Hello:

I am new to Outlaw.

I just ordered the 1070 and it should arrive in the next few days. They will be hooked up to a pair of Axiom M60's and no subwoofer(the bass is
plenty and never felt I needed to add one. At this time, I do not use a center, but have an Infinity that is not being used. The rears I am
flexible on, but am demoing a pair of B&W LM-1's that a friend will sell cheap if I want them. Do I need more of a full speaker in the back? I
didn't think so.

My listening habits are are follows:

I do not have any DVD-A and SACD disks, but a friend owns a CD store and will lend me from time to time these diskes if I want to listen to them.
Otherwise, I will not be listening to them now or in the near future.

I own thousands of regular CD's and this will be my prominant listening. Mostly rock, but I am getting into contemp jazz, and have soundtracks
and New Age. I can easily go from Deep Purple to Buddy Guy to Guys and Dolls in one sitting.

My CD/DVD player will be used 85% CD and 15% DVD, so as you can see the importance will be in the music. I went with the 1070 instead of that
new stereo receiver because I at least wanted to to be movie ready, but it is far from the most important thing. I want to it be good, but the
music is the thing.

I am looking to buy a DVD/CD player and feel that I don't need to spend more than $250 on one. I saw Oppo all over the boards, but couldn't get a real feel as to the audio sound, especially with what I own. I have one HDMI/DVI hookup on my TV, and of course the 2 DVI connections on the Outlaw. I also have a Comcast HD DVR cable box
that I would like to hook up to the TV, but am not sure I want to hook up both of these to the Outlaw as I will have to turn on the receiver
everytime I use the TV, ahtough that is not a deal breaker.

Does the HDMI/DVI out of the CD/DVD player hooking up to the TV or Outlaw really make that much of a difference in the video performance as
compared to component video out? I can see that the Comcast box would be because it is an HD output, but will the CD/DVD make that much of a
difference since it in not HD? This way I will hook up the Cable box directly to HDMI on the TV and the CD/DVD video side directly to
component in on the TV. Both machines will have the audio split so I can listen to the TV alone or with the receiver. Audio will be used
with an optical out or coax out. Is one more perferalbe and is it substantially better than regular audio cables out?

What CD/DVD machine can you recommend?

Also, I can't seem to justify the high prices of cables and adapters. On eBay that have HDMI to DVI cables at $4 and then I see some companies selling it for $60. Where is the happy medium?

Thanks so much in advance.

Lenny...

When it comes to CD's and DVD's, my recommendation is going to be to find a good DVD player that can feed a digital audio signal to the 1070 - at which point the sound quality is the responsibility of the 1070 since all the player is doing is passing digital bits from disc to output. The digital connection for CD's and regular DVD's also has the advantages of allowing better digital signal processing than the player can provide (such as the phantom center channel you'll likely be using, bass management, and surround processing of two-channel discs where applicable). Under this scheme, either of the current OPPO players would be good audio choices. Either would also be a good, cost-effective way to include support for DVD-A and SACD via multichannel analog in case you decided to borrow any from your buddy. The only time this idea of digital connection for CD's may not hold true is with a CD or DVD player with a really good analog section, and even then I still only would go analog for CD's in that case as the DSP benefits for DVD are going to probably win out anyway.

Whether HDMI/DVI helps or not depends on the player and the display - if the TV is a digital display device then preserving a digital signal path is a definite plus, and if the player has a better scaling and deinterlacing solution then the player you can also get nice benefits there.

One thing that I almost always tell people just moving into home theater is that it will probably be much easier to simply use the receiver all the time - the process of controlling the system ends up being simpler. It probably would make sense to run HDMI/DVI from both DVD and HD cable through the 1070 to the display. If you do bypass the 1070 for video and run analog audio to the TV so you can watch TV without the 1070, I'd probably reserve the HDMI input for a player like an OPPO and let the cable box go component - at least as recently as a year or two ago, cable boxes still provided equal video quality either way (in fact, my HD cable box's component output may even be just a hair better looking than its DVI output). There's no reason that component can't do HD resolutions.

Either optical or coaxial offer one huge advantage over regular analog audio - they can carry digital bitstreams. HD can be broadcast in Dolby Digital 5.1, and of course DVD's offer both Dolby Digital and DTS. The only way to get that data to the 1070 so it can do something productive with them is via an optical or coaxial connection.

As for buying cables, I've gotten mine from either Outlaw or Blue Jeans Cables (plus a DVI cable or two from Pacific Cable). You can find cheaper than those (Monoprice comes to mind), but in many cases you begin to sacrifice quality to get those lower prices. As for which is better between optical and coaxial, arguments can and have been made both ways. For shorter runs (the typical lengths seen in an equipment rack) and reasonably good quality cables, I've not been able to discern a difference between the two. For longer runs or runs in difficult environments (running parallel to power cords, for example), optical would probably be preferable because the problems of EMI, RFI, and electrical resistance are eliminated.

That's a rather fragmented answer - if there are other questions still rattling around feel free to toss them out here and we'll all see what we can do with them.

Thanks Gonk.

When you say either of the Oppo players will be fine for the audio since that is more important to me than video, I assume you are talking about the 981HD or the 970HD as the 971 doesn't support SACD.

If HDMI only isn't a problem, would the 981HD be the way to go to get a great audio CD sound because as I mentioned I listen to CD's 85% of the time as compared to movies. I will be putting an HDMI to DVI converter to plug it into the 1070 and either coax or optic cable for the audio as you discussed.

Thanks again.

Correct, I was talking about the 970 and 981, since the 971 is no longer in production as well as not an SACD player.

The 981HD is exactly what I'm using for CD's - connected via an HDMI to DVI cable and a coaxial digital audio cable to my 990. The 5.1 analog connection is there for DVD-A and SACD, but everything else goes over the digital cable. I think it's a very good solution.

Thanks very much for the advice. That is what I was hoping to do and I look forward to hearing this combo when my 1070 arrives next week.

I think you'll like that combination, and let us know if any other questions crop up.