Might want to do something about that fire there. Good way to ruin your hat...

Why is there a difference in sound between a digital connection to the receiver (CD player is transport, sends digital data directly to receiver, which applies any desired bass management and processing before converting to analog and passing it on to the volume control / amps) and an analog connection to the receiver (CD player takes digital stream and converts to analog, receiver converts back to digital before processing, then converts back to analog and passes it on to the volume control / amps)? The key is what you have added to the signal path: a DAC in the CD player and an ADC in the receiver. Digital to analog conversion (and analog to digital) is not a simple, foolproof process -- there's a lot of stuff happening in the background to get the best analog signal out of the 0's and 1's. What happens if the DAC in the CD player isn't a very good DAC? It will potentially degrade the signal, and those degradations will remain through all subsequent manipulation. What if the DAC in the CD player is really top-notch? It does a better job than the receiver could ever do, but then the receiver takes that high quality analog signal and runs it through the ADC and DAC process -- just as if the CD player's fancy DAC had never existed. It doesn't seem like that big a deal if you are dealing with more run-of-the-mill components, but if you have a nicer CD player (or you've invested some significant money in a separate DAC, like a Theta for example) then you don't want that extra A-D-A conversion in the signal path...

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