Hi all, long time since I've posted here! But when you need some advice this has always been a great forum.
A few years ago i 'upgraded' my AV receiver primarily for 4K support, however I wasn't super happy on sound quality - you can see previous thread here if interested.
Anyway, I now have an upgraded TV (LG C1 OLED) which supports eARC. My current Onkyo receiver supports eARC however my previous Pioneer SC05 receiver does not (which I still have). I am reconfiguring my TV room and would like to take advantage of eARC. Using eARC I wouldn't care about 4K support/pass through from the receiver anymore.

So, long story short, I'm thinking I can bring my old Pioneer back into play for audio only if I can have a separate device perform the eARC function and just pass the audio signal to the AVR.
Does anyone have any advice/experience/recommendations on this? Thanks in advance.

Cheers!

I feel like I'm missing something regarding the 4K passthrough. What issue are you having with that?
It might also help if you list all your components and connections.

I'm also not following why you'd want to switch the Onkyo with eARC with the Pioneer without. The LG television has an optical out cable that should be able to pass audio to the Pioneer's digital in, but TOSLINK doesn't have the full audio bandwidth that HDMI does.

Dan, how about this?

https://avantree.com/ca/hax05-hdmi-...;utm_medium=howto&utm_campaign=hax05

Thanks for the link Mojo - that's roughly what I had in mind but have no experience with this type of thing and worry introducing a new gadget could degrade sound quality so am looking for advice. Also would like HDMI for HD audio format support.

Cork, Hambrabi, I'll try to be clear why:

I have an Onkyo AVR that has 4k passthrough and ARC/eARC and will do the job. However I have an older Pioneer AVR that does not have ARC or eARC or 4K passthrough, but I like the amplification and sound quality better than the Onkyo. Because of 4K I have been using the Onkyo. However I am retooling my TV room with a new TV that has eARC capability so instead of running all components into the AVR with a single HDMI from the AVR to the TV, I can now plug all components (PS3/4/5, DVD etc) into the TV and use eARC for the audio to the AVR. This has some advantages for me for room setup. However since my Pioneer AVR does not have ARC/eARC capability, I am looking at a device like Mojo suggested or equivalent to be the eARC 'client' for my TV and pass the audio in best quality possible to the Pioneer AVR. That way I get the convenience of my room setup and the preferred sound quality from the Pioneer. And could possibly sell the Onkyo.

However I've never used one of these audio extractor devices - eARC client in a separate box - so am looking for advice on which device, sound quality issues, any experiences that will help.

Oreil HDA-927 is another device I was looking at.

Thanks again.

Dan, the second review in the link I sent you is by Don B. Don is an Axiom board member who had a similar problem as yours. He appears to be very happy.

Excellent, good to know!