I am a proud new owner of the 950/7100. I hooked up my Denon DCM380 to the 950 using digital coaxial. When I hit the bypass no sound is heard. Does the bypass work for coaxial? If not, will connecting the CD player using RCA cables in bypass mode give me better sound quality then coaxial in stereo mode? Thanks!

Shell, you are correct. Bypass is only good for analog (RCA red and white) connections. As to which sounds better depends greatly on what you prefer. By using a digital connection you are letting the 950 process the information and when using Analog Bypass you are letting the cd/dvd player process the information and the 950 is used only for volume control. This is what you should use if you have a high end player. Try them both out and see what you prefer. Personally I use analog bypass for music.

As Jed pointed out, stereo bypass ignores the digital input and goes directly to the selected input's analog stereo input - so if there's no analog connection made, bypass gives you no signal at all. With some CD or DVD players, you can get better CD playback using the player's DAC, in which case stereo bypass is the way to go. When I had my Yamaha CDC-775 CD changer connected to the 950 (a changer that is similar to your Denon in price and performance), I preferred the digital output. When I used a Panasonic DVD-Audio player as my CD transport, I did the same, but when I switched recently to a Yamaha DVD-S1500 player I started using the analog bypass mode for CD's. The best bet is to toss in some analog cables, try both, and find the one you prefer - there's not really a "right" answer.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

Thanks for the quick replies. Unfortunately, I brought the digital coaxial cord already $25 and the player is over 5 feet away from my unit, so buying a good quality RCA cable simply for a sound check will cost me.

Let me ask you two another question. The denon uses the Burr-Brown 20-Bit D/A Converters (PCM-1748), while the 950 uses Cirrus CS 4396. What Dac do you feel is better? Thanks.