TOPIC:

I recently purchased a miniDSP 2x4HD and am having issues interfacing it with my AppleTV4.

My ideal setup is AppleTV in to my TV via HDMI and then TOSLINK out to the 2x4HD. However, when I attempt this it sounds terrible. USB audio directly from my laptop and Chromecast input to my TV and TOSLINK sound great. I have tried multiple TOSLINK and HDMI cables with the same result.

Has anyone successfully used a 2x4HD with an AppleTV4? Or any AppleTV? I would be willing to downgrade to a 3rd gen AppleTV if it worked with the 2x4HD.

And finally, if upgrading to a DDRC-24 would solve any of this I would like to know as that was what I originally intended to use the 2x4HD for but obviously I'm hesitant to throw more money at the upgrade if it won't work for my application.

Did some more troubleshooting tonight.

In my previous setup I sent audio from the AppleTV via HDMI to a Yamaha RX-V373 receiver and there was no distortion. Which tells me that the Yamaha can handle the signal from the AppleTV but either my TV or the miniDSP cannot. If I use AirPlay to stream audio from my phone or computer to the AppleTV (and therefore have volume control from the streaming device) I can reduce the level and everything sounds great. However this does not solve the problem of using native apps on the AppleTV.

So I guess what I need is a way to attenuate the signal from the AppleTV. I know I could do this with a DAC and then run analog to the miniDSP but I would prefer to avoid the unnecessary conversion if I could. Is there any way to attenuate audio on an HDMI or optical signal?

Also does any one have experience running a 3rd generation AppleTV optical output (4th gen only has HDMI) directly to a miniDSP 2x4HD?

I have resolved this issue by purchasing a 3rd generation AppleTV which has an optical output.

When I use the 3rd generation AppleTV in a similar manner to how I used the 4th generation (HDMI from AppleTV to LG 32LK450 TV, toslink out from TV to miniDSP) I also get distortion. However, when I run toslink directly from the AppleTV to the miniDSP I have no issues. To me this says that the LG TV cannot handle the audio signal from the AppleTV.

It would have been nice if I could have got the AppleTV 4 and LG TV to play nicely, but a used AppleTV 3 is significantly cheaper than purchasing a new TV and solves all my issues. Very excited to play with the miniDSP.

@mdsimon2,

Very odd indeed. We do have some ATV4 somewhere and can run some test one day. I think that it's most likely down to some setting of ATV4 (e.g. audio setting on the type of audio streamed) or your TV for output maybe? . I could be wrong though as we've never heard of this before..

DevTeam

As it turns out it was definitely the LG TV. I did some research and many people complained of the same issue using an AppleTV and a LG TV. Although the 3rd gen AppleTV worked fine I like to problem solve so I upgraded the firmware on the TV to the most recent version and that solved the issue!

I will probably stick with the 3rd gen AppleTV as I like the interface much more than the 4th gen Apple TV and I like the idea of sending a direct optical signal to the MiniDSP without passing through the TV.

Curious.

I too have had troubles with my AppleTV4 and an LG UHD 4k TV.

If I stream from Netflix from the LG TV's own app, then sound & image are great!!
If I stream from my AppleTV to the LG TV, using the Optical-out from the TV, then I get about a 1/4 second audio drop-out (silence) every 3-5 seconds or so. VERY annoying! I've worked thru every possible AppleTV audio setting to try and fix it, NOTHING has.

However, when I set my AppleTV to send audio out via AirPlay to my Volumio server running on a Raspberry Pi3, which has a USB connection to my DAC, then I get nice crisp and clear audio with only the slightest of lags if I really look/listen for it. So NO audio drop-outs! Bizarre.

So this works:
Video Stream: LG TV Netflix app - Netflix Premium - Dolby Vision UHD content
Audio Stream: LG TV Netflix app --> Toslink optical --> DAC (Matrix-Audio Mini-i Pro 2 with ESS9016 chip)

As does this:
Video stream: AppleTV4 (any content, including SD/HD Netflix) --> LG TV
Audio stream: AppleTV4 --> AirPlay --> Volumio Raspberry Pi3 --> USB --> DAC

But this doesn't work, that is, I get regular audio short duration drop-outs:
Video stream: AppleTV4 --> LG TV
Audio stream: LG TV from HDMI-1 input (AppleTV) --> Toslink optical --> DAC

Now I'm about to swap out my current Matrix DAC for the Dirac-24 for room correction and dual subs.
Looks like I may have to go through similar troubleshooting as above.

If anyone has any idea as to what's going on, please advise

ohh good info and glad you guys are able to share your findings with the community.
unfortunately outside the control of miniDSP it sounds as without any of our gear, the issue exist but i wonder what it is.. maybe a simple spdif/toslink bit stream issue?

DevTeam

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I got the same problem as you, try to replace it with many cables but it did not work. the last time I try when I play: A small world cup sport game, it not working with my miniDSP.