DVD/CD Player Recommendation?

[JBLAddict]

there was a good thread with seawolf among others that I wanted to jump into covering the merits of a Yamaha and Oppo line, but is unfortunately "closed"

The last component I have to upgrade is a 10-yr old Sony 5disc CD/DVD changer with Dolby Digital and dts. Looking for better audio on standard CDs, the latest movie encodings, SACD, as well as BlueRay, and DVD-audio.

Q1: how do the decoders/DAC of the player interact or not become redundant with those on my HK-AVR354? would the fine DAC of the Oppo for example be reprocessed by the AVR? I never quite understood how the interaction between the source and receiver actually works wrt to the conversion from digital to analog--is my current Sony sending a digital signal through the optical cable (no HDMI on this model), bypassing it's own decoder, and the AVR is doing all the decoding to analog?

Q2: I believe SACD requires analog outs to the AVR in order to use only the players DAC, from what I read, do I have this correct? and what then about the other multichannel movie formats like, how does an HDMI or digital connection from player to AVR affect those? What I want is one HDMI connection from player to AVR, but not sure if this negates the processing of an expensive CD-DVD unit.

thanks much for any advice!

[hjames]

OK I'll help with the Q1/Q2 - I haven't gone to Blueray yet, but with my older (non-bluray) Oppo, it does DTS, Dolby, DVD-A, and SACD, as well as HDCD and Dvix decoding. It basically works the same way with the older HK AVR 335 as it does with my current HK AVR 7300.

I initially had just the optical link between it and my HK - but found you have to run multiple connections between the Disc player and the AVR to get all of the functionality. My older OPPO does 5.1, not the 7.1 of some units - so you run 6 discreet RCA cables to the "6 Direct" ports on the receiver - thats for the SACD and DVD-A signals.
Movie audio come across on the optical link, and I let the receiver determine if its Dolby or DTS.
Standard stereo CDs go through a discreet left/right pair of RCA cables - so the OPPO DAC is doing the decoding.

Video is just an HDMI cable direct to the TV - my receiver is pre-HDMI, but the TV has HDMI in, as well as component.


Does that help?

The last component I have to upgrade is a 10-yr old Sony 5disc CD/DVD changer with Dolby Digital and dts. Looking for better audio on standard CDs, the latest movie encodings, SACD, as well as BlueRay, and DVD-audio.

Q1: how do the decoders/DAC of the player interact or not become redundant with those on my HK-AVR354? would the fine DAC of the Oppo for example be reprocessed by the AVR? I never quite understood how the interaction between the source and receiver actually works wrt to the conversion from digital to analog--is my current Sony sending a digital signal through the optical cable (no HDMI on this model), bypassing it's own decoder, and the AVR is doing all the decoding to analog?

Q2: I believe SACD requires analog outs to the AVR in order to use only the players DAC, from what I read, do I have this correct? and what then about the other multichannel movie formats like, how does an HDMI or digital connection from player to AVR affect those? What I want is one HDMI connection from player to AVR, but not sure if this negates the processing of an expensive CD-DVD unit.

thanks much for any advice!

[Punch]

I have a McIntosh MVP-871.....amazing unit. $1600 pre-owned, as new condition from Audio Classics. Speak with Frank....he can answer any questions.

[JBLAddict]

OK I'll help with the Q1/Q2 - I haven't gone to Blueray yet, but with my older (non-bluray) Oppo, it does DTS, Dolby, DVD-A, and SACD, as well as HDCD and Dvix decoding. It basically works the same way with the older HK AVR 335 as it does with my current HK AVR 7300.

I initially had just the optical link between it and my HK - but found you have to run multiple connections between the Disc player and the AVR to get all of the functionality. My older OPPO does 5.1, not the 7.1 of some units - so you run 6 discreet RCA cables to the "6 Direct" ports on the receiver - thats for the SACD and DVD-A signals.
Movie audio come across on the optical link, and I let the receiver determine if its Dolby or DTS.
Standard stereo CDs go through a discreet left/right pair of RCA cables - so the OPPO DAC is doing the decoding.

Video is just an HDMI cable direct to the TV - my receiver is pre-HDMI, but the TV has HDMI in, as well as component.


Does that help?

thanks Heather. I think I understand correctly that the player requires SACD and DVD-A output with RCA cables exclusively?

but for all other digital formats (Dolby Digital, Dolby True HD, Dolby stereo), if I have a digital connection from the player to the AVR (HDMI, optical) does that by default bypass the player's DAC?

[hjames]

thanks Heather. I think I understand correctly that the player requires SACD and DVD-A output with RCA cables exclusively?

but for all other digital formats (Dolby Digital, Dolby True HD, Dolby stereo), if I have a digital connection from the player to the AVR (HDMI, optical) does that by default bypass the player's DAC?

Sure - any of the specialized movie/TV sources are handled pretty well by the HK receiver - feed the raw stream out of the DVD player and let the receiver handle it.

On my HK I set the audio source for each source Optical 1/2/3, Analog 1/2/3 etc ... with such selectivity, you can check and see which work best for you, right?

[JBLAddict]

On my HK I set the audio source for each source Optical 1/2/3, Analog 1/2/3 etc ... with such selectivity, you can check and see which work best for you, right?

right, I can use multiple inputs on the AVR from multiple outputs of a single source.

Just wondering, generally speaking, if a source's digital output is used, does that always bypass the source's DAC and revert to that of the receiver/pre-pro?

[BMWCCA]

Anybody tried this OPPO yet?
http://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-b...-Features.aspx