Tír Na HiFi

I have a Denon AVR 1910 7.1 home cinema receiver. It has a zone-2 [line-level] output option and I thought I could use this to power a headphone amp but I don't get any sound while playing a BluRay film. The manual is confusing but it seems to imply that with a digital sound input [i.e. HDMI] there is no output to zone-2. I am not 100% sure of this and just wonder has anyone any experience of this ?

Thanks

James

The difficulty here is that the output from the BR player is outputting HD audio codecs that the amp can't passthrough to the line level output. Sometimes you have to get the player to just down-grade the mix to Dolby Digital. Can you attach an optical cable to the player? That's what I use. I plug it into a different input on the amp and when I want to use headphones I have to select that input. I have to sacrifice the HD codecs and just get Dolby Digital instead but it does work fine. If I'm just playing a stereo CD then it doesn't make a difference.

Thanks ..

I was hoping maybe to buy a cheap hedaphone amp and connect it to the AV amp but it looks like its not really practical ...

I found the following site which is good for advice on Denon ..

http://batpigworld.com/index.html

which suggests ..

".....
Q. Okay, I hooked it up just like you said, turned on Zone 2, selected a source... but no sound! Whay am I doing wrong?

A. For all Denon receivers below the 280X/98X level, Zone 2 is ANALOG ONLY!!. This means your cable box hooked up with optical audio, your PS3 hooked up with HDMI, etc. will NOT be output to Zone 2!

All is not lost, however. All you need to do is, for any source which you would like to output to Zone 2, just "double up" your connection by running a second set of analog RCA cables (red/white) from the analog outs of your source to the corresponding input on the back of the Denon.

For example, let's say you want to set it up so you can hear the football game on the deck using your patio speakers. Your cable box is hooked up to the "TV/CBL" input with HDMI. To get the Zone 2 speakers to work, you just have to run a pair of stereo RCA cables from the red/white output on the back of the cable box to the corresponding inputs labeled "TV/CBL" on the back of the Denon.

Now, when you select "TV/CBL" as the Zone 2 source, the Denon will be able to take the audio as it will automatically grab the audio from the analog inputs.

If you happen to have the 988, 989, 2808CI, 2809CI, or a higher level model (like 3808CI), then you can output digital audio to Zone 2 as long as it is 2.0 PCM via an S/PDIF connection (optical toslink or digital coax). So, practically, this will only really help with something like a CD player or MP3 player that is outputting two-channel digital PCM. It still won't do much for your cable box outputting Dolby Digital. And it still won't work with HDMI, only optical/coax. So, the analog cable solution described above is probably still your best bet.
..."

The above suggestions might work but I think they are too much trouble for just occassional headphone listenning..

james

Seems to be unique to Denon's then - bummer. My Arcam was certainly capable of doing it.