Multichannel audio via HDMI

Hello scsynth!

Today I thought of something, if audio over HDMI supports 5.1 or 7.1 setups, would it be possible to build some sort of DAC (or use a generic HDMI digital audio decoder) and use these capabilities to output multichannel audio?

I understand it’s kind of pointless, especially with so many great multichannel soundcards on the market today, but I was still wondering whether it would be possible. Maybe it could be useful to someone who’s on a tighter budget and wants to experiment with multichannel audio in a domestic setting, e.g. on crappy computer speakers or old hi-fi sets…

1 Like

Like this:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/814500-REG/Atlona_AT_HD570_HDMI_1_3_Audio_De_Embedder.html/?ap=y&ap=y&smp=y&smp=y&lsft=BI%3A514&gclid=CjwKCAjw_Y_8BRBiEiwA5MCBJipU6VWUKrhvQ1PN_TSdHTVXzeVvdLcg8enu0kmCgDAU5pTPLH4RIhoC4EUQAvD_BwE

I think it is a good solution.

Sam

hi, I have been using an hdmi 7.1 home cinema amplifier for 1 year : it works !
the amp can do without cinema effects, we can then - with sc - use the 8 channels as we want, with neutral sound […].
At home there are enough watts, the minimum of wires and with good speakers, it sounds.
The problem I am having is that the PCM signal must pass (?) through the computer’s audio chipset. To do liveCoding/algoCompo it doesn’t really pose any problems, but for playing keys/pads, there is too much latency on my old laptop and pi4.
Are there better chipsets than others ?

Oh! The amp has no audible latency when playing DmC Devil May Cry