[Sonnova]

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?

bill

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. 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, 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. In other words, the type of interconnect is NOT what is
determining the quality of the surround-sound in your system. 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.