Anyone use a Marantz AV receiver with their PC?

djoye

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I'm interested in a modern Marantz receiver, but I need to know if I can run HDMI from my GPU to the AVR and have HDMI throughput (audio) work without a display connected to the AVR. My Denon does this, but my Onkyos do not and require a display connected before HDMI will activate.
 
I think as long as it has a manual selector it should work. Never tried Marantz or Onkyo though I find it rather odd that you would not be able to use any receiver without an HDMI output attached. I'd be curious as to why that Onkyo won't work without a display attached. Strange. Are you sure you didn't connect something wrong?
 
I run a Denon receiver with my computer and that works fine. Denon and Marantz are the same products at the low level (run the same code and all that). Also you can buy HDMI dummies that pretend to be displays but are just little plugs you hook in to your receiver for that purpose. Something like this. They just send back the right EDID data and sink the video signal so the device thinks it has a display attached.
 
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I'm interested in a modern Marantz receiver, but I need to know if I can run HDMI from my GPU to the AVR and have HDMI throughput (audio) work without a display connected to the AVR. My Denon does this, but my Onkyos do not and require a display connected before HDMI will activate.

On my Yamaha receiver I use a HDMI emulator plug to run audio over HDMI and have my main screen connected via DP. Otheriwise it would require an actual screen connected ovr HDMI.
I use https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EK05WTY
 
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On my Yamaha receiver I use a HDMI emulator plug to run audio over HDMI and have my main screen connected via DP. Otheriwise it would require an actual screen connected ovr HDMI.
I use https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EK05WTY
Niiiiice.
I think as long as it has a manual selector it should work. Never tried Marantz or Onkyo though I find it rather odd that you would not be able to use any receiver without an HDMI output attached. I'd be curious as to why that Onkyo won't work without a display attached. Strange. Are you sure you didn't connect something wrong?
Today I tested using my Onkyo TX-SR608, I plugged into the front HDMI aux port without a display connected and it played audio from the computer. I thought I tried this in the past, guess I didnt. My TX-SR605 wouldn't do this, but that receiver had HDMI HDCP problems. I got burned by those HDMI issues on the 605 and now I pretty much hate Onkyo.

The TX-SR608 showed the Dolby Atmos for Home Theater option in Windows 10 (Dolby PLIIz?), but it looks like I need the Atmos app to enable that. This seems F'ing dumb. I assumed the app was for rendering audio for headphones, but they're going to make me buy an app to send sound out to an AVR that already has the Atmos functionality? Surely that that cost was factored into the AVR.

Edit:
Based on this page you just need a free app for the home theater setup, if that's the case, then cancel my outrage.
 
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I think the paid app is for Dolby Headphone. I've used it, and it works pretty well, but I think it's separate from the Atmos stuff.

As for the stuff for HDMI out to a receiver, I wouldn't look down on paying a few bucks for it if that's all they want. You do have to pay for anything that does the 'Dolby' stuff somehow, since it's licensed and all that.
 
The TX-SR608 showed the Dolby Atmos for Home Theater option in Windows 10 (Dolby PLIIz?), but it looks like I need the Atmos app to enable that. This seems F'ing dumb. I assumed the app was for rendering audio for headphones, but they're going to

Dolby Whatever is a method of packing x.1 channels into the standard optical S/PDIF steam (compressed/matrixed). HDMI provides 7.1 discrete channels without any compression. You do not need any special software to get all the channels from PC to the receiver. HDMI output should also be able to handle passthrough for all the usual Dolby/DTS encoded streams. Unless you have a full Atmos speaker setup, why do you even care about frontal height channels?
 
Dolby Whatever is a method of packing x.1 channels into the standard optical S/PDIF steam (compressed/matrixed). HDMI provides 7.1 discrete channels without any compression. You do not need any special software to get all the channels from PC to the receiver. HDMI output should also be able to handle passthrough for all the usual Dolby/DTS encoded streams. Unless you have a full Atmos speaker setup, why do you even care about frontal height channels?
My intention is to buy an 11 channel AV receiver to setup 7.1.4, but I'm trying to resist the urge. I was just playing with an Onkyo TX-SR608 and found it interesting that Windows 10 showed the 'Atmos for Home Theater' option with that receiver connected via HDMI because it won't show that option unless it thinks the AVR supports it. I'm assuming that it thinks the AVR supports Atmos because it supports Pro Logic IIz and maybe that's an early incarnation of Atmos. I have an older Denon AVR (pre- True HD and DTS-MA, but with PLIIx) connected via HDMI and Windows 10 knows better than to give me the Atmos HT option.
 
I can confirm that on my Onkyo NR757 that HDMI audio works without a monitor attached. It's my primary "sound card". Dolby Atmos for Home Theatre is great and I highly recommend checking it out (Regardless if you have an actual Atmos setup or not).
 
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just get a headless HDMI dongle if you need one. They're like 10 bucks and make something think a monitor is attached.
 
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