Converting RCA to XLR

@auxinput,

Same thing I mentioned to fiesta about the A51 balanced input.
In this case using a XLR to RCA adapter probably isn’t going to make any difference.

I like your idea about using 2 amps, but I think there’s still an issue there.

How is the processing done in the Oppo? Is the XLR Stereo Out (left and right only ) somehow recognized and processed the same as part of the 5.1CH OUT for the other 3 channels? Or is it assumed all 5 channels + bass are coming from the 5.1CH connections. If that’s the case, wouldn’t he need another set of cables to plug/unplug (FL/FR to A21 instead of Stereo Out L+R)?

His question seems simple enough, but I think it’s more complicated.

Knowing why he wants adapters might make it easier to help answer his questions. I think his initial thought of using 7 cables, and the switch is probably the best (2 XLR, 5 RCA). However, I would confirm with Parasound first. Will the Oppo send all 7 channels to the A51 with this setup. If it does, how will that affect the A51 receiving 2 live signals for both left and right channels (hopefully, the switch takes care of that).

My understanding is that the Oppo uses both the 5.1 left/right outputs as well as the XLR left/right outputs for generating sound from both multi-channel movie source and stereo music sources, so he should be just fine.

The Oppo XLR outputs use a single 8-channel ESS DAC chip that stacks the internal DACs in parallel for output and also uses a much better analog output stage than the 5.1 RCA board, so audio should be better on the XLR/RCA output section anyways.

Interesting, I'm almost tempted to try combining the 2 types of outputs on my BDP95 to see what happens (it would really be a pain to set it all up just for the sake of testing something). I've only ever used the BDP95 S/PDIF to HT processor, never for audio as that's all done on different hardware. The plastic caps on the 7.1CH connections have never been removed.

Not entirely sure what the following really means.

From the BDP95 manual:

" NOTE The STEREO AUDIO OUT terminals automatically down-mix the multi-channel audio source into the stereo signals. However, STEREO AUDIO OUT will NOT be affected by the “Down mix” modes and other speaker settings in the Audio Processing of Setup Menu (described in the page 70)."

Thank you all for your input. It looks like I’ll be doing some testing when the new amp arrives. I did buy the Cardas XLR/RCA adapters and my hopes are when playing 5.1, that they’ll at least sound as good as if I was using straight RCA’s from source to amp and they won’t have any negative effect when playing stereo. I really don’t want to have to get off my ass and awkwardly reach behind the amp, groping for this balanced/unbalanced switch, every-time I change from 2.0 to 5.1 ugh!

So I’ll be doing the following tests:

• Stereo using just 2 channels XLR (switch set to balanced)
• Stereo using just 2 channels RCA (switch set to unbalanced)
• Stereo using all channels RCA (switch set to unbalanced)
  
• Stereo using XLR (Front LT, RT) and RCA with XLR adapters for remaining channels (switch set to balanced)
  
• Stereo using XLR (Front LT, RT) and RCA (Front LT, RT) with RCA for remaining channels (switch set to unbalanced)
  
• 5.1 using XLR (Front LT, RT) and RCA with XLR adapters for remaining channels (switch set to balanced)
• 5.1 using XLR (Front LT, RT) and RCA (Front LT, RT) with RCA for remaining channels (switch set to unbalanced)
• 5.1 using all channels RCA (switch set to unbalanced)
  

If you’d like, I could report my findings if anyone is interested.