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Monoprice Blackbird Review (HDMI Audio Extractor)

Rate this HDMI Audio Extractor

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 16 12.4%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 47 36.4%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther

    Votes: 53 41.1%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 13 10.1%

  • Total voters
    129

AudioSceptic

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First post, I did not see an introduction thread but I may be missing something, anyway my name is JJ.

Nice little device to get an added digital out. Will this extractor process just a stereo signal if that’s what I feed it? I’m assuming the answer is yes but I didn’t see that specifically brought up in the thread. I’m looking to use the toslink out of the extractor fed HDMI from a CD/DVD player.
The CD/DVD player doesn't have S/PDIF coax or optical outputs?
 

danstahl

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Having one of these with high quality DACs, RCA/XLR outputs, and volume control/preamp would be perfect for me. I wouldn't need to spend $$$ on a receiver or prepro with a million unused features and licensing.
 

Kevinfc

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Monoprice is a good company for great value products. I’ve bought a few similar devices and always been pleased. Their cables and connectors are great too.
 
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Deleted member 50971

Guest
There might be cheaper options if that's all you want. Trouble is, they won't have been tested by Amir. :)
Yes there are quite a few of them that I see, and none of them are very expensive. That’s why I jumped on this one when I saw it because it was Amir approved. I’ve learned not to buy anything until I see some actual measurements.
 
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Deleted member 50971

Guest
Monoprice is a good company for great value products. I’ve bought a few similar devices and always been pleased. Their cables and connectors are great too.
I agree, although they do make a couple of items i wouldn't buy. I wanted to like their AVP they put out early recently, but it was not Amir approved, and if I remember right it had some interface problems.

I agree about their cables for the most part, and use one of their 10 or 12 ft coax cables for one of my DAC’s.
 

AudioSceptic

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I wonder what the jitter output of the Toslink was like? If I'm not misunderstanding, the jitter test shown is for the analog output of the device.

I tested a similar kind of device and even the Toslink out of it was somehow "dirty" even though bits were correct. Perhaps a more modern DAC would filter that out better. Anyway here are the result from that device in this post.


Here is the Jtest the better curve being Toslink from a good source, and the other (in red) being Toslink from the video extraction. Same DAC in both cases.
index.php
I think that's the worst I've seen.
 

Berkut

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Have a similar one (albeit in a white plastic enclosure). With a Sony Blu-Ray player that has TWO HDMI outputs (second for sound only), I managed to set up a Junkyard dirt cheap Home 5.1 Theatre as such :
-SONY HDMI video goes into the xtractor, I only use FL/FR analog out to a Yamaha R-N402D receiver hooked up to a pair of Focal Aria 906 and Yamaha NS-SW300 Sub on Hi-level speaker B terminals (effectively treating FL/FR as full-range). Then off to the projector. Did not use the spdif optical out because it's a stereo mix, not FL,/FR signals.
-SONY AUDIO straight into a dirt-cheap Yamaha SR-301 sub/HTR for centre Channel (Focal Dome Flax) and surrounds (Focal Sib). The Dome Flax is actually the most expensive piece.

Before that I used all analog outputs with an old SONY SRP-X700p audio/video router (5.1 RCA inputs) and a bunch of amps. The thing is that it has dsp : 11 pole parametriic eq for FR and FL + a decent bunch for surrounds, center and the sub. Worked brilliantly, but not quite nice in a living room.

OLD hi-end avrs that can take 5.1 either through analog or optical can sound superb...even in two-channel listening. Fancied a second bande Denon with a Big toroïdal transformer for a while...
 

DrZingo

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Jan 30, 2022
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I read somewhere that people use FireTV Stick 4k for streaming Amazon music HD, you just have to extract the the audio stream to get it to your DAC. Guess this should work...
I do something similar but with an ordinary Chromecast and a Tendak HDMI extractor that costs 20 dollars into my Dac through Toslink. Unless you believe you need bitrates above 48 kHz, it works like a charm. I use Qobuz, but of course just about anything supports Chromecast.
 
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Sound86

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That’s me, and this sort of thing is the future of audio.

A huge number of us have our stereo set up with the tv in the middle. People ‘return to vinyl’ because they say they want physical ownership, but I think in big part it’s the artwork, sleeve notes, lyrics, etc.

The future is streaming. So let’s get streaming into that standard set up, only with the visual aspect. Okay, that’s what Amazon Music HD on the Fire does. But the next step is to make it audiophile.

This, in itself, is a good step. But what’s the quality of the audio output of the Fire over HDMI? It doesn’t matter how good this is, if the streamed audio it’s receiving is corrupted before it even arrives.

Anyone?
I agree, Vinyl for me is a home accessory, like a vase or a rug, if you get my meaning. I enjoy my round about 1000 LPs, but mostly not for listening.

Since Fire sticks have an android OS under the hood you should be able to get an uncorrupted digital signal. How to go about it, I am not sure. I still use Tidal, because its much cheaper with VPN, but since TIdal uses MQA and Music HD uses FLAC we all know which one is objectively the better source.
 
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Deleted member 50971

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I agree, Vinyl for me is a home accessory, like a vase or a rug, if you get my meaning. I enjoy my round about 1000 LPs, but mostly not for listening.

Since Fire sticks have an android OS under the hood you should be able to get an uncorrupted digital signal. How to go about it, I am not sure. I still use Tidal, because its much cheaper with VPN, but since TIdal uses MQA and Music HD uses FLAC we all know which one is objectively the better source.
Hi, my streaming choices are Apple Music, mainly because of the wife she likes it, Amazon music HD, and I do enjoy TIDAL. MQA sounds good to me, and pretty much sounds the same as all the other ones.

Vinyl does Have an undeniable appeal for some of us, I know that most people don’t get it, but there’s some thing about getting the best sound from an old technology that is intriguing.
 

Sound86

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Hi, my streaming choices are Apple Music, mainly because of the wife she likes it, Amazon music HD, and I do enjoy TIDAL. MQA sounds good to me, and pretty much sounds the same as all the other ones.

Vinyl does Have an undeniable appeal for some of us, I know that most people don’t get it, but there’s some thing about getting the best sound from an old technology that is intriguing.
Well if you havent seen it, its quite interesting...


MQA probably is just a clever Hifi marketing campaign (like we all know in the industry), but I do agree to my ears it doesnt sound bad or wrong. Nevertheless audiophile gold standard right now is Amazon Music HD.

And vinyl will never get you the objectively best sound, that can only happen with a digital source. Doesnt mean you cant have great and enjoyable sound with vinyl, but I wont take anyone seriously telling people his 2000 USD turntable 180g vinyl setup will beat a DAC for the same price with lossless audio and USB Audio Player Pro (for instance). Thats just make-believe.
 
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Tks

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The analog performance of this HDMI audio extractor could embarrass a self respecting audiophile.
It would? Seems the performance is top tier compared to all the audiophiles and the devices the praise that I've known before finding this forum.

Ooooooh I get what you were trying to say now! The Distortion is too LOW, because audiophiles take distortion to be a good, so the higher, the better! Yeah, I'm catching your drift now bossman.

How silly of me.
 

ROOSKIE

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And vinyl will never get you the objectively best sound, that can only happen with a digital source. Doesnt mean you cant have great and enjoyable sound with vinyl, but I wont take anyone seriously telling people his 2000 USD turntable 180g vinyl setup will beat a DAC for the same price with lossless audio and USB Audio Player Pro (for instance). Thats just make-believe.
We have folks spending hours on a couch listening with all their might to test tracks to discern if they find fantastically minute differences between Spotify and lossless.
On this forum, a top tier $100 dac and Spotify will handlidly beat a $2k turntable in terms of fidelity - Without question. No need for a $2k DAC and lossless audio in order to beat the fidelity of a turntable.
So the debate for me is really about the dubious value of expensive DAC products and lossless audio, even if we just focus on well engineered expensive DACs and the best lossless.
 

Kevinfc

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The switch lets you "lie" to the source and tell it you have 8 channel audio even though your TV for example only has stereo

Can someone tell me a use for this?
 

DonR

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The switch lets you "lie" to the source and tell it you have 8 channel audio even though your TV for example only has stereo

Can someone tell me a use for this?
Feed an older AVR from an HDMI source that lacks HDMI but has 8-channel input.
 

DonR

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Vinyl does Have an undeniable appeal for some of us, I know that most people don’t get it, but there’s some thing about getting the best sound from an old technology that is intriguing.
Edison cylinders are still being made if you want the ultimate challenge in getting the best from old tech.
 

NiagaraPete

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audiophile gold standard right now is Amazon Music HD
I'm not sure I can agree with that. Do you have some sort of proof? Admittedly I don't like Amazon for many reasons.
 
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