Massive Audio Problem. Please Help.

[untouchablemike]

Sorry if this isn't in the right place, but I've searched countless forums, FAQs, and even the microsoft knowledgebase.

My friend's 360 recently RROD'd. Not a big deal, he purchased an extended warranty through Best Buy. His setup is:

360 HDMI OUT->TV Analog Out-> Receiver. It's kind of a ed up setup, but it's what he likes. When we use his HD-DVD drive, the sound is fine. However, when we played Bioshock or GRID we experienced what I guess I could describe as audio "tearing". It wasn't a pop or a crackle, but extreme distortion. Shotgun blasts, explosions, and crashes seemed to be the major culprits, but it also appeared other times. We watched Hellboy (to prepare for the midnight showing tonight), and there were absolutely no audio problems. The audio was also tested on his PS3, and everything was kosher. We turned the volume down just to make sure we weren't blowing the speakers, and it did the same thing even at extremely low volumes.

The fact that the movie (and ps3) played fine leads me to believe the HDMI cable, receiver, and audio cables to the receiver (and the receiver itself) are fine. Should he return the 360 or are we missing something?

 

[DeskLaser]

You might want to post this question on the AVS forums, those guys will know a lot more about technical A/V stuff than most here. When you say the TV is passing the sound Analog out, are you referring to a 2 channel RCA output (left/right)? If so, maybe the games are sending out a multichannel track, and the conversion to 2 channel from your TV out might be causing something to happen. If this is the case, the reason games work fine on the PS3 is if you did auto setup, it will only send out 2 channel PCM tracks to the TV.

Or, if the previous 360 had an HDMI out, and used this same setup, then I don't know what to say.