Hooking up DVD-A and SACD to 950

I recently purchased a Toshiba DVD-A player and a Sony SACD player. I plan on purchasing the 950 in the very near future and would like any suggestions on hooking them both up to the 950.

One option that some people have used is listening to SACD in two-channel only and using the stereo bypass mode on the input of your choice for it. For multi-channel on both players, a few options are to (1) get a couple of Radio Shack A/V switch boxes and use them to switch between the two, (2) get one of these for switching, or (3) track down a Sony TA-P2000ES multi-channel analog preamp. Many people at HTF have used option (1) very successfully, without detectable signal degradation. Option (2) is certainly cleaner, if you don't mind the $200 price tag (I think he's reduced his price since I looked last). Option (3) provides the most flexibility, and there are a couple people around the forum using them, as I recall, but it is the most expensive.

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

If I choose to listen to SACD in stereo only, I assume I would use the CD analog inputs since this is my only CD player. My other question would be if I used the six analog inputs for DVD-A, would I also have to connect to the two DVD analog inputs for regular DVD playback?

At this point I am not sure which of the options you outlined I will pursue, but thanks for the very helpful post.

If you connect the six-channel analog for DVD-Audio, you would probably also want to connect the digital audio cable (coaxial or optical) from DVD-A player to 950 for watching DVD's. This will allow you to make use of the 950's processing (Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby EX, DTS ES, bass management) when watching movies. You would use the analog interface for DVD-A only (at least that's what I do with my Panasonic DVD-A player).

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

Well I'm running a Denon 1600 DVD-A player and a Sony CE775 SACD player into my system by using six of Radio Shacks Y cables (Catalog #: 42-2536). I was using a y-adapter, but that was causing some distortion. The Y cables dont seem to have any distortion to them, nor have I noticed any signal loss. It works for me, and it's under $20.00.

Jason

Total Connectivity:

If you have an extra set of analog stereo outs from your DVD player, you could plug those directly to your TV. This gives you the option (if you ever wanted to use it) of watching DVDs on TV without the 950, amp(s) and speakers assuming you have your DVD player's video output sent directly to your TV.

Otherwise, having your DVD player hooked up to your 950 via a digital connection and the 6 channel analog connection, as Gonk suggests, gives you all the options you can use. It gives you the choice of listening to DVD-As in stereo or multichannel, watching movies and having the 950 decode the sound track for you, or watching movies and having the DACs in your DVD player decode the soundtrack for you.



[This message has been edited by DollarBill (edited January 22, 2003).]

Don't use "Y" adapters to combine the _outputs_ of two components! The distortion you were getting with the one set of "Y" adapters was a friendly warning that you were basically shorting the output of the active component with the output stage of the inactive one (even if one of them is turned off). This will cause distortion, but it can also damage your player's output stage over time. Why one set of "Y" adapters had distortion and one set does not, I can't guess, but neither one is a good solution.

If you want to do this on the cheap, and know which end of a soldering iron is the one that gets hot you can solder into the "hot" inner conductor of each leg of all the "Y" adapters a 10K ohm resistor, leaving the shield intact. This will isolate the outputs of both players and ward off any possible damage or distortion.

Radio Shack also sells RCA line level "switchers". You have to get 3 of them (stereo, 3x2 = 6 = 5.1), but it's safer than using Y adapters. Pretty cheap. I think $10 or $15 per switch.

Or try two of these .

Looks like those would work well...they're out of stock online however

They work fine for me. I picked mine up at the BM store. There are other switchers that would also work for about the same price.

I'm using Radio Shack switchboxes and they work great. Highly recommended. Do not use YU connectors or combiners.

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Philip Hamm