I have a quick question regarding DVD/CD audio connection to the 990:

I am using the optical (toslink) ports to connect my DVD player (Momitsu V880) to the 990. My question is: are there times when this is the wrong thing to do?

For instance, I have seen several posts where people are using a separate CD player, with analog connections to the 990 for 2 channel audio listening. Do they do this because they believe the DA conversion in the CD player is better than the 990 circuitry? Unless you're in bypass mode, isn't this analog signal converted to digital, processed (say for bass management) and then converted back to analog? Seems like using the CD/DVD player as a transport mechanism, and using a digital connection would almost always be the way to go...

What about SACD? I have a 2nd DVD player capable of playing SACD's. Would the optical out on this player enable 5.1 channel playback?, or would I need to hook up those 5.1 analog inputs?

Just curious really-
Thanks.

The only times when I recommend an analog audio connection from a CD or DVD player are when the player has better DAC's than the receiver or processor (which is going to be a bit rare with the 990 considering the quality of the DAC's it uses) or the format in question only allows analog output (which would be the case for SACD and DVD-Audio).

Redrob hit upon a question I've been wrestling with for a couple of months. I have been enjoying stereo music with the 990 and I too use a digital connection between my universal player and the 990. I have wondered if a CD player with its own high quaility DAC would improve the sound. The Rotel 1072, Arcam 73T, and NAD 542 used are in my price range and from the opinions shared on several forums have devoted fans. But it is it necessary to have a separate CD player given the DAC ability of the 990?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a CD player has two main functions. First is the electro/mechanical function of getting the 1s and 0s off the CD and second is to convert the 1s and 0s to analog (DAC). I can imagine there are a number of concerns with the first function but I wonder what the relative impact on the overall sound produced by a CD player between the DACs and the mechanisim. Any thoughts on this?

Also, how do you compare DACs other than listening to the different CD players? Does anybody know of comparisons (subjective or objective) between DACs in the players noted above?

although i've only had my 990 for a couple weeks.. I have my CDP (Marantz cc4300) hooked up using the analog connection.

I to am curious about how it will sound using a digital connection. I haven't tried it yet because I'm waiting for a digital cable to be built for me.

So far I am very impressed with the 2 ch music I've been hearing from the 990 using analog cables. Open, wide and spacious are words that flow easily from the CDP and the 990 now. Bypass and upsampling sound the best to me.

I mostly use my 990 for HT. For 2ch music I use an Aragon D to A processor and Aragon preamp into the same power amp channels that the 990 would feed if I used it for 2 ch music. There is not the difference I had expected in music listening when I purchased the 990. The imaging and clarity is better with stand alone processor and preamp but, if I did not already own the Aragon equipment I would not spend $2-3000 for the difference in the sound. And it is always back to what do you like your music (speakers and electronics) to sound like.
The 990 has (imo)a very good D to A processor in it though and you would have to just try different combination of equipment to see what you like.
I have not tried to send an analog signal from the D to A to the 990 to see how the sound differs if at all from the 990's processor. I am just about finished building a switching unit so I don't have to change interconnects when I change from one piece of equipment to another. It should make comparing the 2 D to A's and the 2 preamps with the same analog signal less difficult. I will let you know what I hear if anyone is interested.
I would be curious to know if most manufacturers of DVD and CD players build their own processors or if many of them use units from the same supplier. I'm sure Gonk and other will probably have information on this.

I am using a Parasound DAC with a LD player as CD tranport for serious cd listening. It sounds better than 990 marginally at timbre matching and bass extension.
Again, we can only get the most from the weakest link along the chain, not just the DAC, nor just the 990, but cable and wires.

Kwok

What interconnects are you using? I buy mine locally from a guy who uses copper wires that have a silver tinning to them. They are nice and revealing in the top end. Not as harsh as complete silver wires.. which can be way to bright.

I am using a Rotel 1072 cd player with my 990. I use it in analog/Bypass mode (RCA interconnects-MIT). I also have it connected with a coaxial cable. I can easily switch from Bypass to Digital/Coax Upsample mode. The sound (to MY ears) is more detailed in analog/Bypass; it seems that soundstaging is wider. It is very close; as someone above stated, if I didn't have the Rotel unit already, I probaly would just use my dvd player as a transport with the 990 DAC's.

For all intents and purposes, is using the Toslink connection same as using SPDIF digital coax?

Skyblazer and anyone else, can upsampling be used on an analog input?

yes. i listen to it (upsampling) using analog inputs. and it sounds really good.

this has been a long standing debate for many years now.. Some people prefer an optical digital cable, while other say the sturdy build construction of a good coax cable is better.

I've used and continue to use both glass optical and coax cables in my system. Both perform as designed to. They both carry the digital signal from point A to point B equally well.

Thanks, jmacari. That's interesting that the difference between the sound of your 1072 in analog versus digital throught 990's DACs is relatively small and may not be worth the cost of a separate CD player. Man, the $1100 990 might save me $500 or more bucks on a CD player!

Are there any other owners that could compare the analog performance of their cd players to the 990 handling the DAC work?

I've compared my Yamaha DVD-S1500 to the Model 990. I have found that I like using upsample with the digital input to the analog stereo input.

Lot's of good info there. A few followup questions/comments:

1) "Again, we can only get the most from the weakest link along the chain, not just the DAC, nor just the 990, but cable and wires."

Seems like another argument for using digital (no need to invest in expensive interconnects). My $4 optical cable, courtesy ebay, is working just fine. As somebody pointed out, if the bits get there, they get there.

2) "...I listen to it (upsampling) using analog inputs. and it sounds really good."

I too have listened to the 990 in upsample mode, with analog inputs. It does work, and sounds good... but I'm not sure exactly what it is that I'm listening too. Are we doing a A->D conversion, and then "upsampling" that before converting back to analog? Maybe one of the outlaw guys can clue us in a bit more on how this works.

3) "...format in question only allows analog output (which would be the case for SACD and DVD-Audio)."

Is the 5.1 "DVD audio" encoding fundamentally different than that used for 5.1 DVD movies? I get 5.1 sound just fine for movies using the optical cable. And I have a couple dual-disc CD/DVD's that seem to give me 5.1 surround with the optical cable. My primary DVD player doesn't even have 5.1 outputs... I'll admit I'm a little confused about all the different formats out there.

Thanks-

2) When upsampling is engaged with an analog source, my understanding is that the signal is converted from analog to digital and then upsampled just as would happen with a digital input before conversion back to analog for output.

3) "DVD-Audio" refers to the high-res audio format that competes with SACD - it uses an audio format called MLP (Meridian Lossless Packeting) that provides a lossless audio format. As you've guessed, it is a fundamentally different format than what you're used to with DVD-Video. You need a special player to play back a DVD-A or SACD disc, and those players have to include 5.1 analog outputs because that's the only way most people have for getting access to the MLP audio on a DVD-A. (There are a few ways to get a digital signal out of the player for DVD-A and SACD, but they all took years to get approved for the applications and none have been widely adopted.) DVD-Video (which refers to DVD movies, many concert DVD's, and so forth) uses Dolby Digital with DTS as an option. Both of those formats can pass over a digital audio cable (optical or coaxial) just fine.

Actually, optical interconnects are probably one area where you don't want to cheap out.

Cheap optical cables tend to introduce jitter problems into your system. I've heard this from several different sources that I trust.

As always, your mileage may vary.

If the receiving device cache's and/or re-clocks the bit-stream, jitter shouldn't be an issue... does the 990 do that?

Sound is good enough, that I'm confident my cheap cable isn't dropping data (it's also a short interconnect).

Sorry but I don't undetrstand Gonk's answer 2, "the signal is converted from analog to digital and then upsampled just as would happen with a digital input." Conversion from analog to digital obviously involves sampling. Why wouldn't the ADC sample the analog signal at the highest available sampling rate to begin with, thus making upsampling both unnecessary and impossible?

It's possible that the upsampling takes place as part of the A/D conversion process - as I said, that was just my understanding. I would suspect that the process that upsamples from 44.1/48kHz to 96kHz (or whatever higher sampling rate the 990 generates, I don't recall exactly what it upsamples to) is entirely within the digital domain, though, which is why I assumed the A/D step carried you up to 48kHz under normal circumstances and the upsampling process that is used for digital inputs is then applied identically for the analog signal.