H/T Analog Question

[typhoon]

I have a Krell integrated high-current amplifier, along with some electrostatic Martin Logan speakers. I am upgrading portions of my home theatre, and are trying to find a solution to a problem.

Do most good modern DVD (and BluRay/HDDVD) still come with an integrated DAC for analog processing? If so, are they really any good? I was contemplating buying an external audio DAC for processing the digital audio signals and passing that to my integrated amplifier.

I had previously run RCA cables from each component to the integrated amplifier, but I am now looking at upgrading to a DLP HD television, and possibly getting a BluRay or HDDVD player. How should I hook this up, given my integrated amplifier only supports analog and I have no desire to replace high end audio equipment with something newer just to gain the ability to process digital signals?

Thank you!

[musicman1999]

Yes you will find that any good quality dvd player has a good on board dac.I recently had the new Arcam dv137 inhouse for a few days and its analog performance was top notch.You sound as though you will be using the player in 2 channel mode,so just make sure the player is set to downmix to stereo.And you will still need your cd player,as getting a dvd player that does a good job with cd's will cost a LOT of money.

bill

[JoeE SP9]

With the kind of gear you are using a high quality external DAC with oversampling will probably sound better. This really only applies when using 2 channel audio.