Hi-res Audio via USB3 to HDMI

  • Hi,

    Not sure if this is the best place to post this, as it falls into a few camps and I suspect overlaps with this thread: thread-248-page-2.html

    I have a NUC6CAYS which supports HDMI2.0 to give me 4K@60hz. However, my Onkyo Amplifier "only" supports HDMI 1.4. This means with the single HDMI port on my NUC I have to choose between 4k@60z OR high-resolution audio (DTS Master Audio etc.)

    I just so happen to have a Plugable USB3 to HDMI converter laying around, and hoped it might give me an option to add a second HDMI port just for the audio. After some fiddling, I managed to get this working on Windows 10 (but only if screen mirroring was enabled). However, on the same box I cannot get it to output to the adaptor under LibreElec 8.0.0.0 ALSA can see the HDMI port, but I get nothing on the output both in pass-through and direct mode

    For those interested, this is the adaptor:

    Plugable USB 3.0 Dual Display Adapter for Multiple Monitors with Gigabit Ethernet | Plugable

    And has this chipset:

    DisplayLink DL-3000 Series

    I think PulseAudio _might_ help but don't want to spend hours fruitlessly fiddling with it if I'm barking up the wrong tree.

    Thanks in advance!


  • Pulseaudio won't do you anything if alsa isn't working, so don't bother with that.

    Can you get me a kodi debug log when you have everything connected and powered on.

    Edit: looks like we might need this Porting the DisplayLink Ubuntu driver to other Linux distributions – DisplayLink Support

    Thanks for looking into it so quickly, think I have everything relevant in here, let me know if not..

  • It looks like the S/PDIF output might do what you want if you want to use that for now, but it won't fix your problem really as you won't be able to have DTS-HD and TrueHD over S/PDIF.

    I don't know if the kernel module will enable HDMI audio or not (or if it's even possible to build the kernel module for LE).


  • It looks like the S/PDIF output might do what you want if you want to use that for now, but it won't fix your problem really as you won't be able to have DTS-HD and TrueHD over S/PDIF.

    I don't know if the kernel module will enable HDMI audio or not (or if it's even possible to build the kernel module for LE).

    Thanks lrusak, in this case I'm lucky in that the NUC6CAYS/NUC6CAYH has an optical S/PDIF built in, and I can also do HDMI passthrough from the telly back to the AMP via S/PDIF. I did try all combinations of the HDMI out and couldn't get a signal on the AMP. So it seems I'm stuck with DTS/Dolby Digital for now, unless I fancy upgrading my old, but still very good Onkyo for $$$$..

    Thanks again

    K.