Cheaper, previously more available, extractors didn't work with bitstream signals, only with LPCM multichannel. This unit seems to work with both and does a very good job digitally.
I use a commercial grade 4K
Atlona HDMI
AT-HDR-M2C Multichannel Converter:
View attachment 272597
to take the HDMI multichannel output of my bedroom AVR (
Marantz SR8015) and de-embed and
downmix Dolby/DTS soundtrack and other multichannel music audio signals (from my
ATT U-Verse,
Roku, or
Roon sources) to its toslink output which then transmits the digital downmixed stereo signal to my remote
Sennheiser Digital Wireless RS 175 Headphone setup. Don't know the quality of the DAC in the
Sennheiser, but this way I can listen to all the "goodness" of downmixed 7.1 audio via a wireless stereo headphone system in privacy without disturbing others in the household. It sounds very good, especially if I engage some of the "surround" settings of the
Sennheiser. However, as costly as the
Atlona unit is,
Atlona hasn't figured out all of their HDCP bugs and very occasionally, when switching channels, it loses the audio track which requires a reboot of my
Marantz (think it's the
U-Verse module that has this issue, because it never happens with
Roku or
Roon).
I very much like this setup, but the
Orei HDA-939 Extractor may be very tempting, first because of its
much more affordable cost, and second, with newer technology,
it may not [edited 2023/03/31] have these annoying HDCP bugs (hopefully with UniVersal [pun intended] compatibility).
