HDMI vs Optical

kevin_irl

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Is there much, if any difference between the two? I reason I ask - planning on getting an amp soon and I was thinking of getting a one with hdmi so I could connect my ps3 to it via hdmi. But I could get a cheaper amp and connect to the ps3 via Optical instead. If there is no difference in sound quality then I wouldnt bother with the hdmi one.
Cheers
 
optical is limited in bandwidth compared to HDMI. With a HDMI receiver you can access lossless audio tracks (eg uncompressed PCM) on bluray movies, and also games. With optical, you'll get the DD track (I don't think the PS3 converts to DTS or anything)

It should sound noticable better, depending on your setup and speakers etc.
 
With a HDMI receiver you can access lossless audio tracks (eg uncompressed PCM) on bluray movies

Sounds good. But I taught this was only available on Dolby True HD and DTS HD amps? If not, what do they have that hdmi amp dont?!
 
Sounds good. But I taught this was only available on Dolby True HD and DTS HD amps? If not, what do they have that hdmi amp dont?!

the player does the decoding, then sends it out as PCM over HDMI. You don't need a HDMI amp that does TrueHD or DTS-MA, you just need a HDMI amp that can process the audio over HDMI (not all do, the Sony 1200 for instance just switches the inputs)

Although the situation is a little unclear with DTS-MA, as there are no players yet that can decode it.
 
Although the situation is a little unclear with DTS-MA, as there are no players yet that can decode it.

Hi Mate. Would it be possible with a firmware update or hardware built in to the player.

Regards

Tim
 
Hi Mate. Would it be possible with a firmware update or hardware built in to the player.

Regards

Tim

It depends. The PS3 for example is expected to get DTS-MA decoding support in a future firmware release. The PS3 however is still getting lots of development attention...

Big smiles,

Andy.

P.S. BTW, most amps that cost less than £400 tend to only have simple HDMI switching - like the Sony 1200ES. The Sony 3200ES however properly handles multichannel LPCM received over HDMI. :)

P.P.S. If you have a high-def player with multichannel analogue out, and a receiver with multi-channel analogue audio In (e.g. Sony 1200ES) - then connecting in this way may get better sound than using the optical output. Check out this link for more: http://www.dolby.com/consumer/technology/trueHD/avrs/trueHD_avrs_1.html
 
hires source (DVD/DVD-A, DTS CD) sounds far far better through HDMI (LPCM) then optical (DTS) - listening to dtscd now in LPCM and its... unbelievable :clap:
 

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