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Modern AV stuff is insane. I have no interest in taking it up as a hobby. I have an xbox, a TV, and a pair of bookshelf speakers. How am I supposed to get th

Modern AV stuff is insane. I have no interest in taking it up as a hobby. I have an xbox, a TV, and a pair of bookshelf speakers. How am I supposed to get the audio to the speakers without a bulky expensive receiver box? Luckily, I have one of the last remaining TVs with a headphone jack. I don't use a remote for any of it. Side note: Sometimes the TV doesn't come on when you press its power button. After a tremendous amount of experimentation, I determined this was because the "brain" was on, but the backlight was not. Power cycling it blind usually fixes it. That's harder than it sounds though because you have to navigate the menu blind using short and long button presses with the one button. But I'm scared to try a new TV, because then I'm going to have to figure out how to get audio out of the TV. It seems like AV stuff used to be so simple. Now the simplest scenarios seem to require more and more knowledge about arcane connection standard interactions and network topology. Ugh.

jauntywundrkind 10mo ago
Thankfully there are fun engaged hackery people. The article here seemed to dive in, look at what was happening, and figure out some altogether decent & not absurd flows. It wasn't "easy", but it also wasn't totally absurd. I get why you'd whinge & argue for a simple cable. But this was also a wonderful study, that showed steps, that I hope can bring joy & not just derision. That said, I also have no receiver box & rely on headphone out... which my not that old LG C4 has. Also, if that goes away: SPDIF decoder boxes are very cheap!
systemtest 10mo ago
> How am I supposed to get the audio to the speakers without a bulky expensive receiver box? You can have bookshelf speakers with an integrated amplifier and HDMI-ARC. All you need is an HDMI cable between the TV and the speakers.
- recursive 10mo ago
  I'm not home at the moment, but I'm pretty sure they don't have an HDMI input. I haven't seen speakers that do, except sound bars. I don't like the general premise of sound bars. You either need a subwoofer, or you're limited to too-many too-small drivers.
  - systemtest 10mo ago
    There are a couple of brands that sell them, that’s what I meant. I prefer bookshelf speakers over a soundbar due to the larger drivers and better stereo separation
  - muti 10mo ago
    Active bookshelf speakers with HDMI Arc input are getting more common. Kanto Ren, Kef LSX II, Klipsch The Fives, Elac Debut ConneX There's also the compact, simple alternatives to bulky receivers that are becoming available: Wiim amp, Sonos amp, Eversolo play, and the cheaper chinese makers like SMSL and Fosi. Each of those brands has a small device the size of an apple tv that will take an HDMI Arc input, and output an amplified signal to power some passive bookshelf speakers.
jimmaswell 10mo ago
That little headphone jack is seriously driving bookshelf speakers to a reasonable volume? If it works it works but that doesn't sound right, unless these are actually self-powered speakers with their own amplifiers inside. I'd really like to know the details because this sounds crazy. Also, I collect a lot of old receivers and speakers. It's really not that complicated and the basics have been the same since the 70s and 80s. Any flatscreen TV made in the past 20 years typically has a TOSLINK output which will be compatible with receivers stretching back to the 80s - I have my LG C1 connected to some 90s Marantz receiver this way. Any old receiver you find on Facebook Marketplace for $20 will typically suffice here as long as you check for the TOSLINK port first, but you do need a separate actual amplifier somewhere along the line to drive a speaker larger than a pair of headphones unless the speaker has its own amp built-in. I find all this stuff fun so my own setup has that chained to a series of other receivers acting as subwoofer amplifiers as well as using the pre-amp output to drive a Mesa Baron tube amplifier/Acoustat electrostats I was gifted, but most people don't need anything so complex.
- ryandrake 10mo ago
  I was kind of in OP's shoes a few months ago. My 2000-2010 era stereo receiver crapped out and I was looking to see if I could simplify my system a bit. Unlike OP, I didn't need anything that could extract audio from the TV. My requirements were: 1. A decoder with at least 5.1 output since that's how many speakers I have 2. At least 3 HDMI inputs + 1 HDMI output to my TV 3. An amplifier with a volume control That's it! I don't need an FM tuner. I don't need multiple zones. I don't need wild listening modes and DSP effects. I don't need an on-TV setup display. I don't need fiber optic digital audio inputs. I don't need fucking rows and rows of 20 RCA jack inputs, composite video, component video, S-Video. You'd think I could find a small cheap box the size of an AppleTV that I could just hide somewhere that could do this, but I couldn't find anything sufficient. So I got another $20 gigantic, ugly, old 18-inch receiver again from Craigslist and just leave all those features and inputs unused.
  - jimmaswell 10mo ago
    I never understood the "ugly" perception. At worst some might look boring to me, but at best some of them are absolutely beautiful. For example, my favorite in my collection appearance-wise has a 70s-style wooden finish on all but the front plate with a polished silver look on the front plate: https://imgur.com/a/DAUeJJW https://imgur.com/a/DAUeJJW
lysace 10mo ago
Your quest is thankfully unrelated to ARC/CEC. Find a tiny TPA3255- or TPA3116-based amp. These are class D amplifier chips made by TI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class-D_amplifier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class-D_amplifier Buy one of these from e.g. Amazon. Optionally: Throw away/recycle away the supplied chinese noname power supply. Buy a used laptop PSU from a reputable brand locally for cheap instead. I scored a Lenovo 135W/20V laptop PSU for $5 at my local Goodwill equivalent. Solder on a 5.5mm barrel jack connector. My fav for your use case: Fosi Audio TB10D.
- recursive 10mo ago
  I'm using active bookshelf speakers with integrated amps. They are working fine.
  - lysace 10mo ago
    I really dislike this behavior. You presented a problem, but you didn't want a solution. You wanted attention.
    - recursive 10mo ago
      I do want a solution. You haven't provided one. You suggested an amp. The fact that I'm able to use a headphone jack to connect my speakers should tell you I don't need an amplifier. The question posed is how to connect those speakers if I no longer had access to a headphone jack. Currently the headphone jack is working fine. For what it's worth, here's a comment that seems like it's get a perfect solution for me. Sorry if I was unclear.
- jtbayly 10mo ago
  1. His speakers are powered already. He doesn't need an amp. 2. Even if they weren't, how is he supposed to connect to the Fosi without a headphone jack coming out from the TV? The Fosi only has RCA input.
  - lysace 10mo ago
amluto 10mo ago
> How am I supposed to get the audio to the speakers without a bulky expensive receiver box? You can get a small ARC/eARC audio extractor with RCA or S/PDIF output and use your favorite amplifier or DAC with it.
- ewoodrich 10mo ago
  Yep, I have a bunch of those audio extractors, they're awesome. In my home office setup I even have an HDMI output that's mirrored to several screens and extract audio at various points along the same path (two using the dedicated mini extractor boxes, one just using the headphone out on a monitor).
- adamweld 10mo ago
  Correct answer, HDMI audio extractor. Personally I use an eARC extractor to run S/PDIF to an audio interface (MOTU Ultralite Mk5) and an RPi running camilladsp handles room correction and active crossovers. Overkill at the moment for just a few studio monitors and a sub, but it'll be a great solution when I get around to building some custom speakers.
  - amluto 10mo ago
    The MOTU Ultralite Mk5 is a nice piece of hardware and is even at a great price point if you use more than a tiny fraction of its capabilities, but it also costs quite a few times the entire cost of the rest of this system :) If you just want to get the eARC data, any S/PDIF input (USB or I2S-via-hat) would work just as well at 1/20 of the price :) I want someone to fudge up a multiple shairplay setup (presumably by claiming multiple IP addresses, as AirPlay 2.0 apparently can’t handle multiple sinks at the same address) that can use a single multichannel interface like the Ultralite Mk5. This would make an excellent multizone audio setup at an entirely reasonable price.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
monster_truck 10mo ago
It's still very simple and you have never needed anything expensive to do so. Stop with the learned helplessness and "being afraid to try a new TV"
- recursive 10mo ago
  I'm not going to buy a TV just to "try" to figure out how to get audio out of it. I mean, I'm sure there must be a way to do this. I've seen a few options in this thread. If I were to buy a TV, I would want to avoid making it more difficult than I have to. To that end, I'd want to figure out specifically how to get audio to the speakers. In my case, they're active bookshelf speakers without HDMI input. If the only possible way of doing this is with a bulky receiver, I'd feel justified in complaining about modern AV stuff. Not because of the cost, but because of the size. Anyway, thanks for your input.
  - moduspol 10mo ago
    Nah man I'm with you. I've gone chest-deep into this pool and still get issues 5-10% of the time with pretty simple use cases. And I've got a top-of-the-line TV and a pretty good receiver. It's maddening that such conceptually simple use cases don't "just work" even when you DO sink hundreds or thousands of dollars on the stuff you're supposed to.
rhinoceraptor 10mo ago
Another infuriating issue is TVs with so few HDMI inputs. I have tried many different HDMI switchers and none of them work reliably, so it kind of puts me off of buying a receiver which would also have that function.
- mschuster91 10mo ago
  Personally, I run a Yinker 4x4 matrix (in: nintendo switch 1, chromecast, mac pro 4.1 I use as a gaming rig, raspberry pi 5, out: projector, TV, pi 5) and am quite happy with it - no outages so far in half a year of uptime. I desperately need to work with CEC though lol, never had the time to actually test that. [1] https://www.amazon.de/Yinker-hintergrundbeleuchteter-Unterst%C3%BCtzt-Management-Steuerung/dp/B0C2YL94DH https://www.amazon.de/Yinker-hintergrundbeleuchteter-Unterst...
- jonhohle 10mo ago
  I’ve mostly had no issues with HDMI through Yamaha receivers and that includes weird things like an OSSC and Framemeister. On the other hand, HDMI switchers haven’t fared as well. I built a mini console rack with a switch and it doesn’t recognize several devices, even when manually selected.
  - exmadscientist 10mo ago
    > Yamaha receivers In my limited experience, Yamaha handles HDMI-CEC significantly better than Denon/Marantz. As evidenced by the fact that I currently own a Marantz receiver and am reading this page, but back when I owned a Yamaha receiver, I had no need to care about all of this crud. Things somehow worked on the first try! I did not expect that. However, it conditioned me to expect that again with a different receiver (the sources and sinks are the problems, right? the receivers are super well tested because sitting in the middle and passing these commands around is their entire job, right? right?) which was a mistake. (The actual issue with the Marantz is that it seems to be eating some kind of power-on command from the source, and not passing it on, so the TV never turns on if you try to turn on the receiver or the source. I have no idea how to fix this, short of following in the path of this article.)
justinsaccount 10mo ago
> It seems like AV stuff used to be so simple. > without a bulky expensive receiver box A "receiver" has been one of the standard options for making bookshelf speakers work for more than 50 years. A receiver is also not expensive. You can get a basic used one for under $100. I paid $30 for a perfectly working 5.1 Denon receiver with HDMI. Your problem is that you aren't even using "Modern" AV stuff. If you were, your speakers and TV would both have HDMI Arc ports. Arc has been a thing since 2009. > That's harder than it sounds though because you have to navigate the menu blind using short and long button presses with the one button. Or you could unplug it and plug it back in.
- recursive 10mo ago
  Why are receivers so big? It's not exactly a money issue. I just don't want the big box.
  - adamweld 10mo ago
    HDMI Audio Extractor is what you need. Look at OREI.
    - recursive 10mo ago
      Perfect! This looks like the one.
  - ianburrell 10mo ago
    Receivers are big because of the amplifiers. AV receivers have to drive lots of channels. They are all 5.1 or 7.1. But stereo receivers are also huge. I suspect that some of this is tradition because there are small solid state amplifiers. I'm surprised no one has made a small receiver for 2.1 system cause would be pretty common.
    - kenhwang 10mo ago
      If you open a standard sized receiver up, you'll probably see that 50% the space is empty for airflow, 25% of the space is for a large heatsink because they're passively cooled to minimize noise (thus the need for airflow), and 20% of the space is really big capacitors. They do make half size receivers, but they typically only have half the power output. The space savings comes from removing space for airflow and the heatsink, and using smaller capacitors for less heat and smaller power output. If you only need 2.1 output and a quarter of the power, there are offerings that are basically the size of the minimum amount of ports: 2 pairs of speaker terminals, a pair of RCA terminals for subwoofer out, a HDMI port, a optical port, and power. But then it's not really a receiver and more just of an amplifier+DAC because they only have one HDMI input/output, having space for multiple HDMI ports or speaker terminals basically increases the size to the offering above. They're big mostly because consumers demand a lot of big connectors on them.
p1necone 10mo ago
A receiver has always been a pretty standard part of even really simple AV setups - you can get half decent ones pretty cheap, and then you just run either the HDMI ARC port or the optical/coax digital audio out from your tv to the receiver so that everything you plug into your tv has it's audio go out to the speakers.
- recursive 10mo ago
  I know I could do this. But I don't really have space for a box. And I'd rather not have it.
kristianp 10mo ago
TVs seem to expect you to use HDMI-ARC to return sound to the receiver or soundbar. I wonder if there's any HDMI-ARC to audio dongles out there?
kevin_thibedeau 10mo ago
It seems you have amplified speakers. The low friction solution is to use a Toslink to RCA/TRS adapter. That will be a bulletproof digital output readily available on many TVs.
da768 10mo ago
You can get a WiiM Amp or Ultra with HDMI eARC, but you can go cheaper if optical out is good enough. Many TVs still have that one
ssl-3 10mo ago
The audio part can still be made to be simple. Others have mentioned toslink and I'd like to expand upon that. When you get a new TV and no longer have a headphone jack to plug your powered speakers into, then you can just add a DAC that converts the toslink digital audio that your new TV outputs into the bog-standard line-level analog audio that your speakers understand. DACs like this are available at all price points. At the low end of the scale, some are less than $15 -- and they're tiny. If you can't hide it somehow then I might insist that you're not really trying. And that's it. That's the entire missing link for where we are in 2025, wherein: A new TV will still have a toslink output, and your powered speakers still have an analog input. (Tomorrow? Who knows, man. We aren't there yet.)
- dontlaugh 10mo ago
  But you’d be left without volume control, or at least from the same remote you control the TV with.
  - ssl-3 10mo ago
    I've successfully set up sound bars with toslink and used the TV's remote to run the volume up and down. Toslink doesn't have to be a fixed level. If future-TV lacks this functionality: DACs that have remote volume controls are very nearly as inexpensive as those that don't.
- recursive 10mo ago
  Thanks. Those are some helpful search terms.
- redfloatplane 10mo ago
  It's quite hard to know if the DAC is actually decent quality though. I've bought two from Amazon (admittedly at the low price point) and both of them have line noise - one of them even has a ground loop buzz, which surprised me, since it's powered by USB-C. I'm unconvinced that any of the higher price points (that are still within my budget) aren't just these cheapo ones in slightly fancier cases. My old TV had real analogue out for speakers and it really did sound a lot better than what I've been getting through TOSLink and this cheapo DAC. Same Hi-Fi and speakers. I'm sure the problem could be solved with a more expensive DAC, but which one? How could I know? I find this is one of those things where it's quite hard for the uninitiated to see through the cloud of 'audiophiles' saying that you must buy gold cables or your audio will sound like garbage, and still getting decent quality audio.
nottorp 10mo ago
I've solved the problem by slapping myself whenever I catch myself looking at sound bars, receivers etc for the living room.
k4rli 10mo ago
I've seen new cheap LG tv-s with horrible port selection while their premium OLEDs have everything necessary (except Displayport). I had my LG C9 audio via the headphone jack going to amp and it worked fine. On one of the cheaper LGs I set it up similarly with optical cable and a tiny optical->rca converter.

jauntywundrkind 10mo ago

Thankfully there are fun engaged hackery people. The article here seemed to dive in, look at what was happening, and figure out some altogether decent & not absurd flows. It wasn't "easy", but it also wasn't totally absurd. I get why you'd whinge & argue for a simple cable. But this was also a wonderful study, that showed steps, that I hope can bring joy & not just derision. That said, I also have no receiver box & rely on headphone out... which my not that old LG C4 has. Also, if that goes away: SPDIF decoder boxes are very cheap!

systemtest 10mo ago

> How am I supposed to get the audio to the speakers without a bulky expensive receiver box? You can have bookshelf speakers with an integrated amplifier and HDMI-ARC. All you need is an HDMI cable between the TV and the speakers.

recursive 10mo ago
I'm not home at the moment, but I'm pretty sure they don't have an HDMI input. I haven't seen speakers that do, except sound bars. I don't like the general premise of sound bars. You either need a subwoofer, or you're limited to too-many too-small drivers.
- systemtest 10mo ago
  There are a couple of brands that sell them, that’s what I meant. I prefer bookshelf speakers over a soundbar due to the larger drivers and better stereo separation
- muti 10mo ago
  Active bookshelf speakers with HDMI Arc input are getting more common. Kanto Ren, Kef LSX II, Klipsch The Fives, Elac Debut ConneX There's also the compact, simple alternatives to bulky receivers that are becoming available: Wiim amp, Sonos amp, Eversolo play, and the cheaper chinese makers like SMSL and Fosi. Each of those brands has a small device the size of an apple tv that will take an HDMI Arc input, and output an amplified signal to power some passive bookshelf speakers.

jimmaswell 10mo ago

That little headphone jack is seriously driving bookshelf speakers to a reasonable volume? If it works it works but that doesn't sound right, unless these are actually self-powered speakers with their own amplifiers inside. I'd really like to know the details because this sounds crazy. Also, I collect a lot of old receivers and speakers. It's really not that complicated and the basics have been the same since the 70s and 80s. Any flatscreen TV made in the past 20 years typically has a TOSLINK output which will be compatible with receivers stretching back to the 80s - I have my LG C1 connected to some 90s Marantz receiver this way. Any old receiver you find on Facebook Marketplace for $20 will typically suffice here as long as you check for the TOSLINK port first, but you do need a separate actual amplifier somewhere along the line to drive a speaker larger than a pair of headphones unless the speaker has its own amp built-in. I find all this stuff fun so my own setup has that chained to a series of other receivers acting as subwoofer amplifiers as well as using the pre-amp output to drive a Mesa Baron tube amplifier/Acoustat electrostats I was gifted, but most people don't need anything so complex.

ryandrake 10mo ago
I was kind of in OP's shoes a few months ago. My 2000-2010 era stereo receiver crapped out and I was looking to see if I could simplify my system a bit. Unlike OP, I didn't need anything that could extract audio from the TV. My requirements were: 1. A decoder with at least 5.1 output since that's how many speakers I have 2. At least 3 HDMI inputs + 1 HDMI output to my TV 3. An amplifier with a volume control That's it! I don't need an FM tuner. I don't need multiple zones. I don't need wild listening modes and DSP effects. I don't need an on-TV setup display. I don't need fiber optic digital audio inputs. I don't need fucking rows and rows of 20 RCA jack inputs, composite video, component video, S-Video. You'd think I could find a small cheap box the size of an AppleTV that I could just hide somewhere that could do this, but I couldn't find anything sufficient. So I got another $20 gigantic, ugly, old 18-inch receiver again from Craigslist and just leave all those features and inputs unused.
- jimmaswell 10mo ago
  I never understood the "ugly" perception. At worst some might look boring to me, but at best some of them are absolutely beautiful. For example, my favorite in my collection appearance-wise has a 70s-style wooden finish on all but the front plate with a polished silver look on the front plate: https://imgur.com/a/DAUeJJW https://imgur.com/a/DAUeJJW

lysace 10mo ago

Your quest is thankfully unrelated to ARC/CEC. Find a tiny TPA3255- or TPA3116-based amp. These are class D amplifier chips made by TI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class-D_amplifier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class-D_amplifier Buy one of these from e.g. Amazon. Optionally: Throw away/recycle away the supplied chinese noname power supply. Buy a used laptop PSU from a reputable brand locally for cheap instead. I scored a Lenovo 135W/20V laptop PSU for $5 at my local Goodwill equivalent. Solder on a 5.5mm barrel jack connector. My fav for your use case: Fosi Audio TB10D.

recursive 10mo ago
I'm using active bookshelf speakers with integrated amps. They are working fine.
- lysace 10mo ago
  I really dislike this behavior. You presented a problem, but you didn't want a solution. You wanted attention.
  - recursive 10mo ago
    I do want a solution. You haven't provided one. You suggested an amp. The fact that I'm able to use a headphone jack to connect my speakers should tell you I don't need an amplifier. The question posed is how to connect those speakers if I no longer had access to a headphone jack. Currently the headphone jack is working fine. For what it's worth, here's a comment that seems like it's get a perfect solution for me. Sorry if I was unclear.
jtbayly 10mo ago
1. His speakers are powered already. He doesn't need an amp. 2. Even if they weren't, how is he supposed to connect to the Fosi without a headphone jack coming out from the TV? The Fosi only has RCA input.
- lysace 10mo ago

amluto 10mo ago

> How am I supposed to get the audio to the speakers without a bulky expensive receiver box? You can get a small ARC/eARC audio extractor with RCA or S/PDIF output and use your favorite amplifier or DAC with it.

ewoodrich 10mo ago
Yep, I have a bunch of those audio extractors, they're awesome. In my home office setup I even have an HDMI output that's mirrored to several screens and extract audio at various points along the same path (two using the dedicated mini extractor boxes, one just using the headphone out on a monitor).
adamweld 10mo ago
Correct answer, HDMI audio extractor. Personally I use an eARC extractor to run S/PDIF to an audio interface (MOTU Ultralite Mk5) and an RPi running camilladsp handles room correction and active crossovers. Overkill at the moment for just a few studio monitors and a sub, but it'll be a great solution when I get around to building some custom speakers.
- amluto 10mo ago
  The MOTU Ultralite Mk5 is a nice piece of hardware and is even at a great price point if you use more than a tiny fraction of its capabilities, but it also costs quite a few times the entire cost of the rest of this system :) If you just want to get the eARC data, any S/PDIF input (USB or I2S-via-hat) would work just as well at 1/20 of the price :) I want someone to fudge up a multiple shairplay setup (presumably by claiming multiple IP addresses, as AirPlay 2.0 apparently can’t handle multiple sinks at the same address) that can use a single multichannel interface like the Ultralite Mk5. This would make an excellent multizone audio setup at an entirely reasonable price.

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

monster_truck 10mo ago

It's still very simple and you have never needed anything expensive to do so. Stop with the learned helplessness and "being afraid to try a new TV"

recursive 10mo ago
I'm not going to buy a TV just to "try" to figure out how to get audio out of it. I mean, I'm sure there must be a way to do this. I've seen a few options in this thread. If I were to buy a TV, I would want to avoid making it more difficult than I have to. To that end, I'd want to figure out specifically how to get audio to the speakers. In my case, they're active bookshelf speakers without HDMI input. If the only possible way of doing this is with a bulky receiver, I'd feel justified in complaining about modern AV stuff. Not because of the cost, but because of the size. Anyway, thanks for your input.
- moduspol 10mo ago
  Nah man I'm with you. I've gone chest-deep into this pool and still get issues 5-10% of the time with pretty simple use cases. And I've got a top-of-the-line TV and a pretty good receiver. It's maddening that such conceptually simple use cases don't "just work" even when you DO sink hundreds or thousands of dollars on the stuff you're supposed to.

rhinoceraptor 10mo ago

Another infuriating issue is TVs with so few HDMI inputs. I have tried many different HDMI switchers and none of them work reliably, so it kind of puts me off of buying a receiver which would also have that function.

mschuster91 10mo ago
Personally, I run a Yinker 4x4 matrix (in: nintendo switch 1, chromecast, mac pro 4.1 I use as a gaming rig, raspberry pi 5, out: projector, TV, pi 5) and am quite happy with it - no outages so far in half a year of uptime. I desperately need to work with CEC though lol, never had the time to actually test that. [1] https://www.amazon.de/Yinker-hintergrundbeleuchteter-Unterst%C3%BCtzt-Management-Steuerung/dp/B0C2YL94DH https://www.amazon.de/Yinker-hintergrundbeleuchteter-Unterst...
jonhohle 10mo ago
I’ve mostly had no issues with HDMI through Yamaha receivers and that includes weird things like an OSSC and Framemeister. On the other hand, HDMI switchers haven’t fared as well. I built a mini console rack with a switch and it doesn’t recognize several devices, even when manually selected.
- exmadscientist 10mo ago
  > Yamaha receivers In my limited experience, Yamaha handles HDMI-CEC significantly better than Denon/Marantz. As evidenced by the fact that I currently own a Marantz receiver and am reading this page, but back when I owned a Yamaha receiver, I had no need to care about all of this crud. Things somehow worked on the first try! I did not expect that. However, it conditioned me to expect that again with a different receiver (the sources and sinks are the problems, right? the receivers are super well tested because sitting in the middle and passing these commands around is their entire job, right? right?) which was a mistake. (The actual issue with the Marantz is that it seems to be eating some kind of power-on command from the source, and not passing it on, so the TV never turns on if you try to turn on the receiver or the source. I have no idea how to fix this, short of following in the path of this article.)

justinsaccount 10mo ago

> It seems like AV stuff used to be so simple. > without a bulky expensive receiver box A "receiver" has been one of the standard options for making bookshelf speakers work for more than 50 years. A receiver is also not expensive. You can get a basic used one for under $100. I paid $30 for a perfectly working 5.1 Denon receiver with HDMI. Your problem is that you aren't even using "Modern" AV stuff. If you were, your speakers and TV would both have HDMI Arc ports. Arc has been a thing since 2009. > That's harder than it sounds though because you have to navigate the menu blind using short and long button presses with the one button. Or you could unplug it and plug it back in.

recursive 10mo ago
Why are receivers so big? It's not exactly a money issue. I just don't want the big box.
- adamweld 10mo ago
  HDMI Audio Extractor is what you need. Look at OREI.
  - recursive 10mo ago
    Perfect! This looks like the one.
- ianburrell 10mo ago
  Receivers are big because of the amplifiers. AV receivers have to drive lots of channels. They are all 5.1 or 7.1. But stereo receivers are also huge. I suspect that some of this is tradition because there are small solid state amplifiers. I'm surprised no one has made a small receiver for 2.1 system cause would be pretty common.
  - kenhwang 10mo ago
    If you open a standard sized receiver up, you'll probably see that 50% the space is empty for airflow, 25% of the space is for a large heatsink because they're passively cooled to minimize noise (thus the need for airflow), and 20% of the space is really big capacitors. They do make half size receivers, but they typically only have half the power output. The space savings comes from removing space for airflow and the heatsink, and using smaller capacitors for less heat and smaller power output. If you only need 2.1 output and a quarter of the power, there are offerings that are basically the size of the minimum amount of ports: 2 pairs of speaker terminals, a pair of RCA terminals for subwoofer out, a HDMI port, a optical port, and power. But then it's not really a receiver and more just of an amplifier+DAC because they only have one HDMI input/output, having space for multiple HDMI ports or speaker terminals basically increases the size to the offering above. They're big mostly because consumers demand a lot of big connectors on them.

p1necone 10mo ago

A receiver has always been a pretty standard part of even really simple AV setups - you can get half decent ones pretty cheap, and then you just run either the HDMI ARC port or the optical/coax digital audio out from your tv to the receiver so that everything you plug into your tv has it's audio go out to the speakers.

recursive 10mo ago
I know I could do this. But I don't really have space for a box. And I'd rather not have it.

kristianp 10mo ago

TVs seem to expect you to use HDMI-ARC to return sound to the receiver or soundbar. I wonder if there's any HDMI-ARC to audio dongles out there?

kevin_thibedeau 10mo ago

It seems you have amplified speakers. The low friction solution is to use a Toslink to RCA/TRS adapter. That will be a bulletproof digital output readily available on many TVs.

da768 10mo ago

You can get a WiiM Amp or Ultra with HDMI eARC, but you can go cheaper if optical out is good enough. Many TVs still have that one

ssl-3 10mo ago

The audio part can still be made to be simple. Others have mentioned toslink and I'd like to expand upon that. When you get a new TV and no longer have a headphone jack to plug your powered speakers into, then you can just add a DAC that converts the toslink digital audio that your new TV outputs into the bog-standard line-level analog audio that your speakers understand. DACs like this are available at all price points. At the low end of the scale, some are less than $15 -- and they're tiny. If you can't hide it somehow then I might insist that you're not really trying. And that's it. That's the entire missing link for where we are in 2025, wherein: A new TV will still have a toslink output, and your powered speakers still have an analog input. (Tomorrow? Who knows, man. We aren't there yet.)

dontlaugh 10mo ago
But you’d be left without volume control, or at least from the same remote you control the TV with.
- ssl-3 10mo ago
  I've successfully set up sound bars with toslink and used the TV's remote to run the volume up and down. Toslink doesn't have to be a fixed level. If future-TV lacks this functionality: DACs that have remote volume controls are very nearly as inexpensive as those that don't.
recursive 10mo ago
Thanks. Those are some helpful search terms.
redfloatplane 10mo ago
It's quite hard to know if the DAC is actually decent quality though. I've bought two from Amazon (admittedly at the low price point) and both of them have line noise - one of them even has a ground loop buzz, which surprised me, since it's powered by USB-C. I'm unconvinced that any of the higher price points (that are still within my budget) aren't just these cheapo ones in slightly fancier cases. My old TV had real analogue out for speakers and it really did sound a lot better than what I've been getting through TOSLink and this cheapo DAC. Same Hi-Fi and speakers. I'm sure the problem could be solved with a more expensive DAC, but which one? How could I know? I find this is one of those things where it's quite hard for the uninitiated to see through the cloud of 'audiophiles' saying that you must buy gold cables or your audio will sound like garbage, and still getting decent quality audio.

nottorp 10mo ago

I've solved the problem by slapping myself whenever I catch myself looking at sound bars, receivers etc for the living room.

k4rli 10mo ago

I've seen new cheap LG tv-s with horrible port selection while their premium OLEDs have everything necessary (except Displayport). I had my LG C9 audio via the headphone jack going to amp and it worked fine. On one of the cheaper LGs I set it up similarly with optical cable and a tiny optical->rca converter.