I have a Sony 300 disc CD carousel which has both optical and analog connections. I hooked up the CD player just as my previous Sony 100 disc carousel was installed professionally which was via the analog outs. The question I have is would I benefit from using the optical/digital out?

Thanks guys
Cam

Depends.

If the DACs (digital to analogue converters) int he player are better than your receiver, then it would make sense to let the player do the decoding.

The practical answer, though, is that the DACs in your cd player are about equal to those in your stereo. So, it shoudn't matter. If the player is already hooked up and it sounds fine, then leave it. If you have an extra optical cable lying around, try it and see which you like better. But I wouldn't make a special trip or pay out the ear for a new cable. You won't HEAR much difference, if any, at all.

My receiver is a Denon AVR-3801. I didn't know if I would benefit when listening in 7.1 rather than two channel music. Right now when I listen in surround sound the output is 7 channel stereo.

Under both scenarios (analog or digital), [basically] the same information is being fed to the receiver.

On the digital side, the signal is a PCM signal (think zeros and ones) that the receiver breaks down into left and right (and possibly matrixed left and right) wave type electrical information, processes (like "Hall," "Jazz Club", Dolby Digital, DTS:Neo or 7 channel stereo, etc.) the signal and then sends the signal to your speakers.

On the analog side, the ones and zeros (encoded on the cd) are converted into wave type electrical signals by the cd player which are sent via RCA cables to the receiver, which then amplifies, processes (like "Hall," "Jazz Club", Dolby Digital, DTS:Neo or 7 channel stereo, etc.) the signal then sends it to the speakers.

By most rational calculations, the sound shouldn't be noticeably different. There are, of course, worries about the introduction of errors into the processed sound. This is where I will backtrack a little. if the receiver is doing any processing, it is typically done in the digital realm. Therefore, if the cd player sent the signal out via analog (first decoding), the receiver will have to change it into a digital signal (first re-encoding) before it is processed and undecoded (second decode) before being sent to the speakers. In this scenario, the multiple decoding/encoding steps increases the possibility of signal degradation or errors occurring.

Since you intend to process the sound with your receiver (as many of us do), digital may be the way to go in your case. To this extent, I retract my previous post and recommend swapping out your cables. Will the sound be of a much different quality if you go from analog to digital? Probably not, but you'll have some peace of mind.

But please don't spend too much on an optical cable. Either you get a signal or you don't. It's either perfect or its silent. Check out monoprice or Ram electronics or even eBay for a cheap cable. Just handle it carefully (no extreme bending) and it should do fine for you.