Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo DAC problem - or am I missing something?

I have a speaker selector box - but at times I want the music on in all 3 zones.

As for the analog vs. toslink output from the CD player - the saga continues....

I gave the Yamaha to some friends to help them get started on an inexpensive home theater set-up. I went over to their house yesterday to help them get it set up. They had a 1989 $1000 Sony stereo (CD player, tuner, integrated amp, tower speakers), RCA DVD/CD player, and 1997 Hitachi big screen TV. We changed out the receiver and got things hooked up to the point that they could go get some speaker wire to hook up the 2 Mirage M260s (1990 bookshelf speakers) that I gave them to use as surrounds. When we hooked up their DVD player via the toslink to the Yamaha receiver the Sony speakers just came alive in a way that the never had before. When Darla tapped on the glass in Finding Nemo, it sounded great. It didn't shake the room because they have no subwoofer, but they have 8" woofers in their speakers and it really sounded great - I thought so and I have a very nice main HT system - and more importantly, my friends thought so and they have seen that movie many times and never heard it sound that good). We played some of their CD's on the DVD/CD player and they both thought they sounded much better than they ever have before. So, now I have the option of trying to buy a better CD player or sending my HK stereo receiver back to jr.com and getting an AV receiver to see if it will give me the sound volume/dependability I need with the quality I want when I connect my CD player with the toslink.....so for $50 (upgrade) I'm getting an HK AVR 235 to see if it will do the trick.

The time has come to resurrect this thread.....

I got an HK AVR 235 and hooked up the CD player by toslink and by the analog output and did some comparisons - and had my wife (much better ear than me) listen while I changed between the two inputs. I liked the toslink on all fronts - although my wife (the only blinded listener) thought the analog input gave a better sound for vocals/?midrange and the toslink sound was better on all other accounts - specifically the musical instruments. But as she pointed out - we really had to work hard to try to hear a difference (even though she is convinced the difference is real as it was repeatable with different kinds of music no matter how I switched up the inputs) so maybe I was just making most of this "problem" up so I could get the receiver with the input that I wanted all along - but didn't get originally because I was using a Best Buy (they don't carry HK) gift card when I originally bought the Yamaha....

Meanwhile my friends (somewhat less financially fortunate than my family) think I am Santa Claus because they love what the Yamaha has done for their system. I really believe it is a very good receiver as long as you don't ask it to drive a very low resistance set-up.

Thanks for all past and future input.

Thoughts?