No way to have an Apple TV 3 play with TV off?

Apple General
#1

I’m racking my brain here. I don’t have a HDMI receiver. I’ve been through all my TV settings and the only way it seems I can get HDMI to play is to leave the TV on. This is annoying and wasteful when I only want to listen to audio.

At this point, what are my options, while I could go out and buy a Chromecast audio or even an Airport express, I didn’t really want to have to do that, but it seems there is no apparent way.

I guess I could also buy a DAC and send the signal directly to my valve amp. Again, this becomes an effort of quality and cost. There seems to be no simple option to do this.

#2

Why play with HDMI?

The ATV3 has an optical out port, just run that into your amplifier or sound bar instead of into your TV.

The ATV4 is more difficult, they dropped the optical port when they ‘updated’ which means I had to buy a HDMI audio extractor box (which has optical audio out and RCA audio out).

thinks

If your device doesn’t have optical in then a HDMI audio extractor device and an RCA audio cable (with twin RCA on one end and either twin RCA or 3.5mm stereo plug on the other end) should also work for you.

HDMI audio extractor

#3

My amplifier was made in 1968 and has valves :smiley: I think I I’m just going to go through with the route of adding a Chromecast or Airport express. I’ll also consider getting a DAC. It just depends what works out more efficient. I guess I can set up any old airport express as airport speakers.

#4

I love my Chromecast Audio, I wouldn’t recommend buying an AirPort Express just so you can AirPlay audio around. Build a device using a Raspberry Pie for this you can build a pretty rocksolid device that will support AirPlay Audio.

#5

AFAIK Chromecast supports Mac now anyhow. It would make more sense really, you can buy two devices to do one job as I’d probably need a range extender anyhow to plug in to the Airport as I’m not using an Airport Extreme as my router. Or you can buy a device that supports DLNA out of the box which is what Chromecast does. I think I’m gonna put the Apple TV back in its box and just use a Chromecast instead.

The purpose isn’t to use my valve amplifier as my TV speakers. The purpose is to send my audio from Spotify on my Mac or iPhone to my amp. I just thought I could do this quickly and simply with something that I already have rather than having to buy something else. I suppose I can just run an RCA lead from my TV but its a stupid work around just to do something that is actually really straightforward.

It seems Spotify supports Chromecast in app anyway and the bit rate is better than the Airport Express so I think I’m on the Google boat here. It’s just about a million times more straightforward. I don’t know why Apple locks up their routers so tightly they’re incompatible with everything else. It would be really simple if I could just use my Apple TV with an Airport Express but there is always 10 steps in the middle to get an Airport to play nicely in a routing environment without Apple products.

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#6

I have one of these I bought off eBay for like $30.

http://m.ebay.com.au/itm/Toslink-Optical-Digital-Audio-To-Analog-Stereo-Red-White-Audio-Converter-/380443559276

Works great for audio output with TV off, but I still use HDMI to TV for watching video as on my converter there was a slight lag from the conversion that annoyed me (that wasn’t there from HDMI audio).

#7

Yeah a DAC I could do that. Still not 100% it would resolve the issue, but to get a high quality DAC that is worthy of being put in front of a hifi receiver it gets a bit expensive. I just put my Apple TV on fleebay. I’m gonna swap it for a chrome cast audio. I have a MacBook and a HDMI to display port anyway and I have an Apple TV 4 in the other room which makes the 3 look like yesterday’s news, so I’m not losing anything and I’m gaining something much more simple.

Although I’m just as inclined to pull the ad and buy this instead to be honest. I’m sure I’ll find a use for the Apple TV in the loop somewhere. https://hifimediy.com/SPDIF-9018-DAC. Honestly it’s probably going to annoy me at some point because the Apple TV as a control centre is so much more versatile and I’ve already got Apple TVs throughout the house. That way I can just route the optical cable through to my stereo.

That DAC gets really good reviews. It’s made by a Chinese company from bare bones parts so it skimps the marketing nonsense and hype and gives you a good chip for not much money instead.

#8

A whole Chromecast costs what $50? Given that, I would highly doubt the DAC built into it would be better if not worse, plus you lose airplay. Get the toslink adapter box I reckon and keep the ATV3.

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#9

Pretty much yes. The thing is if you use a TOSLINK adapter with an Apple TV your losing nothing until you convert it back to analogue. The sum of the parts means that there is an almost endless possibility to keep upgrading it. It just depends on how much money you want to spend.

#10

What’s your budget for a DAC? I guess it’s not much. The reason I ask is that for a few hundred it is now possible to get a DAC that will embarrass multi-thousand-dollar brand-name gear.

#11

My budget is not an issue. I was just working this out in my head. In the mean time I’ve bought a DAC off ebay as a temporary measure, but I have some other ideas to replace it with.

#12

Get a Chord Mojo. You can probably find one much cheaper than retail on eBay as well.

#13

I bought one of these http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/4-Port-HDMI-v1-3-Switch-4x1-Switcher-Remote-AUX-Coaxial-toslink-outputs-3D-1080P-/141249926438?epid=1889660904&hash=item20e326d526:g:mooAAOxyUylTQYC1

ATV4, PVR goes in to HDMI ports, HDMI goes out to TV. TosLINK goes out to Amp which doesn’t have HDMI ports, only TOSLINK and Coax. Works brilliantly. Plus I can control it with my Harmony Hub for easy activity switching. I know this isn’t what you are after exactly but the point is there would be a lot of cheap and easy solutions (though I had to wait like a month for this to arrive from China!).