Here’s what’s available in home audio products that pass through 4K signals, or up-scale video to 4K, or both:
In 2011, Onkyo and Integra became the first audio suppliers to offer audio components with 4K up-scaling, with Onkyo offering up-scaling in AVRs priced down to a suggested $599 and Integra offering it in a $2,600 preamp/processor and two AVRs priced at $2,300 and $3,000.
Today Onkyo offers 4K-passthrough AVRs starting at $499 and AVRs with 4K passthrough and upscaling starting at $599. Integra offers a trio of AVRs with 4K passthrough and up-scaling at $1,000, $1,300 and $1,700.
D+M Group offers 4K passthrough and 4K upscaling of all video sources in AVRs at $599 and more. Yamaha AVRs starting at a suggested $299 offer 4K passthrough, and AVRs starting at $649 add 4K up-scaling, the company said.
Pioneer’s mainstream AVR series offers 4K passthrough starting at an everyday $249, and 4K passthrough and up-scaling starts at $599. In Pioneer’s Elite series, 4K passthrough starts at $525, and 4K up-scaling and passthrough starts at $599.
Harman Kardon offers 4K-passthrough AVRs at a suggested $299, $399 and $549. Harman Kardon AVRs with both 4K passthrough and up-scaling are available at $799 and $999.
A handful of integrated HTiBs and HDMI-switching soundbars are also capable of 4K passthrough, up-scaling or both.
One Samsung HTiB, the integrated HT-F9730W at a unilateral price point of $999, features both 4K passthrough and up-scaling. Two LG integrated HTiBs, the $699-suggested BH9230BW and $799 BH9430BW, offer 4K up-scaling.
In active soundbars, Yamaha offers a pair with 4K passthrough, but not up-scaling, at a suggested $1,599 and $1,899.
Among home-theater speaker/receiver packages, Pioneer offers a $399-suggested model with 4K passthrough, and Onkyo offers two models with 4K up-scaling at a suggested $799 and $999.
