Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners cdp interconnects?

removed my cdp yesterday to "service" it, and noticed it had an optical output as well as the rca jacks. i'm using the rca connectors now. any advantage to running optical to the rxv1300?
thanks,
dan

Essentially it depends on whether you want to use your player's DAC or your receiver's DAC. I'd suggest using the optical.

If that cdp is an old or cheap one, twodan, I suspect you'll hear considerable improvement by switching to the optical out.
Can't be too old if it has an optical out though, huh?

Hi Dan,

I have a Yamaha CDC-775 CD changer, which at least to be Yamaha's top-of-the-line. I have both analog and optical connections going into my HK AVR 230 receiver. This allows me to directly compare the DACs in the two units, by switching between analog & digital (while in surround off / stereo bypass mode). As I suspected, my Yamaha sounds significantly better through the analog connectors; it is quite amazing to switch back and forth, and I think most people on this forum would hear the same thing.

However, it is theoretically better to use the digital connection if you are using any kind of surround sound or processing that requires the signal be in the digital domain. This avoids an extra digital->analog->digital conversion. I have played around with various surround sound modes with music, and while I found some of them enjoyable, it was never as involving as a straight analog stereo presentation. It would be a different story if my receiver had much better DACs, though I'm sure I would still prefer stereo for some recordings.

Discretely-recorded or mixed surround sound is another animal: I have a few DVD-audio discs that sound pretty cool. Definitely a different experience than CDs, despite mediocre DACs.

-Cooper

i believe i have a simlar model, model # is at home. the 5 disc tray keeps screwing-up. went to tweeter, where i bought it and was bluntly told it was a throw away item. then i told him it was in warranty,he told me to take it in for servicing. i'm not getting a good feeling about it. only replaced it because wife wanted a multi disc. my 20 year old kyoceria (sp) is still cranking here at work, complete with a real wooden cabinet...sigh.
dan