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Amazon Basics 4K HDMI Extractor Review

Rate this HDMI Extractor

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 6 3.5%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 24 14.1%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther

    Votes: 78 45.9%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 62 36.5%

  • Total voters
    170

Firespeed

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Hello,

I've tried this HDMI extractor and send it back to Amazon...
  • do not comply with ARC or eARC (was not mentioned in the Amazon's description page (FR) neither in the manual received)
  • degrades video signal : 4K (2160p) input ---> FHD (1080p) in output (tested with multiple HDMI cables witch comply with HDMI 2.1 standard).
  • limited to 4K/30hz output as described in the manual...my TV works fine up to 120hz...
It works perfectly to extract audio on both coax and optical output. But I needed the video signal to stay as good it was in input (min 4K/60Hz)...:confused:

Thanks to all.
 

Barrelhouse Solly

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Just got an imported generic extractor and tried it with a Pi 3A+. It works great, as well as most audio HATs I've tried.
 
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MrOtto

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Does a Samsung TV output un-resampled bitperfect stream on HDMI Arc, and no resampling in this HDMI extractor?

Does the TV output every kind of input on the HDMI Arc output?
 

Audiomn

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Does a Samsung TV output un-resampled bitperfect stream on HDMI Arc, and no resampling in this HDMI extractor?

Does the TV output every kind of input on the HDMI Arc output?
I’m mainly familiar with LG which has a pass through setting. If your Samsung has the same, it should be bitperfect
 

bigguyca

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I have not seen one mention on the marketing material of the DAC chip used, none. Not only marketing people don't care about that, their buyers don't care about that neither. No company will use unneeded more expensive than necessary components in hope to sell more stuff just for the chip model. Beside maybe some extremely woo boutique stuff that pride themselves with discrete op amps and 200$ film capacitors, but this is not for general public.




DAC Into - Contains all current models - 11-19-5022.jpg
 
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bigguyca

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Do you have the right thread?

Your post included in reference to the X8500HA:

I have not seen one mention on the marketing material of the DAC chip used, none.

The post shows Denon marketing material that includes in which DAC IC is used in which AVR.
 

simplywyn

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Can you do a comparison to the television? I get that these devices are done in a vacuum, but how much better is it? It's extracting the audio from HDMI but my televsion also extracts audio from a HDMI and sends into my DAC via optical.

Nobdy has actually done any work on this yet.
 

Audiomn

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Can you do a comparison to the television? I get that these devices are done in a vacuum, but how much better is it? It's extracting the audio from HDMI but my televsion also extracts audio from a HDMI and sends into my DAC via optical.

Nobdy has actually done any work on this yet.
If your TV has bitperfect pass-through, then there’s no difference. If your TV is downsampling, resampling or converting then the extractor will be far better.
 

simplywyn

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If your TV has bitperfect pass-through, then there’s no difference. If your TV is downsampling, resampling or converting then the extractor will be far better.

How do I know if my TV has bit-perfect pass through?
 

mdsimon2

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How do I know if my TV has bit-perfect pass through?

Measure it with a TOSLINK input audio interface. The options below are less than $50.

https://hifimediy.com/product/hifime-ur23-spdif-optical-to-usb-converter/ (up to 96 kHz)
https://hifimediy.com/product/s2-digi/ (up to 192 kHz)

I can say that my TV certainly isn't bit perfect -> https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...nd-path-for-tvs-optical-out.24076/post-811823 and this results in audible dropouts.

Michael
 

wyup

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the Amazon Basics 4K HDMI extractor. Member kindly purchased and drop shipped it to me. It normally costs $22.89 but was on sale for just $5!!!
View attachment 245854
The case is the standard metal one for these kinds of adapters. Power is provided with a supplied USB-A to barrel (9 volt) connector. I powered it using the hub in my computer monitor. As you see a nice switch forces the digital output to be either stereo or 5.1.

View attachment 245855

Pass-through HDMI connector is naturally provided as well as Toslink, Coax and analog stereo 3.5mm outputs.

Amazon Basics HDMI Extractor Analog Measurements
I started testing by feeding it HDMI and capturing analog output:
View attachment 245856

Not very pretty but hard to expect anything more remotely close to this price point. Output is low by desktop DAC standards but should be enough to drive most amplifiers.

I was pleasantly surprised by the dynamic range being nearly 16 bits:
View attachment 245857

I could tell there was jitter from the dashboard and our dedicated test shows that and then some:
View attachment 245858

Linearity indicates some kind of truncation to 16 bits:
View attachment 245859

IMD test shows high noise+distortion:
View attachment 245860

Paradoxically, multitone response is quite respectable:
View attachment 245864

That is like due to lower output level used in Multitone test.

Frequency response is good:
View attachment 245861

Filtering of out of band, not so good:
View attachment 245862

Which causes problems for our wideband noise and distortion test:
View attachment 245863

Amazon Basics HDMI Extractor Digital Performance:
I hooked up to the coax output and got this dashboard:
View attachment 245865

146 dB is the ideal performance of 24 bit PCM data and we are getting that. This means that the device transparently passes the digital data from HDMI to Coax with no funny conversion to 16 bits and such. This means you can hook up your own high-performance DAC and get proper analog output.

Conclusions
It is incredible how cheap electronic devices can get despite their complexities. Here we not only have an HDMI extractor but a DAC as well. To have this full functionality ship for total of $22 is incredible. No, the DAC is nothing to write home about but for everyday use it should be fine. And if you need better, you can get yourself a $100 DAC and be good to go. Inversely, you can think of this as $22 to add HDMI input to any DAC with Toslink/Coax input!

I am going to put the Amazon Basics HDMI Extractor on my recommended list. It is an incredible bargain.

-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Why no spdif (coax and toslink) jitter test like in dacs instead of analog out? Coax is the one most will use..
 

VeerK

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To answer myself:
The extractor does not support ARC and CEC. So it is not even possible to connect it to TV directly and send TV's sound throuh it and convert it to analog.
Thanks for posting this, I was going to buy one so I could have all my video devices connect to my TV via HDMI, then send audio out the HDMI eARC port to an extractor. Someone else posted this eARC extractor, might give it a shot.
 

damirj79

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Oct 1, 2021
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Thanks for posting this, I was going to buy one so I could have all my video devices connect to my TV via HDMI, then send audio out the HDMI eARC port to an extractor. Someone else posted this eARC extractor, might give it a shot.
There are many eARC/ARC extractors, just depends if you need CEC functions also to control volume with TV remote for example. In that case there are not so many (working) options any more. The model on the link has digital outputs only, so for sure no volume control.
 

wyup

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I bought this on Amazon:

It converts to coaxial to my dac, however it doesn't do CEC volume control, even enabled. The Tv detects the volume commands (ARC Vol + and -) but it doesn't change in coax out. Also it seems to pass PCM, my tv can't select bitstream, although the extractor does DD/DTS.
 

JonP

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Been a while on this one... I now would like to try one of these for my Moode RPi based streamer... I'm currently using one of these at the TV/Stereo, for music, and it works nicely by just the Pi HDMI out going into my AV amp, and it's DAC. Also works nicely to put the Moode interface display up on the TV at the same tiime.

But, I am limited by the AV receiver being apparently limited to 16b (why?? when it's spec is 32b/384khz?) and also by my other path of optical out from the TV, back to my Schiit DAC, if I want to listen to TV or streaming player stuff on the headphone Schiit stack. So, for alternate paths to debug issue #1, and to improve (assuming that my TV's HDMI in to optical out isn't as perfect as one of these extractors) issue #2... I wanted to pick this up. Would be a nice portable way to show off the Moode streamer, and or, improved quality input, to friends with spdif/toslink input gear...

Alas, Amazon has been out of stock of these for a long time. And, though there are at least dozens of them out there, I was holding out for one with both coaxial and optical.
I have heard that some toslink opticals are limited to 96k or so... that was years back. Used to be you got more jitter over toslink vs coaxial... not sure if that's the same. And, just wanted the greater flexibility, since there might be a friend out there that has coaxial and no optical inputs.

So, has anyone seen a reasonably cheap one with both types of digital output? I see wyup seemingly answered my question... but I only see the model he linked to on the Spanish Amazon site! I don't see it on the US site, and the manufacturer dosen't seem to have it on their site, either! All models lack the coax output! Arrrgh!!

edit: Mdsimon2, wondering if you've noticed, during your TV/toslink testing, how high in speed do most toslink go these days? Or have you only tested a few?
 
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antcollinet

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1 - What makes you think your avr is limited to 16 bit, and not some other component in the chain doing the limiting (or the source being 16 bit.
2 - You probably can't hear the difference between 16 and 24 bit in any case.
3 - You certainly don't need to worry about being limited to 96kHz.
4 - Jitter is pretty effectively filtered out by any competent DAC - so nothing to worry about there either.
 

mdsimon2

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edit: Mdsimon2, wondering if you've noticed, during your TV/toslink testing, how high in speed do most toslink go these days? Or have you only tested a few?

Are you talking about straight TOSLINK or TOSLINK via a HDMI extractor? Depending on the receiver I've successfully output 192 kHz via TOSLINK from a MacBook pro. Haven't tried high sample rates with a HDMI extractor as my primary use case is an AppleTV which runs at 48 kHz. I can see if I can output higher sample rates via HDMI from my MacBook in to the extractor but I seem to recall it also being limited to 48 kHz via HDMI. Sample rate isn't something I would worry about personally.

Michael
 
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