When I first got my Chromecast, I was beyond frustrated that the music always cut out (even though watching videos was fine). One day, I was determined to get to the bottom of it, and realized that my roommate's Yamaha RX-V571 will reset the HDMI connection every two seconds if it can't handshake the video. He has an HDMI->VGA adaptor and a VGA projector plugged into the same receiver. So, whenever I want to listen to music in our living room, I have to turn his projector on for two seconds. It's beyond stupid, but at least it works.

can't reply deeper... this is for the Yamaha comment next to this: disable auto resolution. it usually fixes this.

I solved that issue via a dummy VGA plug, like this: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?200444-DV...! In fact, I simply plugged the three resistors straight into the pins of VGA port on the HDMI converter. Works like a charm. :)