Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Guilt-free interconnects, and 3.1 "surround"?

I am just about to—-gasp--take the plunge and buy a universal player (the new Pioneer 563A). I'm convinced that there is no need to spend lots of money on interconnects, but I'd also like something a bit more hardy than the freebies that will come with the player. This is what I will need:

1) an S-video cable (old TV, no component jacks), and
2) analog interconnects to carry the DVD-A/SACD signal from the player to the receiver.

What should I buy in order to be sure (a) that I have not wasted any money, and (b) that may rest easy that I have not lost any signal?

Second query: For the time being, I will be running a "3.1" system (no rear speakers). Is there any reason to add a digital player-to-receiver cable, or will the receiver (Denon 1802) make the necessary adjustments if I run everything through the four remaining player-to-receiver analog interconnects?

Thanks!

For S-Video, I use a cable from www.bluejeanscable.com, which carries very high quality cables at relatively reasonable prices. Their s-video cable is $35.95 for a 6' cable. It features the Beldon 1808A cable with Calrad mini-DIN plugs.

For the analog interconnects, I use 3 Phoenix Gold ARX-610s. They're a twisted-pair design with a tinned copper drain and a 100% mylar foil shield with an all-metal RCA connector. A 1-meter cable is just under $9 at www.beachaudio.com. A 2-meter cable runs about $1 more.

I just bought a universal player (Denon DVD-2900), and I really enjoy it.

Good luck.

Personally i popped onto eBay and looked around for decent brand names that were being sold even more cheaply than they were in the big box stores.
Acoustic Research, Canare, Ultralink are some examples.
I managed to purchase some 6 foot Ultralink rca interconnects for about $20 Cdn. They normally sell for over $40 in Future Shop.

I opted for the brand name over no-name based purely on the aesthetics though (nicer wrapping and terminations) and not because of any sound oddities. In using the packaged interconnects with my dvd player, i could hear no difference between them or the brand names.
However, one of the cables i did buy was an RCA brand subwoofer cable (30') which was cheap but a bit too cheap. One of the ends has a terrible soldered connection that needs to be fixed.

As for your second query, you only really need a digital connection from your dvd player to the receiver if you want to use the receiver's onboard decoders for music or movies. Most HT receivers will decode the DTS or Dolby Digital signal from a dvd player and send the appropriate sounds to the speakers. In this case, you want to be using the digital connection from the dvd to the receiver. Otherwise for music, the dvd player (or dvd-a, or...) has its own onboard chip for all the sound you require but again, via the digital cable you would simply be using the receivers DAC for sound instead.
Digital cables are about as cheap as analog.
I used both analog and digital cables with my dvd/ cd during my original setup. I used the analog cables for cd playing but the digital optical cable for dvd movies.
You can hook up a single dvd player with both analog and digital cables. I did this once while putting the analog signal on the receiver's 'cd' input and the digital optical on the receiver's 'dvd' input such that i could switch between both the analog and digital connections.
(I was testing out the difference b/w music with either the digital or analog signal to see if i could hear anything variable).

Hope that helps.
Or did i just make everything even more confusing?

I make my own cables. For audio interconnects I use double-shielded coax cables with Neutrik connectors. They take bit of time to put together but for me its worth it since I can only use what I need. For s-video the Acoustic Research or Pheonix Gold cables are great for the money.

alot of people reccomend RS golds. i dont. i have a couple pairs used other things around here and have had one pair go bad because i dunno why and other things. Those 20 dollar Acoustic research ones recently in stereophile are supposed to be good.

Chesseroo,

Please note that you CANNOT use the digital connection if you intend to take advantage of SACD and DVD-Audio features of the universal player. Because of copyright concerns, the audio industry does not allow passage of the high resolution formats through digital connections. I'm assuming that anyone paying the premium for a universal player will want to take advantage of the high resolution SACD and DVD-A formats. If that's the case, the analog inputs must be used at present.

I also make my own... I use Canare Star-Quad cabling - available for something like 40 cents a foot from http://www.markertek.com/

Then just pick some connectors... I won't go into this one, since there seems to be some serious voodoo going on, considering the price differences. I personally just pick ones that I like the looks of, and cost less than $10 / pair.

Sure, this takes a little extra time, but I end up with cables that most people would charge $40-50/pair for a fraction of that price. The big bonus is that I can make long cables if I want, and not pay a premium, since the majority of the cost is in the connectors, NOT the cable.

Thanks, all. One last clarification: I understand that the DVDA/SACD signal must come from the player's analog outputs. But what of the reverse? Can the audio from ordinary DVDs be routed through the player's analog outputs without any loss of signal, even if I have no rear speakers at the moment? Will the receiver (or the player) reconfigure the signal so that the surround portion is sent to the R & L speakers instead? Thanks!

HGP,

While certainly DRM concerns plague every decision the music industry makes these days, I do believe there is a larger problem with using the digital interconnects for DVD-A/SACD. I've been told they're physically capable of carrying the bandwidth of 5 24-bit, 96kHz signals, though I've not researched the actual standards involved. Of course, this may simply be the recording industry's method for hiding their shenanigans but I doubt it as they've approved IEEE 1394 for use as a pure digital transmission for DVD-A and SACD.

Rob, if no surround speakers are connected to the surround outputs of the 1802, the surround information isn't used; it doesn't get sent anywhere else.