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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

iMickey503

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What you want is an HDMI capture card. Not sure if it will get all the channels, but its a start.
1660423142754.png


Or something like this that should be able to handle all the audio channels since that is in fact a thing for game streamers:

The Black magic cards according to the OBS forums members indicate that this card will capture all audio channels.

Also, you will need a device that strips copy protection from the signal.
 
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Lambda

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Anyone know of an HDMI extractor that has USB out?
if you want to connect a USB DAC directly, thatch not possible.
(because of the Asyncromus natorue of USB DACs)
This is why i complain about it if a DAC has Only USB in and not some sort of synchronous interface like SPDIF, toslink,AES, i2s, ADAT...
 

abdo123

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What you want is an HDMI capture card. Not sure if it will get all the channels, but its a start.
View attachment 224054

Or something like this that should be able to handle all the audio channels since that is in fact a thing for game streamers:

The Black magic cards according to the OBS forums members indicate that this card will capture all audio channels.

Also, you will need a device that strips copy protection from the signal.
Wait a second, with an e-Arc extractor, capture card, and a raspberry pi, you can make probably make a DIY 7.1 AVR.
 

mdsimon2

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Wait a second, with an e-Arc extractor, capture card, and a raspberry pi, you can make probably make a DIY 7.1 AVR.

I’ve tried a few capture cards in hopes of doing that but none of them do multichannel audio. The reviews for the one linked for example says it only captures mono audio. Maybe there is one that actually works but I haven’t seen it.

Michael
 

wwenze

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It is worth noting that they do not support 4k60 and HDR. So the best use for it is to use with some streamer (like ChromeCast) to play music. No no for any current gen console (XSX/PS5) owners, or even any home theatre system.

Or you can use it with a setup that doesn't have 4k60 or HDR to begin with. There's also the HDMI splitter option.
 

PeteL

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LOL to 'dumb and dumber'!
What are you going to call HDMI when v2.1 will enable advanced sound systems like Dolby Atmos?:facepalm:
The expression was not mine but quoted from the review. from Amir. Now I am not sure how your point is relevant. To my point? I was talking about backward compatibility, most HDMI 1.x devices don't work at all with modern computers, like not recognised... At all... I think in those case any advance Encoding will not play so well don't you think?
 
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Chilli

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Great work @amirm! Hdmi extractors are definitely worth measuring. What a surprise to see the spdif/tos output to be so clean.
I have had 2 hdmi extractors which did not work with my topping D50 when extracting the digital out of the Apple TV hdmi output. I was resigned to go back to my 17yr old avr instead. Knowing full well, that it’s compatibility was to do with the receiving of the dac, I bought the new Sabaj a20d 2022 and I can confirm that it works with flying colours.
 

Sound86

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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...
 

pseudoid

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I was talking about backward compatibility, most HDMI 1.x devices don't work at all with modern computers, like not recognised...
Sorry, my point was that proprietary standards suck and half-baked standards suck >6dB more.
HDMIv1.3 days was almost a reasonable upgrade for a few early years.
When HDMIv1.4 came out; out went some of the A/V gear and cables of old.
HDMIv2.0 meant that a new 4K TV and a compatible AVR (or a pre/Pro) would have to purchased...
Of course, HDMIv2.0 also meant purchase of new v2.0 HDMI cables.
ARC was a work-around and eARC was a hack on top of a work-around.
I think @amirm discussed the problematic HDMI audio output and called it stupid.
After they duct-taped CEC functions to the HDMI spec; the interconnected hardware got erratic and became wonky.
HDMI (as it currently stands) is burdened with more than just backward/legacy compatibility problems and that was the reason I had asked what the HDMIV2.x should be called.
?Guana Crazy?

The cherry on top of HDMI is its ContentProtection (aka HDCP) schemes that is a kluge which supposed to protect the consumer from himself, especially if that consumer just wants to use the "splitter option".
 
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Bamyasi

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But I don't think the TV's I've seen have lacked audio output jacks ... is this just to get 8 channel vs 2 channel ....
Not everyone even have a TV. HDMI audio extractors are certainly cheaper than buying a TV plus AVR if all you want is to listen to some music streaming service on your stereo system.
 

ENG

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Can the Monoprice Blackbird 4K series HDMI 7.1 be bought by a retailer in EU ?
 

Human Bass

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I use the toslink out of my tv to edifier stereo speakers and works perfectly.
 

BR52

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What problem is that?
I have a EX5 connected from my TV via fiber optical with no problems.
Did I miss reports on problems connecting toslink to Topping products?

What problem is that?
I have a EX5 connected from my TV via fiber optical with no problems.
Did I miss reports on problems connecting toslink to Topping products?

Not only Topping. If you want to learn more, simply use the search function and key in " Topping spdif, or Dac spdif TV, or se 90 spdif " and so on.

The problem is connecting two different appliances together, we can blame one or two of it. At least the end user has the problem, falling between the chairs. And not all combinations are faulty.
 
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Robbo99999

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You get to use something other than your TV’s speakers without investing in an AVR.
Yep, I was gonna ask what the point of this product was, and after reading the review I was gonna ask: "So this means this cheap unit is an actual 8 channel DAC then, so it takes an HDMI signal and allows you to connect up active speakers (via the analog outs) to this to create a 7.1 surround sound system if you wanted to?"

Is this really the case? I mean you have no functionality to set speaker delays so you'd ideally have to have all speakers in their ideal position, and no functionality for roomEQ of course. But essentially you could build a cheap 7.1 movie system around this cheap device right?

EDIT: although thinking about it, aren't most movies encoded using Dolby Digital or Atmos, so this 8 channel DAC wouldn't know what to do with that signal. Movies are never encoded with just a generic 7.1 channel audio are they....it's always Dolby right. So this device wouldn't be able to be used in place of an AVR for 7.1 surround for movies??
 
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Blumlein 88

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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
 
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Yorkshire Mouth

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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...

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?
 

mgbpuff

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I bought one of these from Amazon for my computer station. I had previously bought a 7.1ch Razer headset which required 7.1 of analog channels input. This fit the bill nicely. HDMI in from computer, HDMI out to computer monitor, 7.1 analog out to Razer headset interface box, and toslink digital out to my Woo WA7 firefly high quality headphone DAC/amp (tube powered). This makes for a nice system.
 

shal

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Anyone know of an HDMI extractor that has USB out?

Look HdFury like this https://hdfury.com/product/8k-vrroom-40gbps/

The convert all hdmi in all hdmi (with conversion if needed like hdmi2.0 => 1.1 or paththrought or a lot of thing).
If needed it can "forget" to place the bit that mean that content is protected, after firmware upgrade (a.k.a HDCP remover)

And after you can used a standard hdmi usb converter to retrive image or sound with digital quality
 
D

Deleted member 50971

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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.
 
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delta76

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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.
Yes
 
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