I just picked up a Samsung BD-P1400 blu ray player. Put in the Dave Matthews & Tim Renolds BD disc. Was able to output sound via analog 5.1 to my 990 with the Dolby True HD audio version.

WOW!

yes, the picture is fantanstic! . . . but sound quality was the best I have ever heard! This disc really has that "live" feel on my system. I confess that even the regular DD version (640K) sounds great. But the True HD was incredible.

Like most I have sat on the fence todate. Bought the kids PS3 last year for gaming reasons for the basement setup. I only opted to go Blu Ray in living room now due to drastic price drop, and the fact that the movies will be playable on the PS3.

I assume the internal digital/audio decoders in the Samsung to be the cheaper run of the mill stuff. It will be really great in a year or so when there are higher end pre-amp units (like Outlaws) to decode and show the full potential of the new audio formats.

Adrian L,

The 990 is not able to decode Dolby True HD. I do belive you need to pass that over HDMI 1.3.

Check again and please report what you were listening to.

Liz

This is an excellent point, Adrian. Sure, the player can decode and output multichannel analog, but there are so many other DSP-related capabilities that are lacking from a player (bass management and matrix processing modes like PLIIx being obvious examples) that will become readily available once we move to a digital interface. Even an HDMI v1.1 interface, with the player providing a raw multichannel PCM signal, would make all of that possible, but I have a hard time finding fault in companies like Outlaw waiting for HDMI v1.3 considering how poorly managed the evolution of HDMI has been.

Per his post, he was listening to TrueHD via multichannel analog - thus, he was in fact listening to TrueHD.

Gonk,
I thought that while using the 5.1 analog inputs on the 990, the 990 IS applying base management, speaker calibration, etc.
I listen to DVD Audio from my Oppo player this way...

The 990 does apply bass management, channel trim, and channel delay, but it's very unusual in that - and it does not support any other processing (such as PLIIx). I'm not knocking the 990's capabilities in this regard, as I use them fairly often myself, but there are opportunities to do even more once we obtain a digital signal path into the processor for all sources.

To clarify a few points, the Samsung decodes Dolby True HD as Gonk stated. It will down sample automatically to the reg DD output via optical when playing the high rez formats. I was able to A/B switch back and forth from the Analog in to the Optical setting on the 990. There was a significant db decress going to optical DD, so I would drop the volume on the analog to try to compensate. Not exactly scientific but it helped offset false subjective impressions from relative volume difference.

The disk allows three audio playback options (DD 5.1, True HD, and PCM). I listen to the True HD first and was in heaven. Later played the DD 5.1 track and through is sounded great, but not as good as the True HD.

My point is that, I am sure that Samsung do not use "high end" components in the analog conversions sections of their DAC's (regardless of what processor decodes the signal). This is just as important as the digital end, otherwise all of us would not have spent the extra money to buy the 990 pre amp, right? That said the sound from a "cheap" Samsung was a step up from anything I have listen to on the 990, including my small collections of SACD. I do understand that the analog input on the 990 adds bass management, time delay, etc. However, when we can send pure "digital" True HD or HD-DTS to a truely high end Pre-amp, the sound improvement should be yet another evolutionary step foreward.

From a music prespective, even though hi res audio died in the form of SACD / DVD Audio, we will see it resurface in the next year or so. Hopefully with a more commercially succesful format than the predecessors.

Oh yeah it makes a great video player too . . .

I believe that the PCM track on Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds is PCM 2.0, not 5.1. It is also 48kHz/24bit compared to teh TrueHD track's 96kHz/24bit.

I'm posting to this thread, as there was discussion of HD/BluRay. I pulled the trigger. Getting Toshiba A30 and Samsung 1400, both thru Amazon.

I just decided not to wait any longer...especially at these prices and with the discs.

Having reviewed the previous posts I think I made the correct decision. A30 not having analogs is OK with me, since I'm not going to buy into SACD. Besides my Sony 955 would play it.

My thanks for all the 'input'