some product advice please

[kippax]

I recently bought an Android TV box from an alternative supplier (DroidPlayer) and it works fine apart from 1 issue.

I cannot get 5.1 to my AVR despite spending several weeks trying 2 boxes, a whole host of setting combinations, different methods and apps and XBMC adjustments with a verified source.

More worryingly the supplier has no means of diagnosing any issues as they do not have a 5.1 amp to test the hardware with.

So I'm going to return the item for a full refund.

Can you supply a box that would do this for my budget of £70 and if so, which unit would you recommend.

The box will be connected via ethernet cable, digital sound output will be via optical or coaxial and video via HDMI.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[ChrisM]

Just to let you know we've seen your message. I've just finished dragging some AV equipment out of the attic (having moved house), so I'll let you know regarding surround sound and specific models. If you don't get a reply by tomorrow evening, and still want to know, feel free to poke me with a PM (conversation in this forum's terminology).

 

[ChrisM]

Progress report:
I've got an M5 hooked up (one of the devices that falls within your price range) and the co-ax output does function in general (Android apps) and XBMC itself. I've got a surround sound pre-amp and a stereo amp, so I'm going to find a good surround sound media file to test with, then swap leads around to ensure that front left/right, rear left right, centre & LFE channels are all producing sound when they are supposed to, and quiet when nothing is supposed to be produced.

 

[kippax]

Progress report:
I've got an M5 hooked up (one of the devices that falls within your price range) and the co-ax output does function in general (Android apps) and XBMC itself. I've got a surround sound pre-amp and a stereo amp, so I'm going to find a good surround sound media file to test with, then swap leads around to ensure that front left/right, rear left right, centre & LFE channels are all producing sound when they are supposed to, and quiet when nothing is supposed to be produced.

OK.... really appreciate this.

Though I am puzzled as to why very few other people seem to be talking about this.

 

[ChrisM]

Right, got a little further last night. I've come across a problem, the surround sound pre-amp I've got is from the late 80s! It doesn't have DTS or anything vaguely useful. This made the test file I had pointless in the end, as you just get the pops/click/digital noise when using passthrough, as the bitstream (correct terminology?) can't be interpreted by the pre-amp.

So I've switched to a multichannel WAV file, I couldn't think of anything much simpler that was more than stereo.

I'd already moved onto the T8 by that point, and seemed to finally get separation of front/rear channels with real audio. Using SPMC I played back the wave file, having set System>System>Audio output to 5.1 channels, the front speakers were silent whilst the rear speakers had data fed to them. I need to flip over the amp to the rear outputs on the pre-amp, and make sure the rear are silent when the front speakers have data, and that when LFE channel is used, nothing comes out. The centre channel needs testing as well. Then I'll try it again on the M5.

If anyone is in the South Wales area, and has a "spare" (!) surround sound system I can borrow (you're welcome to some of my personal kit as a deposit!), I'll happily do a proper test with DTS , AC3 and more modern media files, but this is the best I can do with the equipment I have (this audio equipment isn't mine, I just remembered we had something in the attic with surround sound by Sony, which had outputs for different channels).

Re no one else talking about it, I'm guessing that either those of our customers with decent AV kit don't frequent the forum, or that most people still have stereo or 2.1 at best via their TV.

I'll test the other devices later tonight/this weekend, I've got a few to get through.

FYI, Sony TA-E1000ESD is the pre-amp ,
see http://www.thevintageknob.org/sony-TA-E1000ESD.html for a brief summary, and http://esupport.sony.com/US/p/model-find.pl?mdl=TAE1000ESD for the manual (had to find out how to reset all settings to default to make sure I didn't get incorrect results).

Ah, The vintage knob site owner has strict rules about his images, fair enough, you'll need to click the link to see the device.

From elsewhere:

[edit]
http://www.jensign.com/bdp95/7dot1voiced/ has the WAV files I mentioned
If you want a good, basic DTS type media test file, https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4nYAKUiVpepY1NuQW5ER3l3SXc/edit?usp=sharing and then click the download icon at the top, then the download button in the new tab. The cross-phase test for speaker wiring worked really well...