I have been researching new receivers to replace my 'vintage' receiver and have a question. My DVD player has HDCD decoding capabilities and sounds wonderful, especially with HDCD discs. If I don't buy a receiver with HDCD decoding (seems like only high level Denon, NAD, and some HK's have it) could I hook up my analog out from the DVD player to say the CD input on the receiver and the digital out from the DVD player to the DVD input on the receiver and enjoy the best of both worlds? Listen to CDs through the DVD players DAC and DVDs thru the receivers DAC?

I'm pretty sure you can...I have the digital out on my DVD player going to the receiver for DD & DTS, the 5.1 analog outputs also going to my receiver for DVD-A and SACD's, and the analog stereo outputs going to a separate amp which powers outdoor speakers. You will probably just need to make sure the DVD player knows to output HDCD's to the analog outs, which it sounds like it is already doing, and to output DD & DTS to the digital outs.

Mark

Mark

Yes if your reciever allows you to choose between the digital and analog inputs. Otherwise I believe generally a reciever would default to the digital input. Oftern this is done as a stereo direct option on the receiver. My Outlaw 1050 allows this by making the the analog connection through the 5.1 direct connections which are their for multi-channnel formats like SACD and DVD audio. were I to make the connection through the "regular" stereo analog inputs it would default to the digital input unless that was disconnected. So It will depend on how your receiver is built.