[Tim Wiens]

I'm sure you guys will think I'm crazy, but I have decided to go from four channels down to two. The multichannel music thing never really happened for me, so 98% of our listening is music and dvd's of TV shows in two channel. Even a lot of the movies my wife and I watch don't have a lot of surround info and sound good in two channel. So I've sold off the Krell amp and six foot tall Dunlavy speakers that I was using for surround. My wife is happy with the extra space in the living room and the two channel sound has improved by having fewer passive speaker drivers in the room and less wire and components adding noise to the ac line.


So now I'm only using our Theta Casablanca II to convert Dolby Digital for the music channels we listen to, to PCM for input into our Theta Gen VIII D/A converter. My question is this: Is there a small device out there that will convert Dolby Digital to PCM bitstream? If so, I can purchase this and put the Casablanca II up for sale. This would give me a little more room to work with and generate some more cash to improve the two channel sound.

 

[BobDole]

What do you mean by music channels? Can't you just set your DVD player (and cable box, etc.) to output PCM instead of DD?

 

[Tim Wiens]

Yes the dvd player (Theta Compli) is set to output PCM instead of DD, but my cable box (Motorola 6200) unfortunately does not have this feature. My only option is analog out, which doesn't sound as good as having the Gen VIII do the D/A conversion.

 

[PhilNYC]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim Wiens /forum/post/0


Yes the dvd player (Theta Compli) is set to output PCM instead of DD, but my cable box (Motorola 6200) unfortunately does not have this feature. My only option is analog out, which doesn't sound as good as having the Gen VIII do the D/A conversion.

I searched high and low for a device that could do this about two years ago (for the exact same reason), but never found one. If you find one, let me know!

 

[Andy Lammer]

What about an older pre/pro with a digital output ?

The pre/pro will do the DD->stereo downmix conversion, then offer digital output to an external DAC.


I think you can do this with a Meridian 565/568 or newer.

A 565 is about $500 at Audiogon and very small form-factor.


- Andy

 

[Hilo Hairy]

Are cable boxes interchangable between systems? The HD Scientific Atlanta DVR that Time-Warner gives out has this feature. Has some diferent minor problems though.


When I run it with my Gen VIII it is so much more convincing doing two channel than my Denon receiver doing 5.1 in our second system. The trouble is that for music I need it elsewhere.

 

[PhilNYC]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Hilo Hairy /forum/post/0


Are cable boxes interchangable between systems? The HD Scientific Atlanta DVR that Time-Warner gives out has this feature. Has some diferent minor problems though..

Two years ago, I had a Scientific Atlanta HD DVR from Cablevision, and it did not have the ability to set the digital out to PCM (it had "Dolby Digital" and "Other", but my DAC did not work with either setting). I've since switched to DirecTV, and I am able to set the DirecTV box to PCM-output...

 

[Don O’Brien]

As a point of fact the current DVRs from cable vision can output traditional PCM when the output is set to HDMI.