TVs set up menu’s, maybe you can adjust the optical output resolution, but I doubt it is possible as its probably fixed.
Of course you can also go HDMI straight from your Bluray Player straight to your TV if you dont have an AV Amp.
Amended, I mean the Blu ray is connected to the TV via HDMI and then the TV sounds optical output, but maybe it is downsampled?
I take it that the Chord DAC doesn’t have an HDMI input? Otherwise, it’s as Moon Drifter says.
@Analogmusic
I’m also a bit miffed that I can’t easily get digital Hi-Res out of my Panasonic 9000 Bluray Player into my DAC ( Lumin P1).
You could try an HDMI to Coaxial Audio Extractor like the Blustream HD11AU HDMI Audio Embedder / De-Embedder, or similar, I have not tried this myself as I can’t get a Sale or Return deal on one in Australia, should it not work or perform as required, they are about AUD230, so not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things in the HiFi world.
However, I have back to back tested the 16/48 coaxial output from the 9000 direct into the DAC against the HDMI output via AV Amp and TV optical out at 24/48 into DAC and to be honest there is not too much sound quality difference between the two, I’m probably loosing a little sound quality via the convoluted HDMI/Optical route, but the coaxial output is very very good, so I don’t think you will be loosing out too much sound quality wise.
Im not sure how good a AUD 230 device will be sound quality wise but it may be worth a trial if you can get one on sale or return.
Also note that the vast majority of music concert and music video DVDs and Blurays are only at 16/48 anyway with only a few at Hi-Res plus of cousre the dedicated Pure Audio BluRay discs which are all Hi-Res as are DVD-Audio discs if you have any of these.
It is only the RAH box sets that I am keen on at the moment as those seem to be recorded at 96/24
I don’t think you can … Sony are the license holders for BluRay and they will only allow a higher resolution rate for sound on Sony Players
Although now clarified by the OP and not directly relevant to the thread, there is such a thing as Optical HDMI. It’s used for long runs over 8m at high data rates. The optical transducers are built into the plugs and the cable itself is thin, flexible, and can be very long.
I got the AV Equipment Dealer to confirm with Blustream that the HD11AU would definately extract Hi-Res 24/48, 24/96 and 24/192 LPCM from its HDMI input, which Blustream confirmed.
Based on that I ordered the device and have been testing it today and doing sound quality comparisions with the Panasonic 9000 analogue xlr High-Res output and can confirm that all Hi-Res digital resolutions are fully extracted and that their sound quality is better than the analogue outputs from the 9000, which is not too surprising as the DACs/Audio circuits in my Lumin P1 are far superior to the DACs/Audio circuits in the Bluray Player.
I am now very happy that I can get the full digital Hi-Res out of the Bluray Player and can higly recommend the Blustream HD11AU it works perfectly and the resultant sound quality is excellent.
The small downside is that plugging an HDMI cable into the 9000 HDMI Audio output socket disables the analogue outputs and the digital optical and coaxial outputs from the 9000, not that you really need them anymore anyway.
That is very good news, I will look into this, exactly what I was looking for !
You can get HDMi extractors with optical outputs as well if thats what you need, but I only needed coaxial and thought it best not to also have optical in the box, that may create some noise and negatively impact the sound quality output, but who knows.
What connections are required for this to work? Do you use one HDMI audio output from the Bluray for this and another for video to the TV, or do you pass the HDMI connection through this to the TV and output audio using the coaxial output?
I have a ND555, so would need a coaxial or optical output.
From the Bluray Player I used the HDMI Audio output to the Blustream and then coaxial from Blustream to my Lumin P1 Streamer/Dac/Pre-Amp for the stereo sound only.
Also from the Bluray Player I use the HDMI Video and Audio output to my Denon AV Amp for surround sound plus video pass through to my TV.
If you dont have the AV Amp you could just connect striaght to the TV…
Also the Blustream will pass through the video on its HDMI output so you could connect the HDMI Video and Audio output from your Bluray Player into the Blustream and then the coaxial output to your ND555 and the HDMI output to your TV.
I only wanted to use the Blustream for its coaxial audio output and not use the video pass through function to possibly prevent any potential noise in the device from the video processing negatively impacting the sound quality output.
Thanks for that. I think I only have one spare HDMI cable (an old Monster cable), I have Chord Clearway on the rest, so I should probably get a matching cable.
Im using a Monster 8K HDMI Ultra High Speed 48Gbps cable to the Blustream from the Bluray Player and then my long term Chord Signature Tuned Array Coaxial Cable from Blustream to my Lumin P1, it sounds really great, very impressive with the full Hi-Res now being processed.
Im also using a Mains Filter/Anti-Surge Protector on the Blustream to clean up the mains power supply.
My spare cable is an older Monster High Speed specification. Researching the HDMI specs this has a 192kHz/24-bit uncompressed audio (PCM) audio specification, so that should be fine for just running an HDMI audio output from my Bluray to the Blustream HD11AU and then coaxial to the ND555. I’ll plug the HD11AU into my Isotek Sirrius power board, which has a filter in it. I’ll order the Blustream HD11AU today, seems like a great option for $200.
I’ll leave the Bluray and Apple TV with a separate video/audio HDMI connections to the TV and an optical output from the TV to the ND555. That way, when using the Bluray, I’ll select the coaxial input (named Bluray), and for the ATV and TV, select the optical input (named TV). Hopefully this will all work perfectly.
Thanks for your help.
No problem Mike, your connections will give you the optimum stereo sound quality for all your A/V sources.
Hopefully you will be very pleased with the sound quality performance, good luck with it all.
For the HD11AU set the Mode Dip switch 1 to 1 and the other Mode Dip switch to 0 and all the EDID Dip switches to 0 for the connection set up you are going to use.
I installed the HD11AU yesterday and it works perfectly. I played my Bluray copy of Pink Floyd re-mastered “Animals”, which is a 24/192 file and the ND555 was showing a 192 stream. It sounded really very good - in fact I played it 3 times! I played this on vinyl a few days ago, and the Bluray was better. I need to compare this against the same hi-res version I have on my Core, which is a WAV file. I’ve generally found WAV the better format on the Core over FLAC, but a LPCM stream from the Bluray better.
I wonder if the HD11AU will extract a SACD audio format, as my Bluray will play SACD discs, but always required a HDMI connection on an AV or streamer to get the correct resolution, and I don’t have either of those.
Good to hear that you are very happy with the sound quality via the HD11AU and that it is all working for you OK.
My Panasonic 9000 does not play SACD so can’t offer any advice on that issue.