Hi Scott,
I have not been following this tread and did not realised you asked me a question. Yes, I thought that all analog signals sent into a casablanca were converted to digital. That was what I was told when looking to buy one. Carl is their technical rep and if he says it can be bypassed in Analog Direct then it must be so. I bought a Meridian 568.2 instead and know all analog signals are converted to digital for processing in this unit.
I went a different route by installing a tube preamp in my system which sounds better for volume control than the meridian processor. Even routing the L & R channels out of the meridian and into the preamp sound better for music than using the meridian straight to the amp. To get the best sound I set the volume in the meridian close to the max and control the volume thru the preamp (obviously this is only for stereo). This was a recommendation from Richard Hardesty on line magazine "Audio Perfectionist". As in his opinion he thought the Casablanca II while being an excellent Processor was not as good at volume control as a modestly priced preamp.
Doug
I have not been following this tread and did not realised you asked me a question. Yes, I thought that all analog signals sent into a casablanca were converted to digital. That was what I was told when looking to buy one. Carl is their technical rep and if he says it can be bypassed in Analog Direct then it must be so. I bought a Meridian 568.2 instead and know all analog signals are converted to digital for processing in this unit.
I went a different route by installing a tube preamp in my system which sounds better for volume control than the meridian processor. Even routing the L & R channels out of the meridian and into the preamp sound better for music than using the meridian straight to the amp. To get the best sound I set the volume in the meridian close to the max and control the volume thru the preamp (obviously this is only for stereo). This was a recommendation from Richard Hardesty on line magazine "Audio Perfectionist". As in his opinion he thought the Casablanca II while being an excellent Processor was not as good at volume control as a modestly priced preamp.
Doug