I’ve had my system running for a few weeks now and have started to tinker around a bit. One observation I made over the weekend is the difference in sound between the analog and digital outputs on my DVD player when listening to CDs.

I had been watching DVD movies & listening to a lot of vinyl over the weeks and decided to give some CDs a whirl. I have a 4-year-old Panasonic DVD changer using the optical output. The 950 set to 2-channel stereo mode. I guess I had started to get used to the sound of the record player and “stereo bypass” mode because my CDs were coming through somewhat muffled by comparison. Cymbals faded into the background and the whole thing sounded more 2-dimensional.

I decided to try the analog output of the DVD player plugged into an extra 950 input and “stereo bypass” mode. This way I could switch between the optical and analog connections.

I notice a definite improvement with the analog connection and bypassing the 950’s processor. This struck me as odd after reading posts here that the 950’s A/D converter is usually of better quality than a run-of-the-mill DVD or CD player’s chip. Are my results typical or are my ears playing tricks on me?