Setting up Amplifier/receiver advice

sabidawg

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Hi all i have a PC, Hisense R7, yamaha rx-v571, and a 5.1 Klipsche reference speaker set up

My TV is connected through the yamaha rx-v571 HDMI ARC (TV) to HDMI OUTPUT (AMP). My PC is connected to the amp via HDMI 1(AMP) and GPU (PC)

I wanted to start learning a bit more about the functions on the amplifier, PC and TV and the information i am reading is all to overwhelming for me to understand properly. Basically what i would like to know is how i should set my system up to perform the best it possibly can.

For example on my TV i am not sure if i should select PCM or Passthrough or what it means.
On the amplifier I am unsure if i should select Straight, Straight Surround Decode or Direct or what it means
If i am downloading a movie that has Dolby Atmos or something similar, how can i make sure i am getting the best sound possible? I don't think the amp supports Dolby atmos but my computer can. So is it possible to have the computer do the decoding and have the receiver just work as an amp?

Any advice would be great

Thanks
 
Hi. Are you running Windows 10 on the PC, and what player are you using for playing back your videos? Does the GPU support HD audio output?

For explanations of the upmixing options, it is probably best to read the manual as that will explain it as well as anyone else can.

The basics are that if you have the amp in straight or direct, it should playback the input audio untouched. That means it will play stereo as stereo, or dolby digital 5.1 as dolby digital 5.1. If you use one of the upmixers, it will intelligently spread the audio around all of the connected speakers to make it more of a surround sound experience. Yamaha have lots of different upmixers to choose from, so it is just a case of trying them out and seeing which you prefer.
 
Hi, Thank you so much for your reply. I am running windows 10 and I have only just changed my media player from VLC to MPC HC after doing a bit of reading on players. I downloaded the K-LITE codec pack so that i could playback some of the downloaded content and find that overall the video and sound quality was better.

I believe my GPU supports HD audio output. I downloaded and bought the dolby atmos for home theater and headset (mainly for my gaming PC as i have a pair of stereo headphones) I was actually quite impressed by the sound quality. I set my receiver to Straight and Direct as that seemed to have sounded best with my PC set to Dolby Atmos for home theater, However I think i have decided to stick with Straight over Direct as some of the reading i have been doing mentioned that Direct can affect your Sub. Then use the surround Decode if i have something that is in stereo which i want played through all speakers.
I think i understand it a bit better then i did yesterday.

Another problem i came across was i couldn't get Youtube or Netflix to play any sound through the browser if i had the PC set to dolby atmos. The receiver would say Dolby TRUE HD but i would get no sound. I had to change my computer sound to 5.1 or dolby atmos for headphones for it to work but then the Receiver would say PCM only which i believe cant play surround sound? The sound quality isn't great when the receiver is in PCM mode
If i play Youtube and Netflix directly through the TV then it plays the sound in Dolby Digital, however the video quality isn't as good as when i watch Netflix through the PC.

Again thanks heaps for the Reply. Your explanation on the mixers makes complete sense and after playing around with it a bit more i can now understand it and hear it
 
Glad it helped. The next step is a bit of a head scratcher. If you set Windows 10 to Dolby atmos, or even 5.1, Windows will always send that audio to the amp. So for non atmos or stereo audio, it will fill the empty channels with silence.

This means that the amp always shows the input signal as multi channel, even if it is only getting a stereo soundtrack, and the silence sent to t the unused channels prevents the amp from upmixing.

Recommended setting is to leave Windows in stereo mode. This means your amp can upmix stereo to use all of your speakers, if that's what you want.

For videos use a player that enables bitstreaming also known as passthrough, use WASAPI if possible. The video player will then bypass the Windows audio mixer and send the audio bitstream through to the amp intact, allowing the amp to decode it.

You might have to do something different with games. I don't use any of my HTPCs for gaming.
 

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