How to get the best sound quality from an Apple TV ?

[FrenchPB]

Hey all,

I'm getting a new Denon AVR-X4000 amplifier with B&W CM1 and CM Centre speakers, and I'd like to connect an Apple TV to it to listen to my itunes music and watch movies.

How should I connect the apple TV to the amp ? Should I add an optical cable to the HDMI for the sound, or use the airplay feature to get the best sound ?

I'm not even sure the apple TV can "airplay" the music directly to the amp. Thanks for your help 🙂

 

[boomhower]

HDMI, particularly if you intend on surround sound. Unless you are using cheapo cables that is the least important part of sound quality. They are transmitting 1's and 0's, not analog. So their effect on sound quality in minimal. Use a halfway decent HDMI cable and call it a day. Also if I am not mistaken optical can't do lossless audio.

 

[FrenchPB]

I asked the question because I know that it's better to use airplay to output sound from an iMac Mini to an amp, because the Mini HDMI output can't give the best sound quality because of some kind of OSX restriction (I read that the Mini can output high quality sound if you run Linux, but not OSX).

As a consequence, I was wondering whether the aTV HDMI output had the same "restrictions" and if it was possible to use airplay from an aTV to the amp instead ?

 

[priitv8]

...and if it was possible to use airplay from an aTV to the amp instead ?

If you mean : "can it play to AirPlay-enabled receiver" then yes.
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/tips/comments/sending-audio-to-airplay-speakers-from-an-apple-tv/
Why wouldn't optical cable be able to play back lossless audio? aTV outputs it in PCM anyway, IMHO.