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HDMI to Optical Blues

ThatM1key

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It's hard to put this into words. Years ago I was given a Denon DVD-2500BTCI from my father, which before you type, he bought used for dirt cheap. Most of its life in my hands, its been sitting. I would like to use it as a "fancy" CD transport but there's one problem, only HDMI output. I recently bought a Sony STR-DA5400ES from my father, so I thought they would make a great combo but I'm not a huge fan of that Sony and I prefer my "cheap" Yamaha A-S301. I was thinking of using the Sony as a optical/RCA extractor but it seems so silly to use it as such. I want to use that Denon player with my Yamaha.

I was looking at those cheap "HDMI extractors" on amazon, I kept overthinking (The fine perks of being an "Audiophile"). My main concern is that the extractor would add jitter or add something to the extracted optical signal. A part of me is overthinking and other part feels justified thinking like this.
 

djtetei

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As long as you use a high quality, well made HDMI extractor, you shouldn't have any problems.
My advice is to use the HDMI extractor as a digital audio output device, using its digital optical or digital coaxial outputs only, connected to a dedicated digital to analog audio converter or directly to the Yamaha stereo receiver digital audio optical or coaxial inputs.
You may experience jitter only if you are using the HDMI extractor built-in audio digital to analog converter (RCA outputs), as those DACs are pretty basic compared to a dedicated external audio DAC.
 
OP
ThatM1key

ThatM1key

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As long as you use a high quality, well made HDMI extractor, you shouldn't have any problems.
My advice is to use the HDMI extractor as a digital audio output device, using its digital optical or digital coaxial outputs only, connected to a dedicated digital to analog audio converter or directly to the Yamaha stereo receiver digital audio optical or coaxial inputs.
You may experience jitter only if you are using the HDMI extractor built-in audio digital to analog converter (RCA outputs), as those DACs are pretty basic compared to a dedicated external audio DAC.
Which HDMI extractors do you recommend?

In terms of that digital path idea. i was thinking of using my Topping E30 as a optical-in-DAC.
 

DVDdoug

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I wouldn't expect any problems with CDs but S/PDIF doesn't support the Bly-Ray formats and most stand-alone DACs can't decode Dolby or any of the multichannel DVD/Blu-Ray formats.
 
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ThatM1key

ThatM1key

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I wouldn't expect any problems with CDs but S/PDIF doesn't support the Bly-Ray formats and most stand-alone DACs can't decode Dolby or any of the multichannel DVD/Blu-Ray formats.
I'm not worried about not being able to decode uncompressed blu-ray formats. Thanks for your reply.
 
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ThatM1key

ThatM1key

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Bit of an update. Years ago my father bought one of those cheap HDMI Extractors and found it. The one I have has no branding but its identical to the avedio links one. One downside is that the extractor needs a HDMI display, otherwise it does nothing but luckily you can just hook it up to a monitor or a TV, and it'll work even when you don't have it selected as an input. If you don't want to hook up an actual HDMI display, you could buy an "HDMI Dummy" but I don't know if it'll work.

In terms of resolutions the extractor was happy with my Denon: 480p, 1080i, and 1080p24

In terms of audio performance, it seems pretty transparent (Denon --> Extractor (Optical)--> Topping E30 ---> Yamaha). I turned the volume to max while my denon was stopped on a CD (to have a constant signal) and I didn't hear any noise/hiss. I haven't tried the RCA output (of the extractor) and I bet it sounds like garbage.

I was looking at the Musou version at Amazon and decided to make a meme out of it.

Before:

Screenshot 2022-09-17 204540.png

After:

Screenshot 2022-09-17 210319.png
 
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