Chromecast (not CCA) for Audio Streaming

[David_NC]

I have a first gen Chromecast that's currently unused. A friend has a Denon AVR-791 with HDMI that's used in a 2-channel system. How well will these old CC's work for streaming audio? According to Denon, this receiver will handle 24/96 over HDMI, but I don't know how that translates to audio over HDMI from a CC. A CCA is always an option, but they've gotten pricey, and I already have the CC, so it'd be good to use it, if it'll work well.

 

[imral3]

 

[likebike23]

I have a CC into my TV with audio out to a small 2 channel setup and it works fine. A plus with what you are thinking is that you can stream YouTube to a CC without a paid subscription. CCA's require that you have a paid subscription in order to cast to them. The exception is if you are using a laptop and running Google Chrome browser. When you cast that way it is more glitchy and doesn't sound as good to me.

 

[eizner23]

Both devices are up to 96KHz/24-bit, PCM PCM stream shouldn't be a difference.

 

[linuxfan]

Sure, a Chromecast into the HDMI input of your Denon receiver will work for streaming audio. But you're asking how well, right?
HDMI interfaces can, and usually do, mangle digital audio, particularly digital audio which has a native samplerate of 44.1kHz, as I explained here -
https://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/notes-on-chromecast-airplay-and-hdmi.892495/
Sometimes the difference is subtle, sometimes significant. Some people can hear it and care, some don't care. Some people can't hear the difference.

If you can borrow a CCA I encourage you to try it, yourself. Connect the CCA via a mini-TOSLINK to TOSLINK cable to the optical digital input of your Denon, and compare.
If this doesn't sound noticeably better than the CC-to-HDMI option I will be very surprised.