Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater HD Audio question

Cool - and now that I reread Hansang's post, he was responding to you, not me... sorry you had to read me saying the same thing twice.

Jason

To be honest I must have been living in a bubble the last few years, I did not know that was even possible that you could receive lossless audio formats through mc analog until today. I guess the main advantage is for people with older receivers or their receiver is not capable of passing audio through hdmi.

Are the bass management settings and gain levels defeated on the receiver when using this?

I did a quick search on blu ray players that support 7.1 MC analog audio.

Panasonic DMP BD55
Sony BDP S550
Samsung BD-P2550

These seem to get recommended a lot, if you are specifically using mc analog which one is best for this purpose or are there better players out there.

Usually, on the receiver's remote, you must select "Multichannel." It's a separate setting like "Dolby," "DTS," or "Multichannel." The "Multichannel" inputs won't offer an Auto or PCM choice since those are for digital inputs like optical and coaxial. The multichannel inputs are analog.

I believe most receivers will not apply bass mgmt etc when using analog inputs. On paper, the upcoming Oppo BDP-83 looks to be the best player for $500 or so. Based on Oppo's history, they will probably hit a home run with this unit.

Won't the blu-ray player apply the bass management? There is an EXT. In on my Denon that will control the gain level on my sub using analog out and that is set at +15. I wonder about the crossover setting and speaker gain levels?

Chris, or Jay or any Canadian who might be interested, I do note that B&H(very reputable)does show on their site that they ship Onkyo at quite good prices to Canada with various shipping charges averaging $100. I'm unsure if a Canadian would order and at the last step his computer would flash red and go up in smoke(it's been said that the Canadian Onkyo distributor is very powerful), but there appears to be no difficulty. Anyone interested could feed in their info and see if the order is processed up to the end(they're closed now for Shabbat(the Jewish Sabbath)until sundown Saturday).

Yes, the blu-ray player applies bass management. You go through a speaker setup just as you do with your receiver.

Okay so I am back with another question, I have the Onkyo Tx sr 575 receiver which can't handle to audio over HDMI. It has multichannel analog inputs. I am looking at the new Panasonic BD55 to enjoy the new audio formats over multichannel. My TV is a 50 inch Panasonic PZ85. The following question is strickly for audio, not video. For the time being due to they way the room is laid out I just have the front 3 speakers hooked up which I watch with Onkyo's theatre dimensional setting where it feels like surround sound and it's not to bad. I know to enjoy the new HD audio at its best I would need to finish my setup and make it so it is a 7.1 setup adding 4 more speakers and a sub. Since that is not my case right now, can you still enjoy the new formats just as well with say just a 5.1 setup or like mine for now a 3 speaker setup? Would I notice a difference in sound quality with the new formats from just my three speakers or from just a 5.1 setup as opposed to a regular DD or DTS soundtrack? Am I better off waiting until I get my 5 or 7 .1 setup completed to worry about the new audio formats or just buy a new receiverw hich handles HDMI audio and go with a Blu ray player with just HDMI and no multichannel inputs? I'm looking for the best way to spend my money here and utilize what I have. I like the reciever as it pairs well with my Paradigm Monitor 11 v5 and the matching center channel, but now I wish I would have opted for the 605 or equivalent so I wouldn't have to be in this mess. The salesman didn't help me too much as I didn't realize at the time even though the reciever has HDMI, it does not support the new audio even if its decoded in the disc player and then sent out. Kind of feel like I wasted my money now.

I kind'a know how you feel regarding the "wasted my money" comment. Whether it's sales-people or advancing technology, it always seems as though once you acquire something, a few days later you wish you would have waited (my Axiom speakers being the exception!!!).

In my case, I was running an ancient Pioneer VSX-3600 receiver. I bought it in ~ 1989 for $600. It was the cheapest receiver I could afford that had Dolby Surround (Pro-Logic was another $300!!! LOL). Finally last year, I saved up enough $$$ to buy a new Yamaha HTR-6060 that was on sale. Again, it was the most receiver I could buy at the time with my budget and I thought this will do me for the next 20 years .It wasn't until a few months later that True-HD and DTS-HD became available from many manufacturers at regular price vs the sale price I paid. DOH!
But, thankfully my "old" Yammy has multi-channel analogue inputs. This alows me to do the similar thing you may do. My next purchase I've decided is the Panasonic DMP-BD55 blu-ray player. It decodes the latest audio formats, converts them to multi-channel outputs. Those plug right into my Yammy's inputs, and then it does the rest.

Ahhhh, such is life.

Another thought would be to use the Digital audio out as well to access the higher bit rate versions of DD and DTS(which are said to be nearly as good as the HD audio) on the BR discs and not even go into the analog inputs, but to answer your question, yes the receiver will down sample to the 3 channels you have.