pcm vs analog

[Astro]

I was just wodering what would be better, pcm via optical digital or analog via the 2 analog interconects when it comes to running audio from a digital set top box to an a/v reciever?

[kexodusc]

Astro: Assuming everything is equal, there shouldn't be a difference. And TV doesn't usually have the highest resolution anyway.
That said, I'm guessing your digital STB would not have as good a DAC in it as your receiver, so run the digital cable to the reciever. I've gone through several STB's over the years, and each and everyone always seemed to sound worse with analog.

If you can, you might consider both. For whatever reason, there's seems to be the odd station in every area that just doesn't get along with digital too well.

[BrentMcGhee]

For heavens sakes you want to use the optical cable and let your receivers dac do all the work.....

Those cheapy cable boxes dont have anything good about them except the fact they can decode all your stations. That is the only thing that the manufactures of these boxes care about, audio and video quality is the last thing they think about especially something like a dac. I mean really, the majority of these boxes are going to be hooked up via a 75ohm RG6 audio/video cord directly to a 26inch sony tv anyway. Why do they want to put money into the box that they dont need to.

You receiver on the other hand, quality is much higher on the list. However you should probably still hook up both digital and analog connections from the box to your receiver. If your cable company i anything like mine the channels that are not digital will not output sound through the digital connection so you are forced to use the analog connections in that case.