Mac mini 2011 HDMI audio issues

Changing the Audio Ouput setting to Internal Speakers -- built-in worked for me also. I now have sound through the HDMI connection.

🙂

Great news! My Mac mini is sending true 5.1 to my reciever through the HDMI cable! Okay so here's my list of gear.

MAC MINI 2011 2.5 i5 8gb ram

Using a quality audioquest hdmi I have connected my Mac mini to my Denon 1712 Reciever. I have connected this hdmi cable into hdmi port entitled game 2. I have connect my reciever to my tv with a monster 1000 hdx thx certified hdmi cable. It has a transmission sped of 17 gb or so...meaning it can handle transmitting 3d...if only I had a 3d tv.

Okay so that's the gear. Now onto the changes in audio midi. Open audio midi and Simply change it to 48000 hz and to 2 channel 16 bit integer. That's all I did and now it works. Before I had it set to 8 channel 24 bit and when I pulled up my surround sound options I could pretty much only get multi channel stereo. Now I can get several Dolby choices.

The voices are coming out of the center speaker and all the action is coming out of the other speakers....so in other words 5.1 surround sound has been achieved on my Mac mini 2011 which has Lion on it.

I have tested this with iTunes and Netflix. Both are in 5.1 and sound great. In iTunes I have tested both music and digital copies of movies. Both worked flawlessly.

Rejoice Mac mini owners 5.1 surround is now possible over your Mac mini 2011 edition with just an hdmi cable to your reciever. You can throw away that toslink cable becuase now you don't need it!

I hope this works for you. Remember not all hdmi cables and the same holds true for your reciever. If it does not work consider getting either audioquest or monster....everything else is junk.

We are trying to only use HDMI. As I read it people are having trouble with Mac Mini to receiver through HDMI and Receiver to TV through HDMI. Obvisoulsy using tos link isn't bad, its just stupid that Apple can't get video and sound through HDMI when everyone else can.

Has anybody been able to confirm Commodore Kain's fix?

Please note that my fix works ( as far as I know) for the 2011 Mac mini running lion OS.

Thanks a mill Commodore - confirmed workiong for me. I have this plugged into my Samsung HCIB HT-C6930 7.1 system, single HDMI cable from Mac Mini 2011 to HDMI IN on HCIB, HCIB has a single output to the LCD TV (Also Samsung). I was going totally nuts so you have preserved my sanity!

I have no speaker options other than stereo with this in the Mac MIDI settings but seem to be getting 7.1 out of my HCIB.

Thanks again!

Lad I could be of assistance. Just remember to vote for my answer so it can get flagged as the correct one.

Also watch out garage band can screw with your audio midi settings and thereby destroy your surround sound. The solution to this is to go to garage band preferences and tell it to use your audio settings...I also had to manually correct my audio midi settings to those described in my solutions. Just found that out this morning when I started to play around with garage band and it asked me if I wanted to transmit via the detected hdmi. Selecting yes screwed up my audio midi...so now u know how to fix that if you also select yes.

thanks for the warning re garage band. I wish I could vote or recommend but I think only the topic originator can do that - other than 'like' I dont get any options, but it gets my vote.... .....now to install plex and screw it all up!

Hi all,

I am also having some audio issues with mac mini via hdmi. I can play dts and dd fine, but once a dts and dd file has been played I don't get any stereo sound and my receiver shows decoder off. I am however still able to play dts and dd sound. This happens with plex, xbmc and vlc.

My set up is:

Mac mini to Yamaha v767 via hdmi

Yamaha v767 to Sony hx803 via hdmi

Some information around the audio mini settings, have them set to stereo 2 channel out. On the sound section in system preference I don't see my receiver as the hdmi out it shows my Sony TV.

Mac mini would be a great media centre if I could get it to play stereo sound!!! I'm now thinking of getting a popcorn hour to act as my media player.

Any help much appreciated

I use VLC on my new Mac mini 201. Connected to my Denon 1910 receiver using HDMI.

Every encoding (DD5.1, DTS) is passed through (setting in VLC, ill get back on this one), works like a charm. I did NOT change any system settings!

When in the mean time i do something that triggers a system sound, it plays the system sound via the internal speaker. That proves that the original stream is not disturbed, the HDMI output is reserved for VLC.

When finished, i have no audio problems, system is switched back in multichannel mode(according to the receiver) and other programs (and system) with sound work fine over HDMI.

I think plex is the main problem here. There are many ways of using the audio outputs, and it seems plex is not handling things correclty.

Ok, I just bought a mac mini What cord to I need to run the new style optical cable do I need to run audio? Somehow I just think I'm not getting it. I bought my roomie a mac mini and he has his monitor plugged in via HDMI and for some reason a 3.5mm audio cord plugged in to his mini and plugged in to his surround sound in his office and it won't send the audio through.

Could someone tell me plainly what I need in order to do what I need to output audio?

What cord do I need?

Thanks to the user who suggested changing the audio midi setup to 2 channels. This worked and now i have surround sound again!

iMac mid 2011

OSX 10.8

Onkyo receiver

Aloha,

got a new 2011 Mac mini (2,3 Ghz i5). I m so dissapointed, cant get 5.1 Sound working.

I have a Samsung LE40C650, connected via HDMI.

(My old windows box has no problems - the TV receives the 5.1/DTS/DD Signal)

If i connect the macmini to the TV in the sound settings on the mac i have only 2 channels to choose. (other modes are grey).

The TV only gets a PCM48 Signal.

What am i doing wrong?

Is the mac mini not able to send the signal via HDMI? Now i downloaded the new 10.8 in the Appstore... same thing.

Can anybody help?

Greetz

Doc

Try this discussion. I am having the problem again. I did solve it by using the optical/TOSLINK audio out which I am still doing but it no longer works

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3238453?answerId=21222444022#21222444022

This guy is a genius....I have spent hours trying to figure this problem out and how could I or these fools charginig ridiculous amounts of money to tell me it's my problem have ever known where or why this problem is even happening

Long story short I bought a Mac Mini mid 2011 and connected it straight through an hdmi cord to about a 4 year old LG LCD 42" screen with that connected by optical digital to a converter being that my panasonic surround sound only has a analog input. When I first bought my computer everything worked fine the sound passed through the tv, to the converter and onto my surround sound speakers. Last year I purchased a 47" LG Smart TV same setup same everything else and my sound would pass through the hdmi cord and not all the way to the surround sound, which after spending an hour on the phone with Apple only to get an answer of "I think you should buy a new surround sound....well dip my call could have paid for it....anyways tried so many different options messing with settings so on so forth only to find nothing that worked, until my roommate hooked up his late 2012 mac mini to find the sound passed through once again just fine. So here's what I did downloaded the mountain lion operating system went into garage band changed the audio output under preferences and POW back to normal...thanks dude