6 Channel Output

funkmasterla

Standard Member
Joined
Apr 6, 2004
Messages
25
Reaction score
1
Points
6
Location
Bradford
You'll have to excuse me if this post is in the wrong place or has previously been covered as i'm new to these forums.

I am thinking of purchasing a new DVD player with a 6 channel output and wanted to know if this would make a vast difference to the sound quality. My current DVD player uses a fibre digital out but i assumed (wrongly?) that a 6 channel output will give a better signal.

Finally the only player i have found with this output is the Toshiba SD420E. Does anyone have any information on this or knows of another player? Budget wise i'm looking up to about £500.

Thanks.
 
Hi funkmasterla and welcome to the forum.

6 channel analogue outputs are very common now as this is (with the exception of iLink) the only way to transfer DVD-A & SACD multichannel music. Therefore just look for a DVD player that can play either or both of the above formats.
However analogue interconnects are not normally the best way to connect things if there is a digital option. Depending on what equipment you have to connect the DVD player to you would normally find that optical or coax better. One big reason for this is that the DVD player will need to convert the DVD disks sound from digital to analogue, pass it to receiver that will then convert it back to digital to process it and then convert back to analogue to send to the amps and on to the speakers. All these D>A A>D D>A conversions add noise to the signal and therefore loss of quality. Also 1 coax or optical cable is going to cost less than 3 stereo phono cables.

For £500 you have a massive choice of players. Before we can recommend any we really need to ask a few questions:
What screen will you be connecting it to? Do you want progressive scan (only available if connecting via component)?
Do you want to use the multi channel music formats, which one or both?

Mark.
 
Thanks MarkE19 theres certainly some eye openers in there!

It's going to be connected to a Toshiba 32Z23B widescreen CRT, which has a great picture but unfortunately only 2 scarts (1 RGB) and a composite video input. As my TV is only 50Hz will it support progressive scan? The use of both music formats is preffered as i don't want to tie myself to one format.

Thanks again.
 
A progressive scan output can only be used on a TV with Component inputs, and the vast majority of CRT TV's don't have this. You could still get a progressive scan player for when you upgrade to a plasma or PJ :devil: as you can just set it to output an interlaced picture until then. 50Hz TV's with the component input do work with PS DVD players.

Off the top of my head the 2 main companies that make multi format DVD players are Denon & Pioneer. There are certainly others but I will let others advise on them. The Denons seem to be very nice players as long as you get one with none of the known problems (do a search on this forum for Denon DVD players to find out more) and the Pioneers offer the iLink connection to a compatable receiver.

Mark.
 
Some players (like my Pioneer 656) have 2 scarts so you can run your digibox (or whatever) through the player and get RGB to the TV from both sources. Handy if you don't have more than 1 rgb scart on the TV.
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom