So how can you run a 5.1 active crossover system?

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By which let me clarify, to include eARC from my TV, Airplay, HDMI input for a disc player, remote volume control, and room correction. And hopefully not spending a billion dollars.

I want to run a system of fullrange very efficient 2-way woofer/horn combos, maybe needing subwoofers and therefore possibly 5.1 bass management, and something like Audyssey/Dirac to fix the high frequency response droop of constant directivity horns. My default and seemingly cheapest idea is an AVR with preouts, AVR powering woofers and DSP amps powering the horns, the DSP providing highpass crossover and time delay versus the woofers. This is a little kludgy as it makes an extra A/D-D/A step.

I know miniDSP (and I presume others) make a variety modules. But is there any way to really do what I want without buying a expensive AVR or pre-pro? Or might I just as well stick to my kludgy plan?
 
5.1 content is likely to be encrypted until it just before it passes through the dacs in a box that is licensed to decode the audio. Licenses are not offered to individuals, only to serious commercial manufacturers.

Also, IMO an extra A/D-D/A step is non-starter. Sound quality goes in the trash. It was already probably bad enough coming out of the decoder box, be it an AVR or whatever.

Only way I would personally consider would be to grab the digital audio between the decryption outputs and the internal dac inputs inside a commercial AVR (or some similar decoder box).
 
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5.1 content..Licenses are... offered...only to serious commercial manufacturers...an extra A/D-D/A step is non-starter. Sound quality goes in the trash...grab the digital audio between the decryption outputs and the internal dac inputs...
That last is beyond anything I am getting into. As for the licenses, that was part of my question-IS there anything besides AVRs or pre-pros which will actually decode? I see folks doing stuff with miniDSP etc but that all seems 2-channel. I read Kal Rubinson doing multiple DACs in crazy expensive setups which is not what I can do either, I have other expenditures like building the speakers themselves. And I am not fond of passive crossovers for horns, as their impedance is generally messy plus you cannot do any time alignment. Maybe I'm stuck?
 
Yes, pretty much all modern computer video/audio player software decodes all but the most exotic audio formats to multichannel PCM which can be then passed to any digital convolver/DSP/whatever you need software for processing.
Your best chance is probably to combine each source (eARC, Airplay, etc) with software to give you multichannel PCM and feed all of those to single software for DSP/etc and then feed the output to your chosen DAC/amp combo.
 
If the DSP is after the AVR, then you're wasting bits of resolution since the gain control is happening in the AVR. And you'll need low-pass passive filters on the woofers if they're being driven by the AVR's amps.
The sensible way is to just go with an AVR and passive crossovers in the speakers. Otherwise, rip your discs to mkv and play them back on an HTPC and (hopefully) do all the DSP stuff on the sound card. If there's a sound card that supports bi-amping 5 channels; maybe you'll need two cards Add a tuner (card or USB) for over-the-air HDTV or Clear-QAM cable. The problem there is that if you do multichannel volume control on the sound card, you're probably (again) losing bits of resolution. So, you need an external 6 or more channel gain control, or AVR with multichannel analog inputs.
The cheapest pre/pro for HDMI that I've come across was from Emotiva, but reviews suggest that they didn't have all the bugs worked out. Personally, I've stopped worrying too much about multichannel HDMI audio since the majority of the media I consume still doesn't need anything better than S/PDIF.
 
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