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Cable tv music analogue or digital?

I was trying to improve the quality of the sound coming from my cable tv box, sometimes I like to listen to the jazz station. I ran a regular rca jack from the analogue outs on the cable box to the analogue inputs on my pre-amp, the sound is ok, but I wanted to improve the sound. so I ran a cable from the digital coax output on the cable box to the coaxe input on my Cary 306/200 cdp/dac and then into the pre-amp. guess what, no audio signal coming from the music channels but I do get an audio signal coming from the regular tv channels. Is it possible that regular tv signals are broadcasting in digital but the music channelis still going out in analogue? what else could it be.
joeb
edpowers
14 posts
 
My cable box outputs Dolby digital only and requires conversion by a Dolby processor, instead of a PCM signal that most DAC's convert to analog.
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,685 posts
 
Yes but, in practice, it sounds much better than the analog outputs when processed by a high-quality DAC/processor.

Kal
saki70
907 posts
 
My box is the same... it requires a processor to decode the signal before going to the pre . I looked , in vane , for a standalone - quality convertor/Dac . I learned to live with the DAC in the cable box ! It's better than some of the crappy CD's that I have !

Good luck .
reubent
7,005 posts
 
Many cable systems only output Dolby Digital, not PCM. So, you would need to send the signal to a "processor", not just to a DAC which converts PCM digital stream to analog.

Check the configuration on your cable box. Some do have a configuration setting that will allow for PCM output instead of Dolby Digital. If in doubt, call your cable company's tech support (good luck with that one!) or contact the manufacturer of the cable box (possibly a better source of information).

Enjoy,

TIC
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