Mac Mini as Hi-Res Audio Feed to AVR - HDMI question

[Stuart Rosen]

I feed Amazon Music HD (in all its 24-bit/192 kHz splendor) from a Mac Mini to my AVR via HDMI. Works beautifully and sounds amazing.


One small issue - Ideally, I'd like to feed Mac Mini screen to my iPad via Sidecar and allow the iPad to control the Mac Mini. This also works fine, as long as my TV (the Mac Mini's "monitor" remains on.


So this is the problem: if I turn off my TV, the HDMI connection treats itself as "dead" and sound reverts to the Mac Mini's speaker.


How do I preserve the HDMI delivery of sound to the AVR if I don't want the monitor on? I'm not sure if this is an AVR-settings problem or a Mac Mini-settings problem.

And, I guess, the alternative question is: is there a better way to feed my audio into my AVR from my Mac mini that will preserve the 24-bit/192 hKz feed? Via lighting-to-RCA?


Thanks for any help.

 

[deksawyer]

Maybe add a DAC to eliminate the need for hdmi, as long as your avr has analogue inputs.

 

[Stuart Rosen]

Yeah, I thought of that, too. For the moment, I'm just stubbornly fixated on how to keep the music going and the video shut off. But you think if I did that, the video aspect would be optional (for want of a better word) and could be on or off as I wish?

 

[Lordendo]

Is your TV connected directly to the mini or thru your AVR?

 

[Stuart Rosen]

Mac Mini to AVR (to feed it the audio via HDMI) to TV. Since the feed is coming to the AVR by HDMI, I suppose the AVR thinks it needs to turn on the TV, or that the turning off of the TV means the feed is shut off. But I don't know why that has to be the case, since the feed is going straight into AVR.

I'm coming to like the video portion (I use a black-screen screen saver when I'm not picking/searching for music), so it's less of a problem than when I first posted.

 

[Lordendo]

Just tested my system and I've got the same issue. I wonder if the CEC setting on the TV will make a difference. Will play around with it and see if I can figure something out as well.

 

[deksawyer]

It might depend on how you have your avr configured?

I use a Harmony remote in my main set up and sometimes it doesn't switch on the TV when I ask it to play TV (via cable box) and I can still hear the cable box via the avr.

Not sure if it's a cable routing issue or a settings issue for you, or maybe your avr just can't do it. Mines a 3 year old a Pioneer...

 

[gdbleb]

Check your HDMI ARC options on both your TV and your AVR.