Why Don't High SINAD Receivers Exist?

[Sprint]

It is not. 7.1 LPCM from the Bluray player. TrueHD (decoded in the player), yes. Atmos: no.

Which blu ray do you use? Oppo?

 

[battopi]

From my point of view the $100 DAC will sound worse. No subwoofer management, no Dirac Live, only two channels, no support for decoding immersive formats, etc. Such a device is not anywhere near state of the art performance.

Very interesting take. I have a two channel system with two subs. I stream apple music via apple tv through my TV's optical into a Topping E30 and out to an amp. What would your take be on converting my system to, for example, an Outlaw 976 AV preamp? I can't see myself adding anything more than a center speaker. Good idea? I like the idea of avoiding the TV's optical out.

 

[Senior NEET Engineer]

Very interesting take. I have a two channel system with two subs. I stream apple music via apple tv through my TV's optical into a Topping E30 and out to an amp. What would your take be on converting my system to, for example, an Outlaw 976 AV preamp? I can't see myself adding anything more than a center speaker. Good idea? I like the idea of avoiding the TV's optical out.

Well you are not even getting LFE channel with that configuration. My choice would be clear to get receiver...

 

[battopi]

Well you are not even getting LFE channel with that configuration. My choice would be clear to get receiver...

Could you recommend something under $5k? I would like to keep my NAD amp however. Would be nice to get a preamp that separates the audio from hdmi but they are few and far between and very pricey. Not even sure they are being made actually. I think Naim makes a product.

 

[3dbinCanada]

How do you do that.? I have a yamaha rx-v775. I use genelec active monitors as surround set up and 2 svs 12 inch subs. For both movies and stereo i do not want eq ana yamaha’s room correction but want to pass low freq under 80hz to svs subs. I have set genelecs as small and use Through to by pass Eq. I use genelec glm for room correction which is then stored in speakers itself. I just want avr to pass 80hz and below to svs subs. Is there any other way you do it? Btw, have you compared your avr with any denon 2020 avr models like 3700 or 4700? If yes, what does the sound comparison look like?

This is on the premise that your receiver identifies having a subwoofer connected to it. Go into the manual setup, select speakers and select Parametric EQ. Go into that menu and set it to THROUGH. This step will ignore any of the YPAO settings. Remain in the manual setup and scroll up to configuration and enter that menu. Set each speaker to small. This will give you bass management. Remain in the speaker menu and select crossover and set it to 80. Exit your way out and your done.

I havent had any other AVRs or heard any other AVRs but Yamaha.

 

[Senior NEET Engineer]

Could you recommend something under $5k? I would like to keep my NAD amp however. Would be nice to get a preamp that separates the audio from hdmi but they are few and far between and very pricey. Not even sure they are being made actually. I think Naim makes a product.

Denon X3700H

 

[battopi]

Denon X3700H

Thanks

 

[rhollan]

Which blu ray do you use? Oppo?

I have an OPPO 103D but am currently using a non-descript Sony 4K player. All Bluray players can decode to 48 KHz LPCM 7.1 channel carried over HDMI. At that point I convert to SDI and extract 4 pairs of AES/EBU digital audio (well, there are nanoAVRs in the chain for bass management and Dirac Live, but that is moot). It works very well, and lets me choose any DAC I want but of course sample rates above 48 kHz or immersive formats are not possible.

I'd like to either replace or augment with an Atmos pre/pro but specs tend to be poor and I'm stuck with it's analog DAC/output opamp stages. While my overall SINAD is not great (I am using a Symetrix Lucid 8824 8 channel DAC and Crown amps, after all), I have the freedom to upgrade either.

 

[rhollan]

Back to the point of this thread. Never mind receivers with poor SINAD figures. Why do seperate processors have them?

Given the state of the art Okto DAC8 (pro and stereo) and Benchmark AHB2, why can we not have a processor that can reach 100 dB SINAD without struggling? In fact, given that a processor can be configured to do nothing, we should have infinite SINAD on digital signals.

Granted, processing requires headroom, and gives up SNR, and thus SINAD, but this should be well-bounded and engineered for.

Give me a box with HDMI in (bitstream audio), HDMI out (LPCM audio) and apply whatever codecs and correction you want. Others have suggested this: I am not the first. Then DACs accepting HDMI as a secure transport. (Or Meridian MHHR, it doesn't matter).

If people are willing to pay $4k to $5k for a pre-pro, and an 8 channel superb DAC costs $1200, then 16 channels of decoded and processed audio over HDMI for $1600 to $2600 should be a viable product. Silicon is cheap. Licensing is expensive.

miniDSP tried this (for Dirac live processing) with their nanoAVRs but likely failed for lack of the ability to license the various bitstream codecs (it was LPCM in and out). Heck, codecs could be downloadable licenseable pieces of code on a bare platform. Sigh. One can dream.

 

[gondorff]

To date, I've been going from 7.1 LPCM over HDMI through a nanoAVR for bass management and a nanoAVR-DL for Dirac Live room correction, and subsequent conversion to SDI and 4x 2 channel AES/EBU extraction to the DAC of my choice. Granted, the SINAD figures are not all that impressive but an Okto DAC8 Pro would fix that at modest cost. Of course, no Atmos or sample rates greater than 48 kHz. But whatever SINAD I can buy in terms of DAC and amps.

I would LOVE to see a 7.1 straight through module on the RMC-1 just switched, not even volume control (or an optional processed path, though I see little reason for it) that would not significantly degrade a 110 or 115 dB SINAD signal for people like me. (Balanced, pleaseeeee.)

That setup of yours is actually extremely nice, thanks for sharing the details in the different threads.

I was trying for ages to think of something like this - in a workable state. I gave up under the impression that the Blu-ray Player decoded multichannel PCM is still under the bane of HDCP. It is still not clear to me how this works: I looked through the HDMI specs and I could not find a thing detailing it. I crawled the net and found essentially nothing on topic besides this at AnandTech from, uh, 2008:

But, Wait! There is a solution. It's ok to send uncompressed audio over HDMI, so in theory you could decode TrueHD/DTS-HD audio tracks in software and send them out as decoded, uncompressed LPCM without a Protected Audio Path.

Am I missing something here, or is the SDI02 stripping the HDCP stuff away like some of these super cheap HDMI splitters?

The other thing I stumbled with is that I have not found a player with a setup which specifically stated : "do this to output 7.1 pcm" It all came down to a mish-mash of "set this to Auto" and "and this to HDMI" - and hope for the best. Only device I found explicitly stating these things was the PS 3/4. Have to say, I skipped the Oppo's here.

Now, just given that the output of multichannel PCM without audio content protection works, does this allow to go the AES/EBU route the full way up until the speakers for 7.1? Something along the lines of: BD-Player 7.1 PCM out -> HDMI to SDI converter -> SDI-Audio 4K Converter to get 8 channel (4x 2 pairs) AES/EBU out -> AES/EBU in for Genelec 83x0 + 7360A -> sub crossover and room response eq with GLM and stored within the speakers.

 

[rhollan]

That setup of yours is actually extremely nice, thanks for sharing the details in the different threads.

I was trying for ages to think of something like this - in a workable state. I gave up under the impression that the Blu-ray Player decoded multichannel PCM is still under the bane of HDCP. It is still not clear to me how this works: I looked through the HDMI specs and I could not find a thing detailing it. I crawled the net and found essentially nothing on topic besides this at AnandTech from, uh, 2008: Am I missing something here, or is the SDI02 stripping the HDCP stuff away like some of these super cheap HDMI splitters?

The other thing I stumbled with is that I have not found a player with a setup which specifically stated : "do this to output 7.1 pcm" It all came down to a mish-mash of "set this to Auto" and "and this to HDMI" - and hope for the best. Only device I found explicitly stating these things was the PS 3/4. Have to say, I skipped the Oppo's here.

Now, just given that the output of multichannel PCM without audio content protection works, does this allow to go the AES/EBU route the full way up until the speakers for 7.1? Something along the lines of: BD-Player 7.1 PCM out -> HDMI to SDI converter -> SDI-Audio 4K Converter to get 8 channel (4x 2 pairs) AES/EBU out -> AES/EBU in for Genelec 83x0 + 7360A -> sub crossover and room response eq with GLM and stored within the speakers.

The SDI-02 accepts an HDCP-protected HDMI 1.4 (so 1080p) stream and converts it to SDI (which has no notion of HDCP or other copy protection). The unit by HDTV Supply is advertised for the purposes of making SDI monitors interoperate with HDMI sources and NOT for defeating copy protection.

Most Bluray players have a setting to decode to 5.1 or 7.1 LPCM audio and a max sample rate setting. Other settings can be Auto (the destination negotiates it) or Bitstream. The better ones (Oppos included as well as some Sonys) have a separate HDMI 1.4 output for "audio" connections to an AVR that carries black video.

Now, in my case I take the "AVR HDMI 1.4 output of a Sony 4k player, run it through a minidsp nanoAVR for bass management, and then a nanoAVR-DL for Dirac Live processing (I also do 24 bit digital volume control here). Then it goes through the "magic" SDI-02 to give me SDI and a Blackmagic 4 x 2ch AES/EBU digital audio deembedder, an 8 channel Symetrix Lucid 8824 DAC and amps. The nanoAVRs are discontinued but minidsp does make a DDRC-88D which does the same (and for $99 bass management as well) on four AES/EBU lines. A nanoAVR-DL came up on Ebay so that set my path.

Now the Lucid 8824 only sports a SINAD of 85 dB (0.005% THD+N) and my Crown amps are arguably worse (75 dB) but that is now a matter of choice. Further, the 8824 sports D/A level control over documented MIDI commands, so something like a Raspberry Pi with a USB to MIDI dongle could be used for volume control (in the 8824 it is done with an analog VCA) instead of digitally in one of the nanoAVRs.

The image shows an Odyssey 12RU stage rack holding everything. From top to bottom you can see lighted power panel, Symetrix Lucid 8824 DAC, shelf with the two nanoAVRs, a Crown 1502 amp (L+R), two Crown 1002 amps (surrounds) and an Outlaw Audio 2200 amp (center). Not seen is the SDI-02 or deembedder on the "processing shelf" that holds the nanoAVRs.

You can certainly do what you propose, though I'm not sure how you'd synchronize gain in all the Genelecs and subwoofer.

 

[Vincentponcet]

The SDI-02 accepts an HDCP-protected HDMI 1.4 (so 1080p) stream and converts it to SDI (which has no notion of HDCP or other copy protection). The unit by HDTV Supply is advertised for the purposes of making SDI monitors interoperate with HDMI sources and NOT for defeating copy protection.

Most Bluray players have a setting to decode to 5.1 or 7.1 LPCM audio and a max sample rate setting. Other settings can be Auto (the destination negotiates it) or Bitstream. The better ones (Oppos included as well as some Sonys) have a separate HDMI 1.4 output for "audio" connections to an AVR that carries black video.

Now, in my case I take the "AVR HDMI 1.4 output of a Sony 4k player, run it through a minidsp nanoAVR for bass management, and then a nanoAVR-DL for Dirac Live processing (I also do 24 bit digital volume control here). Then it goes through the "magic" SDI-02 to give me SDI and a Blackmagic 4 x 2ch AES/EBU digital audio deembedder, an 8 channel Symetrix Lucid 8824 DAC and amps. The nanoAVRs are discontinued but minidsp does make a DDRC-88D which does the same (and for $99 bass management as well) on four AES/EBU lines. A nanoAVR-DL came up on Ebay so that set my path.

Now the Lucid 8824 only sports a SINAD of 85 dB (0.005% THD+N) and my Crown amps are arguably worse (75 dB) but that is now a matter of choice. Further, the 8824 sports D/A level control over documented MIDI commands, so something like a Raspberry Pi with a USB to MIDI dongle could be used for volume control (in the 8824 it is done with an analog VCA) instead of digitally in one of the nanoAVRs.

The image shows an Odyssey 12RU stage rack holding everything. From top to bottom you can see lighted power panel, Symetrix Lucid 8824 DAC, shelf with the two nanoAVRs, a Crown 1502 amp (L+R), two Crown 1002 amps (surrounds) and an Outlaw Audio 2200 amp (center). Not seen is the SDI-02 or deembedder on the "processing shelf" that holds the nanoAVRs.

You can certainly do what you propose, though I'm not sure how you'd synchronize gain in all the Genelecs and subwoofer.

That's a very interesting setup.
Can you confirm your sdi02 can transmit 96 and 192khz either stereo or 7.1 ? Or is it limited to 48KHz ?
I understood the nanoAVR DL is limited to 48KHz but the new DDC88D can do 192 KHz.
The question is then does the SDI02 pass the 7.1 192KHz or does it limit to 48KHz ?

 

[rhollan]

That's a very interesting setup.
Can you confirm your sdi02 can transmit 96 and 192khz either stereo or 7.1 ? Or is it limited to 48KHz ?
I understood the nanoAVR DL is limited to 48KHz but the new DDC88D can do 192 KHz.
The question is then does the SDI02 pass the 7.1 192KHz or does it limit to 48KHz ?

3G SDI (on the SDI-02) only supports 48 KHz sampling of up to 16 channels of 24 bit audio, I am afraid. Supposedly, there are schemes that will give you 8 channels of 96 KHz 24 bit audio, but I have not verified this. The way SDI audio usually works when embedding or deembedding into an SDI stream is in sets of banks of four or eight channels. Both Blackmagic and AJA make embedders/deembedder with analog or digital (AES/EBU) interfaces. I've attached a photo of the SDI-02 connected to a Blackmagic deembedder. The AJA model is arguably better but around $795.

 

[Vincentponcet]

3G SDI (on the SDI-02) only supports 48 KHz sampling of up to 16 channels of 24 bit audio, I am afraid. Supposedly, there are schemes that will give you 8 channels of 96 KHz 24 bit audio, but I have not verified this. The way SDI audio usually works when embedding or deembedding into an SDI stream is in sets of banks of four or eight channels. Both Blackmagic and AJA make embedders/deembedder with analog or digital (AES/EBU) interfaces.

I understood blackmagic or aja devices do not work if the hdmi input as hdcp.

 

[rhollan]

I understood blackmagic or aja devices do not work if the hdmi input as hdcp.

They don't. But the SDI-02 does. I discovered that the hard way. I have the Blackmagic model. I was under the impression that the AVR "audio" HDMI output from my player did not have HDCP, and maybe it doesn't. But, the problem was that the miniDSP nanoAVRs insisted on an HDCP sink downstream of them even if the input was not HDCP-protected. I was dead in the water until I discovered the SDI-02.

https://www.hdtvsupply.com/hdmi-to-hd-sdi-converter.html

 

[Vincentponcet]

They don't. But the SDI-02 does. I discovered that the hard way. I have the Blackmagic model. I was under the impression that the AVR "audio" HDMI output from my player did not have HDCP, and maybe it doesn't. But, the problem was that the miniDSP nanoAVRs insisted on an HDCP sink downstream of them even if the input was not HDCP-protected. I was dead in the water until I discovered the SDI-02.

https://www.hdtvsupply.com/hdmi-to-hd-sdi-converter.html

This blu-ray statistics website says there are 33 BDs with 96KHz and 6 with 192KHz. So they are very rare.
http://www.blu-raystats.com/Stats/Stats.php

Why are you using two nanoAVRs ?
It sounds like DDC88D can do dirac live and bass management for 8 channels, so could replace your two minidsp, isn't ?

 

[rhollan]

This blu-ray statistics website says there are 33 BDs with 96KHz and 6 with 192KHz. So they are very rare.
http://www.blu-raystats.com/Stats/Stats.php

Why are you using two nanoAVRs ?
It sounds like DDC88D can do dirac live and bass management for 8 channels, so could replace your two minidsp, isn't ?

It doesn't matter what the audio sampling rate on the media is. Most (if not all) DVD, Bluray, and 4k players, let you specify the maximum audio sampling rate (and whether to decode formats like Dolby TrueHD or DTS to LPCM) over HDMI and will downsample if necessary.

As for using two nanoAVRs, a nanoAVR-DL came up cheap on EBay so I could test things before buying the second one (a plain nanoAVR-HD for bass management). Today I would probably go the DDRC-88D route (and still might).

What IS unknown is how much jitter I am getting on the AES/EBU outputs coming from an HDMI source and whether an AJA deembedder is better than a Blackmagic one (I suspect it is).

 

[Vincentponcet]

It doesn't matter what the audio sampling rate on the media is. Most (if not all) DVD, Bluray, and 4k players, let you specify the maximum audio sampling rate (and whether to decode formats like Dolby TrueHD or DTS to LPCM) over HDMI and will downsample if necessary.

As for using two nanoAVRs, a nanoAVR-DL came up cheap on EBay so I could test things before buying the second one (a plain nanoAVR-HD for bass management). Today I would probably go the DDRC-88D route (and still might).

What IS unknown is how much jitter I am getting on the AES/EBU outputs coming from an HDMI source and whether an AJA deembedder is better than a Blackmagic one (I suspect it is).

Downsampling is a loss of quality. But at least it works. Anyway, more than 48KHz multi channels BDs are very rare.
The problem for me is now for pure audio 2 channels, I don't want downsampling and I want a Dirac Live solution which works for multi-channels and pure audio 2ch.
I could probably put an AES switch before the the MiniDSP to have either the multichannel path or the stereo path.
MiniDSP DDC88D supports up to 192KHz.
Or doing 4*AES input in a PC to do dirac live here and using the DAC in USB, but passing into a PC could add too much latency.

 

[rhollan]

Whether downsampling makes an audible difference is debatable... but yes, one is limited to 48 KHz using this technique. And, while the DDRC-88D will resample its output to the rate at its input, Dirac Live processing occurs at 48 KHz.

I have often thought of combining an Atmos pre/pro with an analog path of high fidelity stereo through a "direct" or "reference" input or using an outboard audio preamp with HT bypass (basically unity gain for the pre/pro output) but this poses the following problems:

1) Often even high-end analog preamps only sport SINAD figures WORSE than good modern pre/pros like the Monoprice HTP-1 (at its sweet spot).

2) This removes the chance for bass-managed stereo unless done in the analog domain by something like an Emotiva XSP-1 (discontinued) relegating one to resampling in the pre/pro and lising all benefits of a prior high-fidelity D/A conversion.

3) No Dirac live or other stereo room correction. You could use a minidsp SHD but it has no HT bypass and has delay issues when integrated.

So, you are left with two systems and the need for some kind of poplesss switch. And, Dirac Live downsamples to 48 KHz anyway. Unless you want unprocessed and un-bass managed stereo (and some do), this is not a fruitful path.

To recap: if you want Dirac Live, you will live with 48 kHz downsampling (unless there is a PC version that doesn't and I know of no such thing for more than two channels). An integrated system will likely be as good as the "poor" pre/pro anyway, so why integrate? I think the real complaint is the lack of upgradability of audio quality in a pre/pro or AVR. You get what you get.

Here's what I'd like to see:

A basic pre/pro with HDMI switching and decoding. It might have room correction, or not. It might have DACs or not. And it might have some channels of amplification (be an AVR) or not. But what it DOES have is this: an HDMI "loop" carrying up to 16 channels of LPCM audio for outboard processing, with either an HDMI input of same (to use it's DACs) or a pair of DB-25 (Yamaha pinout or similar) balanced analog inputs, to run directly to outputs (or VCAs for volume control). The most basic box just does switching, and you can license decoding software for it (TrueHD, DTS, etc. Maybe even room correction). Should cost $1000 or less for the basic model. Essentially, a "baby Trinnov". With this you can do outboard room correction, DACs, amps, to your heart's content, so long as digital audio paths are protected by HDCP on HDMI interfaces.

The current crop of AVRs and pre/pros are so buggy and poor quality, something has to give. I think a large part of the problem is the sheer degree of integration: the guys (and gals) who are good at digital audio suck at analog, and those who are good at analog suck at software, and so forth.

 

[Vincentponcet]

Whether downsampling makes an audible difference is debatable... but yes, one is limited to 48 KHz using this technique. And, while the DDRC-88D will resample its output to the rate at its input, Dirac Live processing occurs at 48 KHz.

Oh nooooo.

I didn't see that in MiniDSP product page, that's they do upsampling. That would be like a scam if it is not said in their product page.

Dirac claims to support 192KHz but then I don't know which devices.
https://www.dirac.com/news/2016/2/1...ection-suite-with-192-khz-sample-rate-support