Page 1 of connecting yamaha amp and a blu ray player

hi

my brother has just bought a yamaha rx-v365 amp, he has a sony bdp-350 blu ray player. i spent a while earlier, via skype, trying to help him get it all connected. he has two front speakers and two rears at the moment. he has ordered a centre.

the speakers are connected to the amp in the right place, i checked using an online manual, and we got a picture on the screen, blu ray, but no sound. although i dont now that much i do have a similar set up here, my yamaha amp is around 10 years old. can anyone tell me what the right set up is please? and what cables he needs, especially if he needs to buy some more.

cheers.

I suggest that you got to bluray setup /audio and see what its set at , it may say rsa, or optical or scart or co-ax use only one of the connections. also check amp is set to a spare channel. :/

thanks for the reply.

so will he need say a coaxial cable? he tried to connect using hdmi, from blu ray to amp and just got picture. he didnt buy it because of the hdmi, but i guess not knowing he just assumed thats how you could connect it.

my amp is a few years old, i use coaxial and it works fine, from my blu ray player. granted i don`t get true hd audio, but that doesn`t bother me. that`s what my brother wants, decent surround sound. if you cannot use the hdmi on the amp for audio, what are they used for? apologies if that`s a stupid question.

cheers.

bit of an update. he is getting a coaxial cable to try the amp out, but the other choice is around £40 more, one that will do true HD. that doesn`t sound like much but he has a budget so i wanted to give him the best advice i could. but i haven`t actually heard true HD audio so i am hoping someone here can help.

will the yamaha 365 amp he has be fine with coaxial or optical, or would getting say the 465, yamaha, be his best bet? he will be trying the 365 with the cable to hear it for himself. i now my amp, an older yamaha sounds really good from blu ray with just coaxial, but thats all i have to go on. cheers.

hdmi is picture quality only not audio, try best co ax you can afford [ie gold plated]

2 ways to do it

First

Connect the blu-ray player to the amp via HDMI

Connect the amp to the TV via HDMI

Job done

Second

Connect DVD player to TV via HDMI

Connect Amp to DVD either by Coax or optical

If you connect the DVD to the TV via HDMI remember to mute the sound on the TV as HDMI carries both sound and picture

This item was edited on Tuesday, 23rd March 2010, 10:19

Specs for this one aren`t that detailed on the Yamaha site, but it would appear that it doesn`t support HD audio or LPCM over HDMI. You could possibly tell your player to decode the audio to legacy Dolby Digital and DTS though.

The 350 is a cut down version of the 550 (which I own). Try setting audio output priority to HDMI and Audio (HDMI) to auto. The player is clever enough to sense the capabilities of the connected amp and send the appropriate format.Set BD audio to mix, and both Dolby and DTS to their respective names (rather than PCM downmix). I`ve never tried this config, but it could (not will) give you legacy audio. I`m not 100% on whether the auto sensing works with legacy amps. If not, you`ll have to use coaxial.

Most amps will allow you to disable audio pass-through to the TV through HDMI as well.

If getting the RX-V465 is an option I would most definitely go with that. You cannot get HD audio over coaxial, regardless of what anyone tells you.

This item was edited on Tuesday, 23rd March 2010, 12:43

True HD audio over a coax? Didnt think that was possible due to the bandwidth available on that technology, same for optical. It will stream standard Dolby/DTS surround.

As Kebabhead says HDMI from BD player to Amp, HDMI from Amp to TV should do the job perfectly. HDMI carries 1080P video and HD audio over one cable.

As I said above, S/PDIF doesn`t have the bandwidth and his set-up doesn`t handle audio over HDMI.

thanks for all the replies, some really good advice.

my brother should have the coaxial cable in the next day or two, so he can try the amp. its only then he can decide if he likes it or if he does want the 465. the difference is about £50. but as i said early on, my amp is an older one so thats all i could show him when he was back the other day. i think he may want the 465, but i will have to see what he thinks once he has tried this amp.

one problem he is having though is a centre speaker. i have looked around for him but haven`t found one for under £80, is that the going rate or am i looking in the wrong place.

i will post back when he has tried it out. cheers again.