What Do You Do About Pass-Through Audio?

[Taddeusz]

To start, I had been using a Samsung monitor/HDTV that has built-in speakers. So it was simple to use the HDMI output from my AMD RX 470 for audio. I recently acquired a Samsung 27" monitor from an auction for a really good price but it has no speakers. I tried using an HDMI audio extractor (avedio links 4K HDMI Audio Extractor) but the video card doesn't see it as an audio input. I suspect it wasn't working correctly and isn't passing the correct EDID to the card.

 

I don't have any more PCIe slots available so I ended up ordering a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Play USB audio adapter. That comes today.

 

So I'm curious what everyone is doing for audio output for their pass-through VM's?

[Squid]

10 minutes ago, Taddeusz said:

has no speakers.

Is there an audio jack on the monitor?  All my HDMI monitors have one.

[Taddeusz]

No, just HDMI, VGA, and power input. It's a Samsung S27E310. No audio at all.

[JonathanM]

6 minutes ago, Taddeusz said:

So I'm curious what everyone is doing for audio output for their pass-through VM's?

Probably not helpful for your situation, but both of my VM's with video and audio passthrough are using the HDMI audio. For the projection screen, the output goes through an Onko amp that drives the projector and the theatre speakers. For the whole house VM, the hdmi first feeds into a monoprice 10251 to split out optical audio that feeds another input on the Onkyo for whole house audio, then goes to a monoprice 18786 that feeds 4 monitors around the house.

 

For keyboard and mouse, the whole house VM has a passed through USB that is connected to a powered hub, which has 4 USB ports extended with monoprice 6042.

 

So, with 2 cat5e runs to each station, I have 4k hdmi, keyboard and mouse. It's working quite well.

 

The monoprice 10251 should solve your specific issue.

[Taddeusz]

I may look at that Monoprice box. It was definitely the price that got me with the other audio extractor. I think it's just cheaply made. I will either do that or try and get a PCIe extender to get to the slot blocked by the video card and add in a PCIe sound card (part of the pain of having a micro ATX motherboard). The USB one will work for the time being.

 

With working from home I already have a mess of wires behind my monitor with an HDMI switch. The switch by itself can be a pain sometimes. But I did rule out the HDMI switch when I was trying to use the audio extractor.

[Taddeusz]

I wish I could separate out the motherboard's audio. No matter which ACS PCI override mode I use it stays in the same IOMMU group with the integrated ethernet. I guess Intel motherboards just work that way.