Newbie question about high resolution audio

Hi. I was wondering why you have to use analog connections for high-res audio? How come you can't just use a digital cable? It seems to me that it would make more sense to do so. If my processor offers bass managment for 5.1 audio, couldn't I skip the bass managment in the player and hook it up directly to my processor via a digital cable?

Thank you for your patience with a newbie.

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Originally Posted by Waxxiemann

Hi. I was wondering why you have to use analog connections for high-res audio? How come you can't just use a digital cable? It seems to me that it would make more sense to do so. If my processor offers bass managment for 5.1 audio, couldn't I skip the bass managment in the player and hook it up directly to my processor via a digital cable?

Thank you for your patience with a newbie.

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Hi Waxxiemann,

Sure, you could take the dig out on your dvd/cd/sacd/dvd-a player and decode Dolby digital...or even perhaps DTS as well. But your receiver doesn't have a sacd or dvd-a decoder located inside of it...so you have to use the HiRez DAC located inside the machine. Perhaps someday we'll have sacd/dvd-a decoding inside recievers...but not quite yet ;)

Just figure what the transport reads has to get decoded somewhere. If you would like to decode it by using an outside component...then use the dig out...if you would like to have the DAC inside the player itself decode it...then it's already decoded...and you only need the analog outs.


hope that made sense>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Waxxiemann

Hi. I was wondering why you have to use analog connections for high-res audio? How come you can't just use a digital cable? It seems to me that it would make more sense to do so. If my processor offers bass managment for 5.1 audio, couldn't I skip the bass managment in the player and hook it up directly to my processor via a digital cable?

Thank you for your patience with a newbie.

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It would make sense, except the manufacturers of the various new formats have proprietary technology that they want to keep exclusive to themselves. If you're allowed to send the bits of data to any decoder via your digital cable, they don't have control over how you decode the product and hence can't force you to buy their products. Using the analogs ensures that you have to use their product or a product that has been licensed by them.

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Originally Posted by gonefishin

Hi Waxxiemann,

Sure, you could take the dig out on your dvd/cd/sacd/dvd-a player and decode Dolby digital...or even perhaps DTS as well. But your receiver doesn't have a sacd or dvd-a decoder located inside of it...so you have to use the HiRez DAC located inside the machine. Perhaps someday we'll have sacd/dvd-a decoding inside recievers...but not quite yet ;)

Just figure what the transport reads has to get decoded somewhere. If you would like to decode it by using an outside component...then use the dig out...if you would like to have the DAC inside the player itself decode it...then it's already decoded...and you only need the analog outs.


hope that made sense>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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Actually, I think that many discs these days have built in copy protection that don't allow you to use any decoder that you'd like other than the one the player came equipped with. I haven't tried it personally because I don't have one, but I think even if you hook up your DVD-A player to an external 24/192 DAC, you won't necessarily get sound - or if you do, you'll get a distorted sound from the copy protection.

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Originally Posted by magictooth

Actually, I think that many discs these days have built in copy protection that don't allow you to use any decoder that you'd like other than the one the player came equipped with. I haven't tried it personally because I don't have one, but I think even if you hook up your DVD-A player to an external 24/192 DAC, you won't necessarily get sound - or if you do, you'll get a distorted sound from the copy protection.

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I don't know abut dvd-a. But you can use a sacd/cd player as a transport only... with good and expected results. Again, not sure about dvd-a...you may be right about that. As for Hi rez DACs...If Hi-rez takes off...it's only a matter of time before they're seen in receivers too. But I'm still not convinced it'll take off.