RE: OT: Optical and coaxial digital outputs for PCM, Dolby Digital, DTS and MPEG

["Phil Harris" <phillip.harris1@xxxxxxx>]

> A challenge... ok I will bite,

You don't have to...

> on a DTS connection via
> coax/phono fudge I hear nothing,

Ahhh ... That's your problem. You need to use wire for the connection
.... Fudge only conducts electricity when the sugars in it are heated
sufficiently to enable the free migration of electrons - a bit like
reverse superconductivity.

> over the digital lead, I
> hear DTS sound. I think even a non-audophile might pick that one up :)

Without wanting to sound at all dismissive of your hearing, are you sure
you're hearing proper DTS? I friend of mine has the region 1 version of
"Pitch Black" which has the DTS audio track and he was saying how
wonderfull the DTS audio is on Pitch Black. I spent quite some time
"discussing" (read "arguing") with him that what he was
listening to was
not DTS and I knew this because of the following:

1) He wasn't selecting the DTS audio track from the disc menu.

2) He's using my old Panasonic DVD A350 DVD player which doesn't know
anything about DTS, won't pass it out on either of the optical or coax
outputs and certainly won't decode it internally.

> Seriously though, I guess it depends on the equipment, but my
> DVD player at least will not send a DTS signal over anything
> but the optical connection, but I was quite happy with a
> simple phono lead running my digital sound in the pre DTS
> days. My optical lead didn't cost that much anyway (bought
> from M*****s, poss on offer at the time).

What make and model of DVD player do you have as I've never come across
one that will output DTS from the optical output and not from the coax
electrical. The two outputs are fed from the same digital data source
within the player.

What AV processor are you using too? Is it possible that (as with some
of the Sony AV amps) you have the input format locked to PCM/AC-3 for
the coax input on your amp instead of automatic format decoding? (In
that case the amp will assume PCM or AC3 data formats, see
"corrupt"
data - in the form of a DTS bitstream - and mute the outputs
completely.)

Phil