Best HDMI 2.1 4K+ HDR AVR (Audio Video Receivers) for Consoles [2020]

is the "height emulation" doesn't provide good enough spatial sound? what it do with stereo music?

im curious because for 5.1ch, dolby's ability to simulate rear and center channels from stereo source was awesome. Except for realtime stuff like FPS video games, as it adds a bit of audio lag

 

It's just not the same, and definitely not why I spent quite a bit of cash to put 4 speakers up on my ceiling!

 

Hello

Can someone make a case why would one connect any high bandwidth HDMI device (high refresh rate PCs, consoles) to a receiver instead of directly on the TV, in a timeline where ARC exists? It seems like extra steps, extra hand-shakes, extra potential problems, extra latency.

 

If you have eARC then you can do that, sure. If not, ARC does not carry the heavier loss-less formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master. And therefore no Atmos. But for normal 5.1 DD/DTS it would be fine.

 

Couple more additional reasons

• Some TV's only support all features on one hdmi port, and you could easily have multiple sources
• May have multiple displays e.g. TV and projector

 

Also, the TV may not have enough inputs (I need 3 minimum and really want 4, just in case.) and the TV, even if it has eARC, may not support all audio formats, like DTS support missing on a couple of models.

 

I know we only really need one eARC output/input in a receiver for the next decade of media, but I can't help but feel that it's stupid to buy a brand new AV Receiver in 2020/2021 that isn't fully compliant with HDMI 2.1 on all its I/Os.

 

I agree.

It may even be silly to get an AVR that only does 40 instead of 48, regardless of what your TV supports. Its so hard to tell when some new consumer device will release that may only support the full-spec and not the partial-spec

 

I've been reading a thread on AVS. Not only do flagship Denon AVRs (costing thousands) only plan on one 2.1 HDMI port, they've had trouble testing before releasing because of the lack of 2.1 sources.

I guess that's true, no UHD Blu Ray players with 2.1 and certainly we're not getting things like 4K60 broadcasts. Maybe in Japan or Europe but not in the US.

I would say this is indicative of how slow CE manufacturers are to iterate on newest advances -- HDMI 2.1 was announced in 2017 -- but it's not like Apple or Google have released streaming devices with HDMI 2.1 -- Google just released a Chromecast with Android TV but that's a $50 product.

Sounds like the vendors producing HDMI 2.1 controllers are slow. That and probably slower application processors on AVRs, as we saw how LG only offered HDMI 2.1 on higher-end OLED TVs which have their fastest application processors at the time.


I wouldn't be surprised if the situation a year from now is not much better.

I have an AVR with just 1.4 HDMI. I would have to upgrade it along with TV and sources. So I've been waiting but I may just give up and get a current AVR which supports 4K HDR but obviously won't support the higher frame rates which 2.1 can support. But I'm not too optimistic that any content provider will be using such modes any time soon.

 

IMHO it makes more sense to connect the consoles directly to the TV and then eARC to the AV for sound.

 

Yeah but I'd have to upgrade to an AVR with eARC support.

 

Do you need to upgrade your AV if you only really use eARC output from the TV for audio itself?

 

Well something has to run my speakers, unless I'm going to settle for the TV speakers.

 

I still have to figure out my AV setup for the next gen, I would go with HDMI splitter normally to feed TV, monitor and AVR, but HDMI 2.1 splitters are non-existent and they would probably cost the same or more as PS5.

 

Could a USB to optical/Toslink out cable work? Supposedly Xbox was going to have ways to help users that were using optical, but it looks they just expect people to just use the TV's optical out. As for PS4, Turtle Beach had a cable that did this but it was only for the PS4 fat & is discontinued.

Tommy McClain

 

USB to optical adapters could work for people with monitors who want better sound. Of course nobody knows what will be supported and on what outputs will Sony allow their HRTF 3D sound for headphones. Will be better to wait until everything is clear after launch.

 

For those who haven't caught this other thread yet, have a read about a substantial bug in HDMI 2.1 Chip used by nearly all AVRs making them non-functional: https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/hdmi-2-1-chip-used-in-many-avrs-probably-buggy.62083/

 

It's an Onkyo so I'd still skip it and wait for a different brand, but at least this is a start.

 

My Onkyo AVR is finally dying after 11 years so I'm looking at new ones. I'm only running a 1080p TV at the moment but of course with a new AVR I'll finally be able to upgrade to 4k sometime in the next year or two. Features I'm after for future:

7.2 minimum speaker support
70-80w per channel minimum
DTS HD Master / Dolby TrueHD / Dolby Atmos
Wifi / Bluetooth
Spotify and Google Assistant a bonus
HDMI 2.1 (which is meaningless now...), so these subset features:

• 4k/120 10bit 4:4:4 which is possible at 40Gbps
• HDR10 / Dolby Vision
  
• ALLM
• VRR
• 3 HDMI-in ports capable of above

The new Denon AVR-S760H seems to tick all the boxes

https://www.denon.com/en-us/product/av-receivers/avr-s760h

Any other suggestions? Would prefer to keep the price around $500 or so

 

I haven't looked at AVRs in a while, at least not close enough to have any capability of suggesting one over the other or being able to provide cautionary advice.

Like you, I hope by now they have all HDMI ports supporting full functionality of 2.1, but want a step further where even though most devices look to be running 40 Gbps I'd like to see 48 Gbps support. Or has 48 Gbps truly died?

I see some CES related TV rumors and news trickling out. Maybe some AVR updates will happen too.