AV Receiver Dolby ATMOS and headphone question

ToTheMax · 19 Sep 2018 at 11:58

I'm looking to get a new 5.1 AV setup and the choices are many, but are there any which support virtualized surround headphone output (aka ATMOS and/or 5.1 processing), I'm not interested in simple stereo output. The headphone amp also needs to drive HD600's, so quality internal AMP required.

Any suggestions as all the specs I've researched concentrate on speaker output, which is great but I also need decent headphone output?

hornetstinger · 19 Sep 2018 at 12:34

Use an external amp those hd600 deaerve and need a good headphone amp.

ToTheMax · 19 Sep 2018 at 13:00

hornetstinger said:
Use an external amp those hd600 deaerve and need a good headphone amp.

Normally I'd agree, but most cannot do 3d sound processing. It's a night and day experience being able to watch a film in headphone stereo versus headphone atmos/5.1

lucid · 20 Sep 2018 at 08:19

Yamaha does its Silent Cinema feature for virtual surround over stereo headphones.

Hornetstinger is correct about the relative quality. Spending the equivalent of half the price of an AV receiver on a dedicated external headphone amp is bound to sound better in stereo, so trying to replicate that quality level with the headphone out of an AV receiver just isn't realistic because of the huge difference in the parts budgets. Having said that, Yamaha wouldn't spend the time and effort to develop the Silent Cinema feature if the 'phones socket was crap.

If you tried it and still felt it was lacking then perhaps the same kind of intermediary headphone amp that's used with portables might be a decent solution? This would take the Yamaha's 'phones out signal and boost it in a way that makes it better suited to driving 600 Ohm headphones. The signal itself wouldn't be altered, so the surround virtualisation would would remain intact. Best of both worlds, then.

ToTheMax · 20 Sep 2018 at 09:00

lucid said:
Yamaha does its Silent Cinema feature for virtual surround over stereo headphones.

Hornetstinger is correct about the relative quality. Spending the equivalent of half the price of an AV receiver on a dedicated external headphone amp is bound to sound better in stereo, so trying to replicate that quality level with the headphone out of an AV receiver just isn't realistic because of the huge difference in the parts budgets. Having said that, Yamaha wouldn't spend the time and effort to develop the Silent Cinema feature if the 'phones socket was crap.

If you tried it and still felt it was lacking then perhaps the same kind of intermediary headphone amp that's used with portables might be a decent solution? This would take the Yamaha's 'phones out signal and boost it in a way that makes it better suited to driving 600 Ohm headphones. The signal itself wouldn't be altered, so the surround virtualisation would would remain intact. Best of both worlds, then.

Excellent thanks for the suggestion, will check it out.

hornetstinger · 20 Sep 2018 at 11:22

Taking headphone output then amplfying it again isn't ideal, shame they don't have line level headphone out so then use external amp. Normally you use stereo RCA out but if that doesn't pass headphone out dsp