Sonnova wrote:
On Sun, 11 Nov 2007 07:34:00 -0800, willbill wrote
(in article ):
surround sound 5.1 cables: 6 RCA vs toslink vs HDMI
for DVD movies with half decent DD5.1 and/or DTS5.1
sound, anybody else notice that their AVR (that has 6 RCA
inputs for 5.1, as well as a player with 6 RCA outputs)
sounds better when used with the 6 RCA cables?
i.e. than 5.1 audio via either a toslink connection
or an HDMI connection
for the moment, i'm inclined to not buy either
of the new hi def movie players (i.e. HD-DVD
and/or Blu-Ray) unless it has 5.1 via 6 RCA cables
agreed or disagreed?
Sounds to me like what you are saying is that
you like the surround-sound decoder chip in
your DVD player better than you like the one
in your AVR because that's the only difference.
my DVD player = $230 OPPO DV-981HD
my AVR = $800 Denon AVR-2307CI
if it is due to a decoder quality difference,
i hardly expected it to favor the OPPO;
meaning that it raised a couple of other
possibilities including that the audio data
transmitted via either toslink or HDMI may
not be as "good" as that via 6 RCA
TOSLINK and HDMI carry the un-decoded 5.1
DIGITAL bit stream from the player to the
Dolby/DTS decoder in your receiver,
where it's processed into analog,
yes, i'm aware of that
while the 6 RCAs carry the already decoded
ANALOG signal from your DVD player (many of which
have surround-sound decoders already built-in).
So the choice is yours decode the sound in the
player or decode the sound in the receiver.
Here's the rub: just because the surround-sound decoder
in your DVD player seems to be better than the one in your
receiver, doesn't necessarily mean that the decoder that
comes in a Blu-ray or HD-DVD player will continue that
tradition and there is no way (except by auditioning at
home before buying) to tell beforehand.
tell me about it!
i still remember my 1st big, heavy, expensive
solid state amp, circa 1975
what a major learning experience/disappointment
that was.
but since you bring the subject up, and since i'm
thinking about getting one of the Toshiba HD-A2 players
(or the still newer HD-A3), and assumming it has 6 RCA
as well as toslink and HDMI, does it decode/sound ok?
also, don't get me wrong, the Denon AVR is rather
good and i don't plan to toss it out
In other words, the type of interconnect is NOT what is
determining the quality of the surround-sound in your system.
as far as i'm concerned, it's still an open question,
and hopefully i get closer to a more informed judgement
as to what reason(s) the difference is due to
for the moment, so long as i can set up the unit remotes
to easily switch to the best sound setup, i'm a happy camper
bill
It's the
decoder you are using. With the 6 individual RCAs you are decoding the
surround-sound in the DVD player itself, and with TOSLINK or HDMI, you are
using your AVR to do the decoding. It is possible for one decoder chip to be
better sounding than another and that's doubtless what you are experiencing.