Do you guys think HDMI is the future standard? If so...

[kavika411]

Greetings. This is my first visit to the Digital Audio thread. I appreciate anyone's thoughts on this.

I really enjoy music and semi-high end equipment, but know very little about the technical aspects of audio playback. I'm in the market to get a new pre-amp/amp. My concern, however, is that there aren't enough pre-amps on the market with a bunch of HDMI support. I only see pre-amps with two or three inputs.

So, my question for those of you who know a lot about this stuff, is HDMI the new standard and, if so, do you see many brands of pre-amps that appear to be embracing this format? Hope that makes sense. Thank you for your time.

 

[junior]

I'm hoping for firewire3200 to become the new standard. It'll be more superior than HDMI anyway.
From a total pro-audio perspective, HDMI never has been, nor never will be a standard. I don't know of any preamp whatsoever that uses HDMI.
Maybe it's different in the audiophile environment. Maybe someone could chime in.

 

[alphaod]

Firewire is for data.

DisplayPort is the new video/audio standard!

 

[rhett7660]

HDMI never has been, nor never will be a standard.

Um... what are you referring to when you say standard? Have you checked out the Home theater envirnment? HDMI seems to be on it's way in becoming the standard. A good majority of receivers and dvd players are now using HDMI for processing both audio and video. HDMI 1.1, 1.2, 1.3.

I'm hoping for firewire3200

Don't think this will happen. Unless something has really changed, which I don't think it has, firewire can't encrypt the digital signal. Which is what a lot of studios wanted to help prevent coping of data.

To my knowledge, there were only a couple of companies in the audio/video industry that used firewire and quickly did away with it. Denon comes to mind as one of them.

 

[junior]

Um... what are you referring to when you say standard? Have you checked out the Home theater envirnment? HDMI seems to be on it's way in becoming the standard. A good majority of receivers and dvd players are now using HDMI for processing both audio and video. HDMI 1.1, 1.2, 1.3.

Was there really a point in quoting a tiny portion of my sentence and taking it completely out of context for the sake of an argument?
I was talking, as made clear in the part of my sentence that you deleted for some reason, from a pro-audio perspective. I know of not one studio, including my own, that uses HDMI for pre-amps. As I've already stated, I don't have a clue about the audiophile (or consumer, for that matter) market.

You make a good point about encryption. That is an advantage, though I'm sure it's no big deal to create a form of encryption on the software/hardware side (rather than the technology itself) that will utilize any new standard, such as firewire 3200, should the tech companies decide to utilize it.

 

[junior]

Firewire is for data.

DisplayPort is the new video/audio standard!

Does this not count?

 

[kavika411]

Looks like I came to the right place for advice. I need to revise what I was saying/asking. I'll give it a go - be kind to me if I'm wrong:

(1) Can I assume that - on the consumer side (home AV) - that we are moving to a one-wire solution for transferring audio (including surround) and video (including HD)?

(2) If the answer is yes, aren't all indications that HDMI will be that one-wire solution?

(3) If the answer is yes, which pre-amp manufacturers are embracing HDMI?

Believe me when I'm saying I have no particular devotion to HDMI; I just don't want to get caught buying dated component systems.

 

[Killyp]

For just music, no HDMI is nothing.

For sound & picture, HDMI is like the replacement for scart (although scart didn't work as it was intended towards the end of it's lifespan as it couldn't carry digital audio), and can carry both at very high quality/bitrates.

Rotel are one example of a manufacturer who are adopting it, but if you want to be 100% sure, you'll need to check the specs of whatever you're gonna get before you get it.

 

[WinterMute]

The new hi-res surround formats found on Blu-ray (and HDDVD) discs can be transferred to the receiver via HDMI, and no video feed is necessary, meaning that 5.1/6.1/7.1 standards can be stored in hi-res on optical discs and the surround playback system for your films becomes your surround audio system as well.

All new players feature HDMI and a bunch of receivers can decode the new formats, so the short answer is probably yes for consumer hi-res audio.

However the long answer involves whatever is coming down the line.

 

[kavika411]

For just music, no HDMI is nothing.

Thank you for taking time to respond, but I don't know what that means.

 

[rhett7660]

Was there really a point in quoting a tiny portion of my sentence and taking it completely out of context for the sake of an argument?
I was talking, as made clear in the part of my sentence that you deleted for some reason, from a pro-audio perspective. I know of not one studio, including my own, that uses HDMI for pre-amps. As I've already stated, I don't have a clue about the audiophile (or consumer, for that matter) market.

Ah no sorry,,,, Not for the sake of argument. Sorry you are correct, when it comes to pro audio.

 

[Killyp]

Thank you for taking time to respond, but I don't know what that means.

Essentially, if all you want to do is listen to music, then no HDMI is useless, just like you'd never connect your CD player to your amp with a Scart cable.

For an 'audio' setup, just for listening to music, you either use 5 or 7 pin DIN (rare), XLR (rare) or RCA Phono plugs, or for connecting a CD player to a Digital to Analogue converter, a fibre optic or coaxial lead. You never use HDMI for this purpose.

For home cinema with surround sound & high definition, you should almost always use HDMI, although DVI and a fibre-optic or coaxial lead will do exactly the same job, just with more cables.

 

[WinterMute]

Currently there is no set format for delivering Hi-res audio in a domestic setting, the hi-res CD formats haven't been very successful, there's no guarantee that the AV formats and surround codecs will be any more successful, but if they are adopted then HDMI may well be the connection standard.

Surround as a domestic format isn't particularly popular, and there is little demand for hi-res playback anyway, not surprising when 128Kbps MP3 is viewed as the codec of choice by many and 44.1Khz 16 bit CD is viewed as "hi-end audio".

Philips did us no favours in rushing CD to the market with a lowered sample rate.

 

[Killyp]

44.1 kHz 16 bit is capable of producing a perfectly good sound, and indeed fully digital systems (ones where the D/A conversion is done at the very last minute, after the crossovers) with CD can produce a very good sound, but they can be much better.

On top of that, the CD standard (known as Red Book) doesn't support block-accurate addressing, meaning jitter is more of an issue than it should be (although very few CD mechs have actually ever produced any jitter worth worrying about, and they were all incredibly low-quality mechanisms in the 80s).

Anyway, enough off-topicness. HDMI is for home-theatre, not hifi.