It’s a year late, but I would like to thank MKELLY for letting us know that the HDMI does pass through the stereo / Surround.
I was glancing through the manual and noted that it says that optical audio connection must be used for stereo and or Surround data to pass to amp. I was about to start climbing behind the system and re-wiring, but decided to search hear first, and found mkelly’s post from last year. it saved me a lot of manual labor
Thanks
jlr