Home Theater Bypass

Maybe someone can help me here. I have no interest in surround sound since i just enjoy 2 channel audio, but i would like to have my TV sound play through my speakers. My Musical Fidelity has a Home Theater Bypass
.....what cables would i need to buy and where would i hook them on my amp? Would i hook up
to the HT bypass, Tape or the preamp out. I think i tried this on my Classe 151 amp and i had to crank
the Classe volume way up to get any sound out of the TV, so i gave up.

http://www.musicalfidelity.com/manuals/archive/a5int_eng.pdf

All you will need is an RCA cable to go from the TV audio out to the preamp HT pass through. However unless your TV out has a variable gain you will have no way to adjust the volume.

A second option is to pass the TV audio out signal to an open input of your preamp and use your preamp to adjust the volume.

I'm not the resident expert, especially around here, but you can basically hook the audio outs, I assume they're RCA jacks into your "amp", via any input, tape, aux, line in etc. The problem is, it sounds like you're using an integrated amplifier. The preamp out is actually an output not an input.

Saw the link to your amplifier manual after I started replying. Basically you can use the tape, CD or phono inputs. Check to see if your television has the option to turn off its internal speakers and use external speakers. Otherwise you may have to use both volume controles for your preamp and tv. The HT direct automatically shuts off the amplifier volume controls so you really don't want to use that. I know I'm kinda all over the place but that's the way I talk. Hope this helps.

Cherian and Kevmars are both correct. You wouldn't want to use the Home Theater Bypass unless you had external processor controlling the decoding and volume.

Since it doesn't sound like you have said device in your setup, any open input will do so that you can control the volume from your integrated amp.

thx guys....yes, the A5 is an integrated, so i hook TV audio OUT to
the amp input like TAPE...great thanks. Seems like i tried that
setup before with my Classe integrated, but i had to crank the
amp volume way up and it sounded bad through the speakers.
Any ideas what may cause that? I will check to see if there's
a way to shut off the TV's speakers though. Shouldn't that
happen automatically when i connect the RCA cable to the
TV's audio OUT ?

nope, your speakers are most likely an independant control. as is the "volume adjustment" configuration (my Sony is like that, you can have the TV volume setting applied to the RCA outs). with the classe you might have been applying the TV's volume control to the RCA line outs before it reached the Classe's volume pot. that would be a tiny signal into the classe and be the reaason for needing to crank the classe volume. and yep, it would sound horrid.

thx for the help

Just hooked up TV to my amp and it sounds great thru the Spires.
Took me awhile to figure it out. Had to connect through the cable
box rather than the TV.
Voices are well centered..footsteps, doors squeaking, other sounds are
extended sometimes far to the right or left. I've never played the
TV audio thru my stereo speakers before...should have done this
long ago. Don't really feel like i want to get into a major home
theater setup though. The two speakers are plenty....

yeah, i used to think that too... now i have a 7.2 system...

Two Speakers are plenty and probably not dangerous!

I must admit that I thought a 7.2 Home Theater was the way to go....until a couple of Sundays ago. I had an incident that changed my mind on Home Theater.

A couple Sundays ago I had a friend over to watch the movie 'Gone Baby Gone' on the new Oppo BDP-83.

About half way in to the movie there is a scene by the old quarry where they are suppose to exchange money for the kid. From seemingly out of no where gun shots are heard. And I mean HEARD!

I used to have a pretty nice 7.2 sound system with Martin Logans all around and SVS PB13 ultra Sub and an 800 watt per 7 channel amp. Two of my ML Stylos woofers were completely blown out. Until Jim Powers gets me replacements I now have a 5.2 ML system, but that is not the half of it.

The Gunshots were so loud, two pictures came off the wall and crashed to the floor breaking the glass in their frames, it startled my friend into tipping his chair over backwards where he hit his head on the floor and was knocked out cold.

I kicked my leg off to the side and hit a heavy glass coffee table. My shin opened up and started to bleed and swell. I went down on the floor in pain.

My wife came in the room yelling and screaming about me being an idiot for firing a gun in the house and when she saw the blood, broken glass and my friend out cold on the floor and me on the ground writhing in pain....well I was lucky we did not end up with a 911 call and a full scale SWAT team at my house.

My wife is not speaking to me, which is the probably the best reason to repair the MLs that blew and go back to a 7.2 HT, but I guess we will have to wait and see.

Trust me, Mantana you don't want to experience TV and movies with a 7.2 system, two speakers is enough...unless I guess if they blow too.

yuk, yuk.....

the Spires are excellent thru the TV...haven't tried my Montanas
yet, but damn, i don't think i can take more speakers in the house.
Where do you put 'em all?

here's mine:

Beware of connecting TV and/or video equipment to your stereo. It is electrically noisy equipment and has a notorious potential to introduce ground loops.

ground loops

whoa...what are ground loops and what's the danger?
how do you prevent them ? just say no?
can i damage my speakers?
Then don't home theater setups run into this a lot?

Too much bass can cause a bowl of Fruit Loops to fall off the table and on to the ground....hence they become ground loops. Just wash them off with milk, they are not dangerous unless some of the milk spashes on to your speakers. Then you may get grounded shorts and possibly grounds in your shorts.

JMAUSGP said:

Too much bass can cause a bowl of Fruit Loops to fall off the table and on to the ground....hence they become ground loops. Just wash them off with milk, they are not dangerous unless some of the milk spashes on to your speakers. Then you may get grounded shorts and possibly grounds in your shorts.

Click to expand...

You are having way too much fun here!

maybe bb's in my shorts....but is this something i
need to worry about? Is there protection in a home theater amp
that a regular 2 channel integrated doesn't have?

JMAUSGP said:

Too much bass can cause a bowl of Fruit Loops to fall off the table and on to the ground....hence they become ground loops. Just wash them off with milk, they are not dangerous unless some of the milk spashes on to your speakers. Then you may get grounded shorts and possibly grounds in your shorts.

Click to expand...

Wow, I learn something new every day on this forum!

and I always thought ground loops were one of those electramalogical things.

Mantana,

I thought you were kidding and you may still be, but I will byte, assuming you have a SS amp.

I am sure that others with an electrical engineering background can give a much better and more detailed explanation but ground loops are caused when two or more of your system components are connected to a common ground through different paths, and voila a ground loop occurs. Currents flow through these multiple paths and develop voltages which in turn can cause damage, which is fairly rare but more likely it manifests the ground loop as noise or 50Hz/60Hz hum in your audio or video equipment. Or worse if you are in Europe or the Middle East.

To prevent ground loops, all signal grounds need to go to one common point and when two grounding points cannot be avoided, one side must isolate the signal and grounds from the other.

Everytime I have experienced ground loops as in a hum or buzz through my speakers. I have simply gone back through each component in my system unplugging one at a time until I found the offending component. Sometimes it is as simple as adding a common ground to the component and other times just switching the offending component to a second but separate circuit.

AVRs and two-channel amps are not inherently different when it comes to ground loops, they don't have built in protection but they both dislike milk.

It's nothing that you need to worry about, a ground loop won't cause any damage. If you have one you'll know it pretty immediately, it's usually presented as a very noticible 60Hz HUM when you have the system turned on. They are often introduced by the cable service feeding your cable TV box because somewhere along the line of the hundreds or possibly thousands of folks attached to the same feed there are lifted grounds. If you don't hear a distinct HUM don't worry about it. If along the way you start to pick up a HUM there are many devices or isolating techniques that can help reduce or eliminate them.

thx guys...no, i definitely wasn't kidding....i haven't heard any hum
out of the speakers. I was pleasantly surprised at the sound effects
i am getting from the Logans from TV output signals. I've just
never tried it with any stereo system before and was
a little concerned at the other guy's comments.