What kind of connection cable to use to play regular cd's on a universal player?

[mjnoles1]

I am using right now an optical digital cable to connect my universal player to my receiver for playing dvd's and using the 5.1 analog cable connections to play 5.1 dvd-a or sacd music. And as of now when playing a regular cd I just turn my receiver to the dvd play mode and play the cd. Is their a better way of connecting the universal player to the receiver for playing regular cd's or is the way I am connected fine?
Should I connect the coaxial digital audio out on the universal player to the cd coxial digital audio input on the receiver? Or connect the L/R stereo channels from the universal player that is not being used for the 5.1 audio to the L/R stereo channels input for CD mode in the receiver? Or will it make no difference at all except that the receiver will show "CD" on its display and I should just play the regular cd's with the connections I have been using?

 

[WooHoo]

Use the optical or coax digital connections (either one but not both) if you want your AVR to decode the signal. If you use the analog 2 channel you are allowing the universal player to decode the signal and the AVR is only amplifying. Similar to the 5.1 connections going to the AVR. No processing is done in the receiver.

As to whether or not you should use optical or coax for the digital signal, you will find differing opinions. I think as long as you are using a decent optical cable (no leakage or kinks) you as good off as the digital coax. Not sure what player you are using but your bass management options are better with the AVR than many players. Another reason to use digital feeds. Now that I think of it, I cannot come up with a good reason to use 2 channel analog connections with the possible exception of straight or pure direct modes, but even then I don't think so. I prefer 7 channel stereo or PLIIx Music most of the time.

 

[mjnoles1]

Thanks for the quick response. But a follow up question if I may. You said I should use either the coaxial or the optical but not both. I already have my universal player hooked up to my receiver with a optical cable for playing dvd's, so should I just continue to play regular cd's through the dvd play mode of my receiver instead of using a sepreate coaxial connection from my universal player to the Cd coaxial input of my receiver?

 

[guess88]

mj... there's no point. it's getting the same signal, just on a different NAMED input.

 

[WooHoo]

Thanks for the quick response. But a follow up question if I may. You said I should use either the coaxial or the optical but not both. I already have my universal player hooked up to my receiver with a optical cable for playing dvd's, so should I just continue to play regular cd's through the dvd play mode of my receiver instead of using a sepreate coaxial connection from my universal player to the Cd coaxial input of my receiver?

There is no benefit that I can think of that would warrant connecting both digital outputs from the player to the AVR. Maybe if you were able to set different EQ scenarios by input say one for movies and one for music? In my case I have a separate CD player so I have never thought about that possibility. Perhaps there are others that will respond who have better insight.

 

[MDS]

There is no benefit that I can think of that would warrant connecting both digital outputs from the player to the AVR. Maybe if you were able to set different EQ scenarios by input say one for movies and one for music? In my case I have a separate CD player so I have never thought about that possibility. Perhaps there are others that will respond who have better insight.

Yep, that is the only reason to also connect the coaxial digital cable to the CD input in addition to the optical cable to the DVD input. You would do that if you wanted to compare optical vs coaxial (should be no difference ) or to maintain separate settings if your receiver can maintain separate settings for each input.

There is no reason to connect the analog cables unless you just wanted to experiment to see if the receiver or universal player does a better job of D-A (as described by WooHoo) OR if they are required to use other features like Onkyo's Remote Interactive.