Two big investmensts are going south ;-(
First I made a big investment in time to wire an optical TOSLINK cable from my computer to my 200 dollar Sony receiver - over a 60 foot run - that investment intially worked great but..
A couple of weeks ago I paid 900 dollar for a NAD 753 receiver and when I got it home it would not read the feed from the computer. Have been playing around with this for a couple of weeks and can't get it to work - girlfriend ( who was already sceptical of 'upgrade' is now thinking I have screw loose.....)
The NAD receiver plays the optical output from my CD player fine - it just cannot cope with the one from the computer over an extended cable run - initally I suspected it was a problem with sampling rates but have now ruled this out - in fact, if I take the NAD receiver and place it beside the computer with a 3 feet run, it can read the ouput from the computer - however over a 60 foot run it cannot hack it - the strange thing is that the Sony can do it just fine, and actually produces a fine sound from it. On the basis that the NAD was slightly less sensitive than the Sony, I bought an optical signal amplifer box but this hasn't worked.
I am a bit stumped about what to do now - I expect NAD will claim a problem with my extended cable and say that their receiver is working - however its just not doing the job for me so I think it has to go back - the store also sell Pioneer and Marantz but I went for NAD becuase I am very much focussed on music rather than home theater.
I could keep the Sony and use it for decoding but it would sit there making a mockery of my decision to upgrade to the NAD - also when the Sony is decoding music from digital it will only send the analog outputs to the headphone jack on the front ( or the speakers obviously) - what with two boxes rather than one and a messy cable, the WAF.......
( In fact I would probably have bought an integrated stereo amp if it wasn't for the requirement to decode digital music - are there any other devices out there which will do this cost effectively? the only options I see are for 350 bucks plus which was what drove me to buying a receiver in the first place )
Sorry for the long post but I am a bit frustrated at this point - I just thought I would post before backing up the 50 pound receiver and lugging it in a cab down to the shop.
