LG OLED


I'm awaiting delivery of an LG 55EG9100, but this question probably applies to most of the LG OLEDs. There are two audio outs on this, S/PDIF over toslink and HDMI/ARC. For the output, you can choose either "auto" or PCM. For "auto," the format will depend on the source and can be PCM, Dolby digital, or DTS/PCM. The way the menu is formatted, it suggests all of these are available on both ARC and TOSlink.

My question is whether anyone knows whether the TV mixes down the various channels to 2-channel PCM or whether it is sending multi-channel PCM? If it is 2-channel, which I suspect must be the answer for Toslink, does anyone know whether it is being intelligent in the mixing vs., say, just taking a pair of L/R and dropping everything else?

I want to put a cheap DAC on the toslink to add headphones or feed into an old analog Adcom pre-amp. The answer to the question determines whether that DAC needs to be a 5.1 channel to L/R or it can be a 2-channel DAC. For a 5.1 DAC, I'd probably use the Orei DA34 and for a 2-channel I'd probably use the Schiit Modi 2 Uber. I should say that I'm not trying to get great A/V sound. I just want basic function so that I can focus my resources on upgrading the existing 2-channel audio system for music in the future. (Please don't let that last comment distract us into A/V vs. hi-fi/audio :-) )
efrank

Showing 2 responses by lloydc

Paul, how did you get that price? That tv is still $5999.98 on the Best Buy website, never saw it on sale below that.

Paul, thanks.  You inspired me to order one, which is on the way.  BestBuy wouldn't match the online price I found because it wasn't one of 5 or so major retailers they recognize, so I ordered one from the company in NJ and hope for the best.

Subsequently learned the 65EG9600 won't display an HDR signal when they eventually release a 4K Blueray or Netflix streaming, because the HDMI inputs are not the latest HDCP-compliant 2.2a, and the HDMI port is said to be not upgradeable. The flat 65EF9500 is the one to get, but it is not discounted nearly so much at this point.  There may not be much significant HDR content for years, so I'm not going to worry about it.