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Analogue for Home Theater???

Has anyone else but me used 5.1 analogue for home theater listening and what are your thoughts and conclusions to your decision of staying or switching back to HDMI digital??? How do you describe both digital vs analogue???

I have been using 5.1 analogue from my Oppo 83SE to my Onkyo Pro Sc885 pre processor and Hdmi for just video only. It is a big difference but I am wondering if a dedicated analogue 5.1 channel system would be more practical or would it not exceed the DTS master audio specs.

I noticed while watching a movie you can still switch the format through the Oppo from Dolby Digital to DTS master audio. The Onkyo will still show "Analogue Direct Multichannel" but you can hear the sound difference when you switch the movie audio format. Is there such piece as a analogue 5.1 processor??? Help anyone....

Regards Bacardi
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bacardi's avatar
bacardi OP
663 posts
 
Bdgregory. I am not using digital in the Oppo. 5.1 analogue for movies only. No digital audio used at all. Just HDMI video.

Kal, my question should have been, is there a better processor that does 5.1/7.1 analogue that beats the OppoSE's analogue processing??

Regards Bacardi
willland's avatar
willland
846 posts
 
I recently picked up a NAD T773(non-HDMI)receiver at a pawn shop for a steal. I moved it into my main system and sent my Onkyo TX-SR705(HDMI)to my bedroom system. While the Onkyo did a fantastic job with HT and having HDMI for audio and video is convenient, the NAD blows it away for music.

I just bought a BD player that has 7.1 analog outs and now I can take advantage of Dolby TrueHD and DTSMA without HDMI by letting my new Yamaha BD-S1065 do the decoding first before sending it to the NAD via 5.1 analog to the rca imputs.

Even though I have downgraded as technology goes, I definitely have upgraded with sound quality.

Bill
bdgregory
1,715 posts
 
Bacardi, how is the movie soundtrack (which exists on the DVD) converted from its digital form into analogue?
bar81
791 posts
 
There is no such thing as an analog home theater when using digital medium.

DVDs and Blu-Ray (and CDs, SACDs and DVD-A for that matter) are all digital mediums. There has to be a digital to analogue conversion (DA) to be able to hear the soundtrack/dialogue. As has been pointed out above, all you are doing when you are running audio out of the analogue outputs on a player is pushing the DA conversion up so that it happens using the DA Converter (DAC) of the player. Alternatively, when you output the audio over HDMI, SPDIF or Toslink, then you are pushing the DA conversion down into the DAC in the processor.
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,689 posts
 
My last column (September Stereophile) covers my analysis and opinions of the analog-vs-hdmi connection issues.

Kal
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