Do I need to have analog cables from my DVD player to the 950 in order to hear stereo? Or can I use only the digital cable from the DVD player to the 950 for all audio functions?

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MeanGenes Home

[This message has been edited by MeanGene (edited December 27, 2002).]

You can get (and hear) the 2 channel data via SP/DIF. I'm not sure if the 950 sends analog to the tape/VCR analog outputs in a case like this though.

You can carry everything via the S/PDIF or optical cable from your DVD player to get plain stereo. You can also come out of the stereo jacks of your DVD player and go into the DVD input of the 950. When you push the 'bypass' button, then you'll get un-processed stereo.

So, to recap...

I can use the Toslink only, for most audio pleasure. But, I will need the analog cables for stereo bypass. In addition I will need an ICBM if I want to hear my sub-woofers in stereo bypass mode. Anything else you would like to share with regard to the different modes of the 950. It would really help if someone could address every possible situation. I mean how many are there? I.E. You hook up the digital cable only, so you can minimize cable clutter and expense. Then what are you missing? You will be able to do this, and this, but not this... etc..

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MeanGene's Home


[This message has been edited by MeanGene (edited December 27, 2002).]

I can't speak to if you'll get maximum pleasure from toslink - I only get kind of tingly in certain parts using it, but not nearly as much as when I use coax S/PDIF. Pitchers of Margaritas increase the pleasure quotient when using both connections

Personally, the only reason I use analog cables on my DVD player are for DVD-Audio; otherwise, I stick with the digital audio output (optical in my case, for what it's worth). If you have better DAC's in your player than in your 950, you could use the analog cables in stereo bypass (or on the 5.1 analog input) for CD listening, but depending on the player the 950 may be better at D/A. You may find that the 950's DAC's are better than those in the Sony megachanger or the Panny RP62, but I haven't tried them myself and could be wrong.

As for hearing the sub in stereo bypass mode, you would need an ICBM -- or you would need to connect the left and right analog outputs to the 5.1 analog input on the 950 and turn the analog bass management on.

Always so many options...

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

Thanks for the info, I value your time. Also, I use Vodka and Donald Duck grape fruit juice - When needed.

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MeanGene's Home

Soundhound, are we really going to get back into the argument of whether optical S/PDIF sounds different from coaxial S/PDIF?

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Matthew J. Hill
matt@idsi.net

The difference in sound is inversely proportional to the quantity of margaritas consumed, devided by pi.

....Maybe wandering off topic a tad....

But supposedly most dvd players ( < 1000$) have trouble syncing the optical audio with the video... generally the coax audio will be more correctly synced with the video....