Monoprice 113347 BlackbirdTM 4K Series HDMI Audio Inserter, Black 2.3 x 7 x 9.5

I have read several reviews of this product here on amazon. I have read several reviews of this product on monoprice's own website. I have read several reviews of this audio inserter on various other forums and websites. A common theme among them is that some people have this working, and some people do not. Those who do not, are convinced that "it doesn't work," or even better, that "it doesn't work with a PC," or even "it doesn't work if your HDMI signal does not already carry audio." Those who don't have this working complain the loudest and insist that these things are so.I'm here to tell you that this audio inserter works. It works perfectly. It does exactly what its name says it does, what the product bullet points say it does, and most importantly, IT DOES WHAT YOU WANT IT TO DO. I know this because after reading so many "it doesn't work" reviews, I had read at least as many "this does exactly what I need" reviews, and I decided to take a calculated risk that maybe, just maybe, computer and audio setups are complex and that there was a chance that many people, despite being tech savvy were missing something and blaming the box--and after receiving my box, AND MISSING THINGS MY OWN DUMB SELF, I got the box to work.And it works great! It sends a one-to-one audio signal of your choice, via either 3.5mm analogue input, or toslink optical cable. Dolby? DTS? Plain old stereo? Whatever it is that you send it, it will pass it along. Does your HDMI source not have audio? IT DOES NOT MATTER, it will still insert the audio that you input and spit both of these out the HDMI socket on the front of the box. I know this because this is how I use this box. So to those poor souls who hated this inserter I say, try again. Scrutinize your setup. If all else fails, stop and LOOK at your toslink cable, after you plug it in to your source but before you plug it in to the box. If you don't see a red light, then you don't have a working toslink audio source--which is what turned out to be my problem, and something I only discovered after hours (that's right, I said HOURS) of screwing around and troubleshooting. And no, there's not a chance in hell my HDMI source has audio, either, because that is one of MANY bases I covered in my troubleshooting (I didn't want to use it with an HDMI audio source anyway). I'm not one to deal with stupid crap that I pay for, so if this box did not do what I say then I would shoot it straight back to monoprice for a refund, and after only a day's use of it, that's definitely not going to happen. My SoundBlaster Z card is piped in to my 5.1 audio receiver now. Oh and one more complaint I've seen a lot about this box, audio lag over toslink--DOES NOT HAPPEN.Pros:1. Inserts toslink or analogue.2. Inserts the same signal that you insert (DTS, Dolby, etc.).3. Zero lag.4. This monoprice box is the cheapest inserter I've seen that does what it does.5. It does 4K also.Cons:1. I can only think of one, and that is the custom nature of the jungle that you may be wading into by trying to use this box in the first place. I can see from reading these comments that TOO MANY USERS gave up when the box was not at fault.2. That's about it, can't think of anything else negative to gripe about.If you have a need to insert whatever audio into your HDMI source, this WILL do the task.

Was passing HDMI signal for about 2 minutes and then died. Didn't even get to actually attempt injecting audio. Now no matter what HDMI signal I pass to it, the SYNC light refuses to go on, and even in Bypass mode nothing comes out of the output. Garbage.

I was a little concerned about this item working based on some of the other reviews saying that is didnt work, but decided to give it a try. I am glad I did. This item works perfectly as designed. I am using this in conjunction with a hdmi balun set on a 270' cable run with ZERO issues! I believe others that are having issues may be mixing up the hdmi in and out ports. If you do not have the "hdmi in" going to your video source and the "hdmi out" going to the tv, your audio will not work correctly as it will be routed to your video source and not your tv.

This unit did not work when I first received it, but I discovered how to easily fix it. There is one screw on the bottom that is covered up by an inspection sticker. Remove that screw and it works fine. The screw was shorting the audio input connector on the circuit board, so just by removing the screw, it works perfectly!

I got this to hook up Sonos Connect, which only has optical output, to my Samsung soundbar, which only has HDMI input. I connect the Sonos Connect to this with an optical cable, connect an old Chromecast i had lying around just to provide some dummy HDMI signal (this doesn't work without an input HDMI signal) and hook up the HDMI output to my soundbar. Worked like a charm.The only annoying part is my soundbar won't turn on or switch to the right HDMI input automatically, but luckily both Sonos Connect and the Samsung soundbar have great Home Assistant support, which allows me to add such automation.

This would have been 5-stars if the unit worked out-of-the-box, but...I bought this to be able to merge analog audio into an HDMI (720P) video stream. When I unpackaged it, the unit appeared to be well built, but when I attached it to my system, the audio did not work. I did not have audio in the HDMI input stream and did not have access to TOSlink (the other audio input option), so I could not try these options to see if it was just the analog input that was bad.I am an electrical engineer, I have the right tools, and this was inexpensive enough, so I decided to open the box up and found that the hand soldering of the through-hole components was pathetic. (Surface Mount components looked excellent, though.) I cleaned up the massive amount of solder flux residue (it was obviously NOT a no-clean flux, but they had not cleaned it), reflowed the through-hole solder joints, and added some solder to the solder joints on the analog audio jack (through-holes were less than half full - VERY poor solder job). The unit now works with the analog input.It is installed and working. The quality of the audio is reasonable for speech, but it does filter out a bit of the low frequencies, so I would not recommend this for music. I did notice (when it was opened up) that there is a high-pass filter on the analog input. If we start using it for music, I may open it back up and modify that to allow more of the low frequencies to get through.Overall, this is a reasonably priced unit, but they need to improve their build quality.

We bought two Monoprice Blackbird audio inserters, and both failed in six months to a year. Why? Because the maximum operating temperature of these units is 104 degrees F, and the weather where our church is located is always 95 to 110 degrees F in the summertime. Our church is not air conditioned. So if you find, as we did, that the inserter worked great at first, and then gradually deteriorated, it might be because your environment exceeded the rated temperature range, causing the unit to overheat. Don't blame Monoprice for that! Most audio inserters have the same 104F max temperature, so likely all are built with the same chipset.