Can anyone do me the service of explaining why the audio output from these set-top boxes is so poor?
I have spent time with (and returned!!) both a Panasonic and Nokia box because when comparing the sound quality directly with the terrestrial analogue signal (via kit below) it simply is terrible. Via humble old analogue there is space, depth and a wide frequency bandwidth, via the set-top boxes the sound sits squarely to the center channel with the surrounds etc barely joining in, there seems to be severe compression of the frequency bandwidth as there is no bite to the tops and the whole sound stage simply recesses to the back of the speaker enclosures. This is something of a dissapointment as i cannot live with the HUGELY inferior sound quality regardless of the gains in picture quality and number of channels.
Signal strength is 9/10 across the board.
Steve.
I have spent time with (and returned!!) both a Panasonic and Nokia box because when comparing the sound quality directly with the terrestrial analogue signal (via kit below) it simply is terrible. Via humble old analogue there is space, depth and a wide frequency bandwidth, via the set-top boxes the sound sits squarely to the center channel with the surrounds etc barely joining in, there seems to be severe compression of the frequency bandwidth as there is no bite to the tops and the whole sound stage simply recesses to the back of the speaker enclosures. This is something of a dissapointment as i cannot live with the HUGELY inferior sound quality regardless of the gains in picture quality and number of channels.
Signal strength is 9/10 across the board.
Steve.