What's the current maximum audio your HT supports

[dobyblue]

Just curious to see what level of audio the majority of people are listening to when it comes to their HT hardware.

[marcusm750]

Um, I find your choices for audio capabilities of readers' HT setups confusing. Shouldn't it be more like:

Dolby Surround/Pro-Logic
Dolby Digital
DTS

and so forth? And that's just for processing. What about total number of channels (5.1, 6.1, 7.1, etc.)? Loudspeaker configurations? Total power? Possibly even tactile transducers (ie. bass shakers mounted in the theater seating)?

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by marcusm750

Um, I find your choices for audio capabilities of readers' HT setups confusing. Shouldn't it be more like:

Dolby Surround/Pro-Logic
Dolby Digital
DTS

and so forth? And that's just for processing. What about total number of channels (5.1, 6.1, 7.1, etc.)? Loudspeaker configurations? Total power? Possibly even tactile transducers (ie. bass shakers mounted in the theater seating)?

No not interested in any of that I'm afraid and there's only 10 choices per poll.
If you'd like to do an extensive research into the subject then go ahead.
I'm merely interested to know who has optical/coaxial level and who has lossless capabilities.

In other words, I'm interested in the maximum connection for audio your HT supports.

[marcusm750]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

In other words, I'm interested in the maximum connection for audio your HT supports.

Oh, OK, I gotcha! Then you want choices like:

analog (stereo, multi-channel)
optical (Toslink, etc.)
coaxial (SPDIF, etc.) - the same as optical, really
HDMI (1.2, 1.3)

At the end of the day, you want to find out who has old-school connections for Pro-Logic via analog versus who can do DD/DTS via optical/coaxial versus who can do new-school lossless audio/uncompressed PCM via HDMI, right?

[dobyblue]

Yeah man! You got it.
RCA stereo only
Optical/Coaxial
HDMI/DLink/Analog

[REFLEX]

Analog, Optical, Coax.......... my reciever doesnt have HDMI, and il waiting till sometime next year in the spring to get the newer (somewhat cheaper by then I hope) 1.3 HDMI recievers.

[Kal Rubinson]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

Yeah man! You got it.
Composite
Optical/Coaxial
HDMI/DLink/Analog

There's no such thing as 'composite' audio. You should say analog.
Optical/Coax are S/PDIF digital
HDMI/DLink/Analog? The first two are not analog.

What a waste of time.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by Kal Rubinson

There's no such thing as 'composite' audio. You should say analog.
Optical/Coax are S/PDIF digital
HDMI/DLink/Analog? The first two are not analog.

What a waste of time.

The "analog" refers to the multi-channel analog audio inputs. It's, with the other two, a method of getting lossless audio. Where does it state anywhere that the HDMI and IEEE are being labelled as analog?
Surely a contributing editor to stereophile would recognize what the three levels represent no?
The first one is the RCA stereo connection, incorrectly labelled composite. Labelling it analog would result in some people selecting it that use multi-channel inputs which are analog.

[Forceflow]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

The "analog" refers to the multi-channel analog audio inputs. It's, with the other two, a method of getting lossless audio. Where does it state anywhere that the HDMI and IEEE are being labelled as analog?
Surely a contributing editor to stereophile would recognize what the three levels represent no?
The first one is the RCA stereo connection, incorrectly labelled composite. Labelling it analog would result in some people selecting it that use multi-channel inputs which are analog.

I think the categories should read:

1. 2 ch. Analog (Red/white stereo)
2. non-HDMI Digital connection (S/PDIF)
3. Multi-channel (analog or HDMI)

This would be the clearest way. I agree that listing 1 as simply analog would result in overvote as people would think that means multi-channel analog. Listing as composite is wrong as composite is single RCA video and dual RCA audio.

[dobyblue]

The first option has been fixed. It should be much clearer now what is meant.

[Genius74]

Originally Posted by Forceflow

I think the categories should read:

1. 2 ch. Analog (Red/white stereo)
2. non-HDMI Digital connection (S/PDIF)
3. Multi-channel (analog or HDMI)

This would be the clearest way. I agree that listing 1 as simply analog would result in overvote as people would think that means multi-channel analog. Listing as composite is wrong as composite is single RCA video and dual RCA audio.

I do agree with your suggestions, but composite has nothing to do with audio (it's only a video connection). Composite A/V cables come with 2 Ch. Stereo RCA jacks, but so do (some, not all) S-Video & Component cables, and you can buy all of these cables w/o the audio cable connections.

[Kal Rubinson]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

The "analog" refers to the multi-channel analog audio inputs. It's, with the other two, a method of getting lossless audio. Where does it state anywhere that the HDMI and IEEE are being labelled as analog?
Surely a contributing editor to stereophile would recognize what the three levels represent no?

What I can recognize from your statements is somewhat limited by how you state things. It is apparent from the thread that I am not the only one who finds your language fuzzy and misleading.

Your corrections to the original poll options have made it better and I hope you get responses of value to you.

[dobyblue]

Definitely the sort of ratio that I was thinking it might be and a good response as well.
Thanks.

[scaesare]

8 channels of LPCM goodness via HDMI.

[fishy]

Oops, clicked wrong category. Scratch my "analog stereo" and add it to analog multi channel.

I don't think think that I can edit a mistaken poll entry.

Cheers
eric

[homerx]

I think HDMI should be seprate from multi-channel analog.

As HDMI can output up to 7.1 vs the multichannel out is only 5.1 at the moment.

Also coxial and optical should be seprate as coxial may be equal to optical but, coxial if buy it self is often found on lower end systems.

But, ill vote the last choise as that's the best I've got in terms of lossless audio in. At,least over 5.1 analogs.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by homerx

I think HDMI should be seprate from multi-channel analog.

As HDMI can output up to 7.1 vs the multichannel out is only 5.1 at the moment.

Also coxial and optical should be seprate as coxial may be equal to optical but, coxial if buy it self is often found on lower end systems.

But, ill vote the last choise as that's the best I've got in terms of lossless audio in. At,least over 5.1 analogs.

The Panasonic Blu-ray player supports 7.1 analog outputs. There are already two discs out with lossless 6.1 tracks on them.

[UxiSXRD]

5.1 Analog inputs (that are bare ), 1 coaxial and 2 optical / toslink. Has a bunch of analog stereo, but I would never use those.

I think the poll would be better suited for:

1) Stereo analog
2) Multi-ch analog (RCA) 5.1/7.1
3) Coaxial
4) Optical / Toslink
5) HDMI/DenonLink

[Zappcatt]

Just goes to show that AVS is NOT J6P....

[FoolintheRain]

I use my 5.1 analog ins for lossless audio from my XA1. DenonLink for everything else from my 3910 (DVD-A, SACD, DD-EX, DTS-EX, etc). Here's hoping that when Denon makes an HD DVD player, you can send the lossless over DenonLink as well. Of course that will mean one of their new receivers to decode the signal too

[Ronnie 1.8]

Originally Posted by FoolintheRain

I use my 5.1 analog ins for lossless audio from my XA1. DenonLink for everything else from my 3910 (DVD-A, SACD, DD-EX, DTS-EX, etc). Here's hoping that when Denon makes an HD DVD player, you can send the lossless over DenonLink as well. Of course that will mean one of their new receivers to decode the signal too

A bit off topic here, but I see you refer to the 5.1 analog as "lossless". Are 5.1 ch outs of a DVD player truly lossless? I have a Denon DVD3930CI player, and a Denon AVR3805 receiver. I initially used DenonLink 3 for all discs (DVDA, SACD, DD, DTS), but then believed 5.1 ch analog is superior as the DAC's in my player are better than the DAC's in my AVR. However, some folks seem to believe DenonLink 3 is the way to go, citing mainly room EQ settings on the AVR that the player does not have. Since you use both DenonLink and 5.1 for two different players, I'd like to know your thoughts?

[Ronnie 1.8]

I don't believe the 3rd option in the poll should include the terms "lossless" and "DenonLink" together. This is a partial quote from the user manual of the Denon DVD3930CI DVD player, page 48, "DENON LINK is a balanced transfer type digital link using high speed transfer elements. Connecting... with little loss of signal quality, resulting in high quality sound production."

So it doesn't read, "no loss of signal quality", but rather, "little loss of signal quality".

[Kal Rubinson]

Originally Posted by Ronnie 1.8

A bit off topic here, but I see you refer to the 5.1 analog as "lossless". Are 5.1 ch outs of a DVD player truly lossless? I have a Denon DVD3930CI player, and a Denon AVR3805 receiver. I initially used DenonLink 3 for all discs (DVDA, SACD, DD, DTS), but then believed 5.1 ch analog is superior as the DAC's in my player are better than the DAC's in my AVR. However, some folks seem to believe DenonLink 3 is the way to go, citing mainly room EQ settings on the AVR that the player does not have. Since you use both DenonLink and 5.1 for two different players, I'd like to know your thoughts?

There may be differences in quality due to other factors but both analog 5.1 and DL3 are, essentially, lossless since they do not compress and they do convey the full data without any loss of bits. That's the definition.

[FoolintheRain]

I was referring to the analog 5.1 for using lossless audio (TrueHD and DTS-HD) because that is the only way to transmit them right now other than HDMI. The actual audio codecs are lossless, whereas DD, DTS, etc. are lossy codecs. Sorry for the confusion.

It is true that if your DVD player has "better" (which in my case 3910 DOES have better DACs than 3805) DACs than your receiver that using analog ins for 5.1 audio MAY sound better. I prefer the DenonLink for the versatility and I did NOT hear a difference when I got it. I originally had it hooked up both ways (DL and analog) to do A/B comparisons to my ear. I couldn't tell any difference. I like the DL because it is one cord that does EVERYTHING from my 3910 (DVD-A, SACD, CD, DD-EX, DTS-ES, etc).

Like I said, others have mentioned here that firewire (DenonLink is a version of this) is capable of lossless audio transmission (TrueHD and DTS-HD), but that would require a player that has firewire AND a receiver that accepts it AND decodes those audio codecs. It would be awesome however because of the ability to apply all the room EQ, PLIIx, etc to even the new audio codecs too!

Right now the DenonLink IS as effective as your analog outs for all the old codecs. That's why I use it for the 3910 and use the analog outs from my Tosh player for the NEW audio codecs.

Hope that helps explain a little.

[Ronnie 1.8]

That was helpful, thanks. As my Denon 3930CI DACs are better than my AVR3805 DACs, I'll continue using 5.1 analogue. I'll also keep in mind I can use my AVR's 5.1 in's should I decide to buy an HD/BD player. At which point I'll use DL3 for my 3930CI. Cheers!

[dobyblue]

The only thing wrong with 5.1 analog is the cost of the cables, other than that it's pure beauty.

[Ronnie 1.8]

No disagreement here!

[REFLEX]

I recently got a good Yamaha HDMI reciever... so now I can access lossless and Truehd.. so if I could change my vote I would!

[nataraj]

I've 5.1 analog inputs but am using only the digital output from HD-A1 since I don't want to run 6 long analog cables.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by REFLEX

I recently got a good Yamaha HDMI reciever... so now I can access lossless and Truehd.. so if I could change my vote I would!

Let us know if you notice a difference between the DD and the lossless will ya?
Is it a tiny difference or are you now in pure audio bliss?