Why Don't High SINAD Receivers Exist?

[3dbinCanada]

From your post and @3dbinCanada's, it looks like everything goes through the DSP circuit in your AVR. With "straight" disabling some DSP features but that is just disabling/enabling extra math not the whole circuit. And you probably cannot do DSP on/off tests on that AVR. Thanks again for trying though.

As about hearing any of those AVR vs soundcard diffs, very slim chances indeed. The difference in noise floor at 120 vs 130 DB is probably inaudible for @3dbinCanada's bats too . I would concentrate on the diffs in low level harmonics, e.g. those power harmonics at 50Hz and multiples. Which are much higher for the AVR and quite counterintuitive. "Common knowledge" would say that a fully-built-for-audio device like the AVR would have very little of that and a soundcard using 'dirty' PC power would have a lot. Your measurements show the exact opposite. Another great 'win' for AVRs.
However, D in the bass range is least audible. By far. Might just be a waste of time & music neurons.

I would try a separates setup (multichannel DAC + Amp) if I were you. With external Dolby decoding & roomcorrection you are halfway there. But then, noone can guarantee that you'll be happier with those separates.

How in earth did you reach the conclusion about analog signals get moved into the digital domain??? It was clearly shown that analog signals remain in the analog domain through measurements and manufacturer supplied information.

As far as picking out harmonics from the signal, its not humanly possible. Good luck with that.

 

[Aerith Gainsborough]

You keep using that HD & room noise 'thing'. Those two aren't (much) related.

if I have a loud signal and a small signal, hearing the small signal is difficult.
Hearing the small signal in a noisy environment is even more difficult to impossible, despite being able to hear the loud signal clearly in both cases.

How in earth did you reach the conclusion about analog signals get moved into the digital domain??? It was clearly shown that analog signals remain in the analog domain through measurements and manufacturer supplied information.

He was talking about my AVR, which does not have a "pure direct" mode. Since tone controls and DSP presets still work with analog input and since there is no relay click, I assume the signal is digitized.

It would also explain the somewhat lessened performance. I was confused when I measured it but it actually makes sense, since I doubt they'll use some uber quality ADC.

 

[Wes]

How difficult is it to shield the pre-amp from a tuner in the same box?

 

[lashto]

if I have a loud signal and a small signal, hearing the small signal is difficult.
Hearing the small signal in a noisy environment is even more difficult to impossible, despite being able to hear the loud signal clearly in both cases.

Yes that one. What you wrote is 100% logical at first sight and I guess that makes it so appealing. But it's also 99.99% wrong (when talking about HD)

I am kinda tired trying to explain this so let's see, maybe you can actually figure it out yourself. Look at the measurements of this amp (don't read the subjective-impressions part!). That amp has HD components as high as -40dB. Use your 'small signals theory' and calculate how many of those small-signals you will have when playing music. And what will they do. Then you can easily predict how that amp will sound according to your 'small signals theory'.

And then read the subjective impressions in that article and its followup. See if those impressions match the predictions of your 'small signals theory' in any way. Good luck!

 

[rhollan]

Sigh.

I came upon this thread while lamenting (a) the lack of open source ATMOS decoding and (b) the lack of high SINAD preamp/processors (never mind AVRs). I admit having been in the "worse than 100dB SINAD is crap" camp though I secretly think that is bullocks.

I am a fan of two things, often at odds with one another: Dirac Live the heck out of the room (and correct the speaker's impulse response) and manage the bass; and purist "audiophile" unprocessed reproduction of music. You'd think an HT pre/pro with an audio preamp with an HT bypass input would satisfy me... Until I see the SINAD figures on the latter. Often the pre/pro measures better! Consider the Parasound Halo P7 preamp. 85 dB SINAD. Arguably (and we can debate this until the cows come home) this is inaudible but 100 dB SINAD is "more-er" inaudible so, why bother with the separate preamp with HT bypass? To avoid any pre/pro processing? Well, unless one has an analog source and does not want an A/D/A conversion, the DAC in the pre/pro will be good enough given we can reach 100dB SINAD with the likes of Monoprice. So, that leaves the separate preamp for rhe vinyl-heads. Fair enough, but I am not among their number.

Then there is bass management, or digital processing in general. Does it distort the original? Of course it does. But is the result at the ear closer to the original by offsetting speaker and room response? Any EQ strives to UNDO distortion and it would have to be pretty bad to make it worse. I unashamedly use bass management to route front Left and Right low-frequency signals from my BG Radia 520s to a pair of non-descript Klipsch subwoofers. Could (and should) I upgrade the subs to, say Rythmik F-12s. Sure. But would replacing the 520s with, say, a pair of Tekton Double Impacts and forgoing the subs be better? I'd save a crossover, but damn, whether in the process or digitally or in the speaker in the analog domain, there will be a crossover. Might have seperate subs for LFE but still.

I dare say that 85 or even 75 dB SINAD is acceptable. My present system is 7.1 digital to an old Lucud 8824 8 channel DAC (85 or 100 dB SINAD depending on which spec sheet one reads) and 75 dB SINAD Crown amps. Pure crap, right? Well, sounds damn good to me (lacking perhaps in the very low bass) after bass management and Dirac Live basterdizing the he'll out of it. The limiting factor is likely the speakers!

Of course thhe idea was to be able to upgrade the DAC and amps to the level of SINAD I could eventually afford. But, apart from front left and right (and bass-managed subs) 75 dB SINAD is likely plenty for surrounds.

For comparison my first amp, a Carver TFM-22 boasted a 0.15% THD. SINAD no better than 56 dB.

Of course all this processing is blasphemy to the purist who wants a "clean" signal to be sent to their speakers who's reproductive capabilities make a 56 dB SINAD spectacular by comparison. For me, processimg is not about what we break but rather if we fix more than we break. I think the answer is often "yes".

Processing corrects downstream distortions and adds it's own. Done well, it is a net improvement. And remember: the crossover in your speakers and the cabinet they are in contribute to processing. We can usually do better with a bit of digital magic.

Tube afficiados will swear by the "warm" sound. Yeah: even harmonics, as opposed to odd ones, in poor transistor gear, that are jarring. Pick your poison. Bob Carver made a living of making transistors sound like tubes.

The point is we can pick our distortion so as to minimize how "bad" it is.

As far as modern AVRs go I think ALL OF THEM are good enough in the SINAD department. Where they might lack is in the "oomph" (power) to reach, say THX reference levels. For me, that has been the hardest part of setting up my modest theater.

But, of course, YMMV. I've got a movie to enjoy.

 

[Matt S]

Sigh.

I came upon this thread while lamenting (a) the lack of open source ATMOS decoding and (b) the lack of high SINAD preamp/processors (never mind AVRs). I admit having been in the "worse than 100dB SINAD is crap" camp though I secretly think that is bullocks.

I am a fan of two things, often at odds with one another: Dirac Live the heck out of the room (and correct the speaker's impulse response) and manage the bass; and purist "audiophile" unprocessed reproduction of music. You'd think an HT pre/pro with an audio preamp with an HT bypass input would satisfy me... Until I see the SINAD figures on the latter. Often the pre/pro measures better! Consider the Parasound Halo P7 preamp. 85 dB SINAD. Arguably (and we can debate this until the cows come home) this is inaudible but 100 dB SINAD is "more-er" inaudible so, why bother with the separate preamp with HT bypass? To avoid any pre/pro processing? Well, unless one has an analog source and does not want an A/D/A conversion, the DAC in the pre/pro will be good enough given we can reach 100dB SINAD with the likes of Monoprice. So, that leaves the separate preamp for rhe vinyl-heads. Fair enough, but I am not among their number.

Then there is bass management, or digital processing in general. Does it distort the original? Of course it does. But is the result at the ear closer to the original by offsetting speaker and room response? Any EQ strives to UNDO distortion and it would have to be pretty bad to make it worse. I unashamedly use bass management to route front Left and Right low-frequency signals from my BG Radia 520s to a pair of non-descript Klipsch subwoofers. Could (and should) I upgrade the subs to, say Rythmik F-12s. Sure. But would replacing the 520s with, say, a pair of Tekton Double Impacts and forgoing the subs be better? I'd save a crossover, but damn, whether in the process or digitally or in the speaker in the analog domain, there will be a crossover. Might have seperate subs for LFE but still.

I dare say that 85 or even 75 dB SINAD is acceptable. My present system is 7.1 digital to an old Lucud 8824 8 channel DAC (85 or 100 dB SINAD depending on which spec sheet one reads) and 75 dB SINAD Crown amps. Pure crap, right? Well, sounds damn good to me (lacking perhaps in the very low bass) after bass management and Dirac Live basterdizing the he'll out of it. The limiting factor is likely the speakers!

Of course thhe idea was to be able to upgrade the DAC and amps to the level of SINAD I could eventually afford. But, apart from front left and right (and bass-managed subs) 75 dB SINAD is likely plenty for surrounds.

For comparison my first amp, a Carver TFM-22 boasted a 0.15% THD. SINAD no better than 56 dB.

Of course all this processing is blasphemy to the purist who wants a "clean" signal to be sent to their speakers who's reproductive capabilities make a 56 dB SINAD spectacular by comparison. For me, processimg is not about what we break but rather if we fix more than we break. I think the answer is often "yes".

Processing corrects downstream distortions and adds it's own. Done well, it is a net improvement. And remember: the crossover in your speakers and the cabinet they are in contribute to processing. We can usually do better with a bit of digital magic.

Tube afficiados will swear by the "warm" sound. Yeah: even harmonics, as opposed to odd ones, in poor transistor gear, that are jarring. Pick your poison. Bob Carver made a living of making transistors sound like tubes.

The point is we can pick our distortion so as to minimize how "bad" it is.

As far as modern AVRs go I think ALL OF THEM are good enough in the SINAD department. Where they might lack is in the "oomph" (power) to reach, say THX reference levels. For me, that has been the hardest part of setting up my modest theater.

But, of course, YMMV. I've got a movie to enjoy.

I enjoyed reading that. Nice set up there. Enjoy your movie.

 

[Newman]

If you don’t feel the need to sit in the middle, then no wonder you reckon there are a lot of ‘purists’ out there.

 

[3dbinCanada]

Sigh.

I came upon this thread while lamenting (a) the lack of open source ATMOS decoding and (b) the lack of high SINAD preamp/processors (never mind AVRs). I admit having been in the "worse than 100dB SINAD is crap" camp though I secretly think that is bullocks.

I am a fan of two things, often at odds with one another: Dirac Live the heck out of the room (and correct the speaker's impulse response) and manage the bass; and purist "audiophile" unprocessed reproduction of music. You'd think an HT pre/pro with an audio preamp with an HT bypass input would satisfy me... Until I see the SINAD figures on the latter. Often the pre/pro measures better! Consider the Parasound Halo P7 preamp. 85 dB SINAD. Arguably (and we can debate this until the cows come home) this is inaudible but 100 dB SINAD is "more-er" inaudible so, why bother with the separate preamp with HT bypass? To avoid any pre/pro processing? Well, unless one has an analog source and does not want an A/D/A conversion, the DAC in the pre/pro will be good enough given we can reach 100dB SINAD with the likes of Monoprice. So, that leaves the separate preamp for rhe vinyl-heads. Fair enough, but I am not among their number.

Then there is bass management, or digital processing in general. Does it distort the original? Of course it does. But is the result at the ear closer to the original by offsetting speaker and room response? Any EQ strives to UNDO distortion and it would have to be pretty bad to make it worse. I unashamedly use bass management to route front Left and Right low-frequency signals from my BG Radia 520s to a pair of non-descript Klipsch subwoofers. Could (and should) I upgrade the subs to, say Rythmik F-12s. Sure. But would replacing the 520s with, say, a pair of Tekton Double Impacts and forgoing the subs be better? I'd save a crossover, but damn, whether in the process or digitally or in the speaker in the analog domain, there will be a crossover. Might have seperate subs for LFE but still.

I dare say that 85 or even 75 dB SINAD is acceptable. My present system is 7.1 digital to an old Lucud 8824 8 channel DAC (85 or 100 dB SINAD depending on which spec sheet one reads) and 75 dB SINAD Crown amps. Pure crap, right? Well, sounds damn good to me (lacking perhaps in the very low bass) after bass management and Dirac Live basterdizing the he'll out of it. The limiting factor is likely the speakers!

Of course thhe idea was to be able to upgrade the DAC and amps to the level of SINAD I could eventually afford. But, apart from front left and right (and bass-managed subs) 75 dB SINAD is likely plenty for surrounds.

For comparison my first amp, a Carver TFM-22 boasted a 0.15% THD. SINAD no better than 56 dB.

Of course all this processing is blasphemy to the purist who wants a "clean" signal to be sent to their speakers who's reproductive capabilities make a 56 dB SINAD spectacular by comparison. For me, processimg is not about what we break but rather if we fix more than we break. I think the answer is often "yes".

Processing corrects downstream distortions and adds it's own. Done well, it is a net improvement. And remember: the crossover in your speakers and the cabinet they are in contribute to processing. We can usually do better with a bit of digital magic.

Tube afficiados will swear by the "warm" sound. Yeah: even harmonics, as opposed to odd ones, in poor transistor gear, that are jarring. Pick your poison. Bob Carver made a living of making transistors sound like tubes.

The point is we can pick our distortion so as to minimize how "bad" it is.

As far as modern AVRs go I think ALL OF THEM are good enough in the SINAD department. Where they might lack is in the "oomph" (power) to reach, say THX reference levels. For me, that has been the hardest part of setting up my modest theater.

But, of course, YMMV. I've got a movie to enjoy.

Nice post and I agree with you. Some AVRs however, that are fed analog signals have the capability to keep the signal in the analog path. Yamaha is one such brand. Ive set up all 3 AVRs such that Pure Direct (driving my main speakers full range) sounds identical (with the added weight of bass by the subwoofer) to my configuration where speakers are set to small with no room correction engaged. Im only using bass management in the 2nd configuration.

 

[rhollan]

Pure direct, or "reference", stereo, or whatever the manufacturer wants to call it still involves a gain (or attenuation) stage in an AVR or pre/pro, and often results in SINAD figures no better than a D/A stage with bass management would give, or marginally better.

Sure, it's purer and less processed. Are your full range speakers as good as the bass management would be?

I like my Radia 520s, despite the lack of low end. I admit to being a ribbon snob in that regard. Crossing them to a sub is a bit of a pain as the line source rolls off at 3 dB per doubling of distance and not 6 dB, but I have a small room so I don't worry about that much. Would, say, Tekton Double Impact sound better? Maybe. Would still need subs for LFE. I don't want to schlep the Tektons out of their packing crates, or worse, pay to ship them back.

My point is, as much as I've gone to some effort to stay digital as long as possible, Atmos is ruled out doing that, and almost any modern pre/pro does as good as I can, save getting an Okto DAC8, which would nececitate Benchmark amps all around to "keep up".

I get it: the Monoprice HTP-1 is not "sexy. But it still measures damn good if a bit anemic. Just don't drive professional amps with it (which tend to be horrible in the SINAD dept.) My Lucid 8824 puts our +24 dBu at 0DBFS. What? 12V or so? Easy to attenuate in the Crowns with 1.5V sensitivity. Gain structure from the gods. But I'm not running 500 feet of balanced cable by the stadium lights.

Improve my subs? Sure. Go ATMOS? Sure. But my all digital effort gets me to 7.1 and no further and I can get to 100 dB SINAD in that format if I want. Better even, with an Okto DAC8 PRO and AHB2 amps where desired. And a pedestrian Monoprice processor can match it. What's sad is much more expensive pre/pro (ever check the SINAD figures on a Trinnov Altitude16 ?) are often worse.

 

[3dbinCanada]

For most of my music listening, I would say yes that my mains do not need help in the bass department. I responded to your post because you asserted that AVRs always converted everything into the digital realm and I pointed out that this is incorrect.

 

[dfuller]

Well... turns out the answer is basically "crosstalk is a bitch". There's so much stuff crammed into these boxes that there's basically no way to avoid stuff bleeding into other stuff. As for worse performance when more channels are driven, that's down to the power supply sagging and not being able to keep up with current demand.

 

[Kevin1956]

The answer to the original question? Because inaudible is inaudible. Companies that would cater to people who care about inaudible distortions being more inaudible generally don’t make receivers. My experience and opinion. I am sure there are exceptions, because there are always exceptions. When I started in this hobby in the 1970’s, receivers competed in measurement wars. Slowly but surely, everyone’s measurements became equally “good” and producing receivers with inaudible distortions became easily mass producible. Once home theater came about, it became a “features” war. The distortions were still inaudible, and no longer needed to be the real focus to sell receivers.

 

[rhollan]

For most of my music listening, I would say yes that my mains do not need help in the bass department. I responded to your post because you asserted that AVRs always converted everything into the digital realm and I pointed out that this is incorrect.

Oh! I didn't mean to imply that. I mean, often they do, and cheap ones (even pre/pro) do, though "reference" or "direct" modes can avoid this. But no, this is not always available. And, reference modes don't provide bass management necesitating full range mains.

I generally view bass management as a good thing -- just another crossover, whether implemented as an analog crossover in the speaker (ignoring mixing from other channels for the moment, something that does not happen with two channel sources) or a digital one in the processor. But yes, for analog sources, there will be an A/D transformation, with the associated level.of distortion.

Crosstalk was mentioned, and this is probably THE bugaboo when trying to cram a lot into a single box. And that brings us back to my efforts to combat it by doing all processing digitally, with minidsp nanoAVRs for bass management and Dirac Live, with a subsequent conversion from HDMI to SDI using an SDI02, AES/EBU deembedders, and older studio grade 8 channel DACs. I can get whatever level of SINAD I want that way, albeit without source switching, analog sources, or ATMOS. Given that HDMI is "secured" with HDCP, why does no one make ATMOS (or other bitstream) decoders with HDMI in and out (and HDMI DACs avoiding the SDI02 cheat) for a clean digital audio path? Meridian comes close, with their digital systems but, as I recall, no ATMOS.

So, we have receivers, or pre/pros, riddled with crosstalk, even on "reference" or "direct" inputs that still manage to beat SINAD figures of analog preamps with HT bypass inputs, there being no crosstalk excuse for the latter unless we get into really rarified preamps.

The JBL SDP-55 seemed promising, with Dante output, but (a) that is insecure, offending the content gods, and the beast remains (b) buggy as heck.

The Emotiva XSP-1 was an all-analog bass-managed 2.2 preamp with HT bypass inputs with stellar specs and deserves mention. It appears discontinued. But again, unless you have an analog source and want to keep it that way, I am not opposed to digital bass management or other processing, the quality of the ADC noted.

I think many got burned by poor quality digital audio (early CD players were awful until we got a handle on reconstruction filters, dithering, and noise shaping) and thus are biased toward analog systems. Yet, analog preamps today often sport SINAD figures of yesterday, which could be much improved. The nature of the distortion simply changed as we got better with digital systems.

The holy grail appears to be good digital processing with separate analog reconstruction in a different box, with a secure link between them. HDMI could meet this need: bitstream in, and LPCM out. Yet, I know of no pre/pro that will send anything other than stereo out it's HDMI out port to the TV (mostly because that's all TVs reproduce from their speakers, but there's nothing to prevent a "TV" from negotiating "I accept 16 channel LPCM"). The pre/pro will say "Sorry: stereo (downmixed at that) for you". So, for advanced bitstreamed content we are stuck with 16 channels of analog circuitry crammed into a digitally noisy processor. Trinnov, and Storm Audio do offer digital outputs, but at five figure costs and even their analog outputs lack in the SINAD department.

At some point, something's got to give.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Crosstalk was mentioned, and this is probably THE bugaboo when trying to cram a lot into a single box.

Doing some tests about 20 years ago to see why LPs didn't sound as dire as the measurements would suggest we found that better crosstalk than 30dB was inaudibly better, which means most pickup cartridges are adequate and all electronics is way better than is actually needed.

 

[3dbinCanada]

Well... turns out the answer is basically "crosstalk is a bitch". There's so much stuff crammed into these boxes that there's basically no way to avoid stuff bleeding into other stuff. As for worse performance when more channels are driven, that's down to the power supply sagging and not being able to keep up with current demand.

Have you personally heard the effects of crosstalk in an AVR? I have 5 and I have NEVER experienced the effects of crosstalk. Thats just one of those pro seperates camp audiophile myths, convenient to bring up but never physically realized.

 

[dfuller]

Have you personally heard the effects of crosstalk in an AVR? I have 5 and I have NEVER experienced the effects of crosstalk. Thats just one of those pro seperates camp audiophile myths, convenient to bring up but never physically realized.

It's probably not audible (most of the time), but it sure looks ugly compared to the high performance DACs and amps.

 

[3dbinCanada]

It's probably not audible (most of the time), but it sure looks ugly compared to the high performance DACs and amps.

Like Frank Dernie pointed out...your biggest source of crosstalk lies with the cartridge on a turntable which is inaudible. Even entry level AVRs best the cartridge by a minimum of an additional 40 db. Comparing inuadibility at this point is rather pointless.

 

[rhollan]

It's probably not audible (most of the time), but it sure looks ugly compared to the high performance DACs and amps.

I agree. It may not be audible. But, it measures ugly. And I prefer "measures better" to "measures worse" if the extra money is not too much. Call it insurance against the difference turning out to be audible. "Crosstalk" might not be the right term either, as it is not so much between channels, as it is between audio and interfering (digital) components. Without double blind testing all we can do is speculate and buy insurance against audible distortion based on measurements.

My personal preference for separates stems not from audiophile snobbery, but rather a desire for flexibility -- being able to change amps. I would like to be able to change DACs as well. On receivers, if one could use the (limited) amp channels for surround and ATMOS channels with digital feeds of processed (or not) LCR, that would be a wonderful thing. Sadly, most prioritize LCR amplified channels over others (often providing line level ATMOS outputs).

 

[Vincentponcet]

Oh! I didn't mean to imply that. I mean, often they do, and cheap ones (even pre/pro) do, though "reference" or "direct" modes can avoid this. But no, this is not always available. And, reference modes don't provide bass management necesitating full range mains.

I generally view bass management as a good thing -- just another crossover, whether implemented as an analog crossover in the speaker (ignoring mixing from other channels for the moment, something that does not happen with two channel sources) or a digital one in the processor. But yes, for analog sources, there will be an A/D transformation, with the associated level.of distortion.

Crosstalk was mentioned, and this is probably THE bugaboo when trying to cram a lot into a single box. And that brings us back to my efforts to combat it by doing all processing digitally, with minidsp nanoAVRs for bass management and Dirac Live, with a subsequent conversion from HDMI to SDI using an SDI02, AES/EBU deembedders, and older studio grade 8 channel DACs. I can get whatever level of SINAD I want that way, albeit without source switching, analog sources, or ATMOS. Given that HDMI is "secured" with HDCP, why does no one make ATMOS (or other bitstream) decoders with HDMI in and out (and HDMI DACs avoiding the SDI02 cheat) for a clean digital audio path? Meridian comes close, with their digital systems but, as I recall, no ATMOS.

So, we have receivers, or pre/pros, riddled with crosstalk, even on "reference" or "direct" inputs that still manage to beat SINAD figures of analog preamps with HT bypass inputs, there being no crosstalk excuse for the latter unless we get into really rarified preamps.

The JBL SDP-55 seemed promising, with Dante output, but (a) that is insecure, offending the content gods, and the beast remains (b) buggy as heck.

The Emotiva XSP-1 was an all-analog bass-managed 2.2 preamp with HT bypass inputs with stellar specs and deserves mention. It appears discontinued. But again, unless you have an analog source and want to keep it that way, I am not opposed to digital bass management or other processing, the quality of the ADC noted.

I think many got burned by poor quality digital audio (early CD players were awful until we got a handle on reconstruction filters, dithering, and noise shaping) and thus are biased toward analog systems. Yet, analog preamps today often sport SINAD figures of yesterday, which could be much improved. The nature of the distortion simply changed as we got better with digital systems.

The holy grail appears to be good digital processing with separate analog reconstruction in a different box, with a secure link between them. HDMI could meet this need: bitstream in, and LPCM out. Yet, I know of no pre/pro that will send anything other than stereo out it's HDMI out port to the TV (mostly because that's all TVs reproduce from their speakers, but there's nothing to prevent a "TV" from negotiating "I accept 16 channel LPCM"). The pre/pro will say "Sorry: stereo (downmixed at that) for you". So, for advanced bitstreamed content we are stuck with 16 channels of analog circuitry crammed into a digitally noisy processor. Trinnov, and Storm Audio do offer digital outputs, but at five figure costs and even their analog outputs lack in the SINAD department.

At some point, something's got to give.

How are you doing audio decoding to aes/ebu ?
The sdi02 is not doing dolby TrueHD, dts-ma, dolby digital decoding to lpcm.

 

[rhollan]

How are you doing audio decoding to aes/ebu ?
The sdi02 is not doing dolby TrueHD, dts-ma, dolby digital decoding to lpcm.

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