Immersive Audio and How to Achieve It

Related (somewhat) to this post- does anyone have advice as to how to decode my Vizio output via its HDMI into high quality 2 channel audio I can listen to through my main audio system? I have a PS Audio Directstream Junior DAC with many differant input options but my understanding is you need some sort of device to digitally merge the multi channel output in the HDMI to a digital two channel signal for the DAC? McIntosh provides this exact functionality on one of its pre amps currently; I'm looking for some "black box" to do it so I can either run the digitally "merged" two channel signal into my DAC and then into my Audio Research LS28 or- take the merged analog two channel signal from the black box and run it into a line level input in my pre amp.

Thanks ! 

@kota1 

I think you are missing a few things to get your home system to be more immersive.   when you go to a concert, you have A LOT of amps powering A LOT of speakers.  Most of the time they are tri amped and you can feel the subwoofers from a distance.  

And then there’s the whole visual thing…

@speedthrills

Related (somewhat) to this post- does anyone have advice as to how to decode my Vizio output via its HDMI into high quality 2 channel audio I can listen to through my main audio system?

Yes, you can get an "audio extractor" to accomplish this, if you want high quality check this out, it has an optical output for your dac or a multichannel output for a receiver with a multichannel input:

https://www.essenceelectrostatic.com/product/evolve-ii-4k-hdmi-v2-0b-multi-channel-dac/

or:

https://www.essenceelectrostatic.com/product/hdacc-ii-4k-hdmi-dac/

@curiousjim

I think you are missing a few things to get your home system to be more immersive. when you go to a concert, you have A LOT of amps powering A LOT of speakers. Most of the time they are tri amped and you can feel the subwoofers from a distance.

This is one of the most astute observations I have seen on the topic AND you are of course 100% spot on. How in the hell do you get enough power into 9 bed channels, 8 height channels, and 3 subwoofers to light this puppy up and not need an entire room to house the amps, and if you wanted to biamp? Double that rack, double the amp channels, and add a few more miles of speaker cables? Not practical.

First of all, I don’t think it is necessary to get a really good immersive experience, many receivers can push the needle IF you pay attention to the acoustics and treat your room properly. Acoustics is 80% of the immersive experience.

I decided to load my room with enough power to launch a rocket. That’s why I went with ACTIVE speakers that are internally biamped with 125 watts for the woofer and 50 watts for the tweeter (even my center channel). See the specs here:

http://www.cain.cainslair.com/Paradigm%20Reference%20Active%20Series%20Specifications.htm

BTW, check out the pics of my virtual system and note I mounted one of my subs on the back wall closer to the ceiling than the floor, IMMERSIVE bass. This setup was recommended by Earl Geddes, try and use 3 subs with at least one off the floor.

You get a great experience when you couple those internal monoblocks to the drivers with an active crossover too.
if I were starting from scratch today I would check out active speakers from JBL, Yamaha, Genelec, PMC, Focal, Dynaudio, Neumann, Meridian or Meyer Audio.

@curiousjim

You can get this incredible 13 speaker, 7.2.4 active setup from Focal for about the same price as two of their more luxurious passive tower speakers (where you provide the amps). All you need are stands and balanced cables, save your scratch from buying amps and speaker cables and put it toward a processor and room treatments. Check out the back of speakers too, plate amps give you incredible controls to match the speaker to the room:

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ImmersiveSysF--focal-7.14-immersive-audio-studio-monitor-system