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hotelwiener
Contributor I
May 18, 2019
Answered

Beam with 5.1 surround through a/v receiver?

  • May 18, 2019
  • 8 replies
  • 924 views
I have a Onkyo receiver pushing my 5.1 surround in my living room and Sonos Amp pushing my 6 channel zone 2 through speaker selector. My center channel sucks in my living room and was hoping to add the Beam. I stream tv mostly through YoutubeTV so that is only stereo.

If if I hook up Beam to my TV optical out on my TV could I use that but also use the receiver for surround at the same time (when not only stereo feed)?

THANK YOU!
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    Best answer by buzz
    In my opinion, BEAM will complicate operation and not offer any improvement for bad source material.

    Try different settings for your AVR while listening to YouTubeTV. Hopefully you will be able to find one setting that is "best", but you may need to tweak custom settings for each program.

    8 replies

    Airgetlam
    Airgetlam
    May 18, 2019
    It might be worth trying, but I'm not sure that you could have both the optical and electrical outputs working at the same time.

    Another issue is that the Beam isn't a center speaker. It's a Right, Center and Left speaker, so you'd be getting duplication of sounds there.

    Worth a try, if you already have a Beam in your home. But my confidence level is low to medium, not high.
    Bruce
    Airgetlam
    Airgetlam
    May 18, 2019
    Oh, and a note for others who may be reading this....note that the OP is using the optical connection. This would *not* work with an HDMI connection. The Beam is looking for an HDMI-ARC signal, not an HDMI signal that most A/V receivers send out.
    Bruce
    buzz
    buzz
    Grand Maestro
    May 18, 2019
    If the audio feed is only stereo, why do you need a center speaker? Also, in stereo mode, most AVR's do not use the center speaker.

    There are processing delays inside BEAM and the AVR, and they are likely to be different. This will be very frustrating. I don't think that you will be satisfied with the results when attempting to simultaneously use BEAM and the AVR.
    hotelwienerAuthor
    Contributor I
    May 18, 2019
    Thank for the replies! I get 5.1 from other sources but when using YoutubeTV it’s only stereo so trying to improve sound while using YoutubeTV. Still need my center channel for Netflix and movies pushed through the receiver using 5.1.
    buzz
    buzz
    Grand Maestro
    May 18, 2019
    Does the 5.1 sound good enough through the AVR? I'm not much of a YouTube user. Do you know that the audio sent along with your YouTube streams is good? It seemed to me that audio was not the first priority for the YouTube streams that I've viewed.
    hotelwienerAuthor
    Contributor I
    May 18, 2019
    Yes the 5.1 sounds great when watching movies pushing 5.1 channel. When only stereo channel (YouTubeTV) it sounds bad. Hoping the stereo through Beam improves the sound. Thoughts?
    buzz
    buzzAnswer
    Grand Maestro
    May 19, 2019
    In my opinion, BEAM will complicate operation and not offer any improvement for bad source material.

    Try different settings for your AVR while listening to YouTubeTV. Hopefully you will be able to find one setting that is "best", but you may need to tweak custom settings for each program.
      hotelwienerAuthor
      Contributor I
      May 19, 2019
      That’s a valid answer and agree. YTTV just needs to improve their audio. Great service and functionality.
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