EA3 vs EA3-V2

[Maarten]

Looking for a used EA3 to drive a 4 zone amp (C4-8AMP1-B) (which I own) for 5 zones, where I would use the HDMI out to drive my Denon x2700h. Kind of difficult to understand what the difference is for music output between V1 and V2. Is it something like 44k vs 96k and do both/either support formats like Dolby Atmos and/or 360?

[TFlury]

I believe the V1 and V2 have the same audio capability. 192Khz 24bit audio. All audio outputs including HDMI are 2ch stereo.

Supported formats for output AAC, AIFF, ALAC, FLAC, M4A, MP2, MP3, MP4/M4A, Ogg Vorbis, PCM, WAV, WMA.

Just FYI your x2700H will not DAC to zone 2 if you are using it as a dual zone AVR. IE HDMI audio will not pass to zone 2.

[Maarten]

3 hours ago, TFlury said:

I believe the V1 and V2 have the same audio capability. 192Khz 24bit audio. All audio outputs including HDMI are 2ch stereo.

Supported formats for output AAC, AIFF, ALAC, FLAC, M4A, MP2, MP3, MP4/M4A, Ogg Vorbis, PCM, WAV, WMA.

Just FYI your x2700H will not DAC to zone 2 if you are using it as a dual zone AVR. IE HDMI audio will not pass to zone 2.

Hmmm. Thanks for your response. Interesting that only 2 ch stereo would be supported, given that some people might have multiple zones, but a TV zone where there might be a preference for surround or Atmos while listening to Tidal or whatever, but most of the time I would prefer 2 ch stereo anyhow and if I would want to listen to Tidal Atmos I could directly control that through my TV (sony a80j). 

Anyhow, for now I'm using a chromecast attached through hdmi and can confirm you can pass through hdmi to zone 2. Just have to make sure they both use the same source selection. That is why an amplifier with a zone 2 could be a viable solution with an ea1 controller, if you only want 1 source playing in multiple zones. That of course is complete different topic....

[TFlury]

I should of clarified, yes that will work because the primary zone is doing the digital audio extraction. Any model of Denon x3000H series and higher will DAC to zone 2 independently.

[Jeff W]

Looking at the two different spec sheets, it appears that the EA3-V1 and EA3-V2 have the same audio capabilities as noted  by @TFlury.  Some small differences between the V1 and V2 units are as follows.

• EA3-V1 supports WEP.  EA3-V2 does not support WEP.
• EA3-V1 has built in wifi.  Dual band 2.4/5.0GHz 802.11n/g/b
• EA3-V2 requires an optional dual band USB adapter 2.4/5.0GHz 802.11ac/b/g/n/a