Basic question about HDMI audio

martinmarty

If I have a media player with an HDMI output (in this case a WD TV Live but could be an Android box or whatever) and I connect it via HDMI to a computer monitor that has internal speakers, will sound come out? If so, where is the amplifier? I've looked at the specs for a cheap computer monitor and it doesn't say anything about an amp. Likewise, I am pretty sure that a cheap android box doesn't have an audio amp onboard. So what's the deal? I'm assuming if I used a cheap TV with an HDMI input instead of the monitor I am considering, that it would use the TV's amp. I feel like this is a pretty basic question but search engines did not get me an answer so maybe it's not been asked frequently. Thanks in advance.

p.s. The reason I asked is because I have an old WD TV Live which I want to continue to use, playing though an old portable tube TV and passing audio/video to the TV via RCA (actually composite) cables. The media player can be configured to send the audio and video via HDMI so I would like to switch to a better display device.

LV426

If your monitor has speakers then I guess it must have a (probably very low powered) amp onboard to drive them.  HDMI should pass both audio and video so you should get some sound.

martinmarty

Thanks, Nigel. I may give it a try and if it doesn't work, hey, I'll have a spare monitor!

EndlessWaves

Provided the monitor supports receiving audio through HDMI then you'll get sound yes. It's an optional part of the spec, so some of the early monitors with HDMI only used it for video input but I'd expect everything on the market to support it now.

The DAC is in the monitor. There's no amplification between levels needed - the analogue signal is created directly to drive the speakers.

Bear in mind that monitors generally don't have the image processing of TVs, so if your video content is low quality it'll be more obvious.

martinmarty

Sounds like it might be better to go for a cheap TV instead of a cheap monitor. The reason I was on that road was just that Newegg had a pretty good deal on an HDMI monitor with speakers and that just made me think, "Hey, I could use that to upgrade this old TV."

martinmarty

Just for follow-up, I ended up buying a used Samsung 22" TV which will also allow me to run the Spectrum TV app and it has a couple HDMI inputs for my media player. Unfortunately I had to buy used because only certain models can run the app, but I will have about $110 into it when all is said & done and will have a much better screen to look at.