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Audio quality: Cable vs. Satellite?

Is the audio of cable TV any less compressed than Satellite TV, or an old fashioned antenna, or is it all the same? My ears have tinnitus and that makes them particularly sensitive to digital harshness, which is coming through loud and clear from my satellite TV provider, DirectTV. Having a highly resolving audio system only makes the matter worse, as you hear that super crispness all the more. I am using an Aragon Soundstage and Arcam P7 amp, running only fronts and center. I have tried the audio outs from the satellite box to fronts only but it is no improvement. The harshness is there either way. I also tried a tube buffer, to no avail. Has anyone found a way to reduce this fatiguing harshness? Thanks
dan92345
hifihvn
943 posts
 
Try the Prologic mode since you only use the fronts.
hifihvn
943 posts
 
Changing the time delay (distance) between the center,and left
and rights may help a little also.
hifihvn
943 posts
 
Try turning off the equalizer,on page 14 in the manual.[http://www.klipsch.com/media/products/owners-manuals/soundstage17.pdf]
hifihvn
943 posts
 
Sorry,I think the EQ it is on.Page 14 [http://www.klipsch.com/media/products/owners-manuals/soundstage17.pdf]
dan92345 OP
7 posts
 
Stanwall, thanks for stating that your experience with cable TV audio quality wasn't better than satellite, as I would hate to go through the trouble of switching and end up regretting it.

Davehrab, thanks for explaining things I didn't know about how the noise can be transferred from the satellite box back to the pro/pro. Replacing the digital coax audio cable between satellite DVR and Pre/pro, with the optical TOS link, has made such an improvement, that if I had that in place before, I would not have started this thread.

I have been told that the signal is more compressed than MP3, and that the signal has irrepairable damage to it by doing so. This same friend(audio engineer) said they tried improving the audio by running it through tube gear that should have sweetened it up but that the digital noise still comes through. Has anyone found a way to improve the digital sound for listing to music programming through satellite or cable TV? Can it be highly amplified, cleaned of noise, and then attenuated back to usable levels?
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