Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater HD Audio Requirements?

The limitation would be….

- You will not get 6/7.1.
- You will not get bass management from your AVR unless you have an HK that converts analogue > digital > analogue. The only bass management you get will be what the player provides and I do not know if the X2 does this correctly or not.
- You will be limited to one player unless you have an AVR that has dual analogue inputs. (if you wanted HD and BR)
- You will be limited to the player’s set up for speaker distance, delay, etc, and again, I don’t know how well the X2 handles this.

You will however enjoy lossless sound. I had my X1 set up this way for a while and difference is quite noticeable. I prefer the HDMI option over analogue because I can apply all the AVR’s digital processing. It will most definitely tide you over until you can spring for a difference audio processor, although you’ll just want one that much more after having a ‘taste’ of lossless sound.

Nick, yes it's all very mixed up, but keep in mind that if you want to enjoy "lossless" audio at this time that there's something that can provide it: it's called a CD.

Maybe I'll just go the "cheap" route for now and focus on the picture. I mean the sound is awesome already, and you are right. As soon as I get a taste of it, I will be done for. Then I can just get a player with digital audio out to my AVR and use HDMI for my picture.

There aren't any HTPC audio components that give you 5.1 analog PLUS some sort of sound management (bass, speaker distances, etc)? I've been trying to convince my wife that we should go that route for a year now. I know that a HTPC can be a challenge some times, but I am a computer wiz, so no problem there... I just never looked into analog audio... It seems so 1980's...

Oops, sorry. I have Marantz SR8001 and -not that it matters - Epic80/EP500 combo setup.

I’m using a Marnatz SR/8001 too. I use HDMI audio off the PS3 and Toshiba A2. What you get is LPCM off both players if you select PCM output. But as I said earlier, the PS3 will not decode DTS-M yet, so all I get is the core DTS bitstream. I bought the A2 because I could take the slow load times of the X1 and when I did buy it, the X2 would not output native 1080P/24. Now it does.

Nick,
All the players have some level of bass management and channel set up. Some work better than others….that’s all I can say about that.

If Toshiba comes through with their latest, ‘promised’ firmware update for the X2, it will decode the two new codecs and it will still be the flagship player. The A35 comes out of the box ready to go and loads faster, but I do not think it has analogue outputs.

John,

As a music fidelity kind of guy who likes SACD, I’m really quite surprised by your lack of interest in experiencing the same fidelity that BR/HD offer. Until you actually hear the difference, you will never know what you are missing. This is not one of those “which DAC’s sound better” arguments. There is no argument and nothing to debate.

I checked out the XA2 vs A35 thread at that "other" AVSite... After reading things there and having some conversations with other people, there is a big gap in what Toshiba says that the A35 will do compared to what resellers and forum-goers are saying. Pretty much all of the major resellers are saying that the A35 DOES have 5.1 analog out, but Toshiba's site says that it is only 2 channel analog out.

If the A35 does, in fact, have 5.1 channel analog out, then it is almost the same as the XA2 in features, but with different load times, and a couple of different chips, plus the different price, of course.

It is amazing that the more I read, the more confusing things can get because there are so many pieces of speculation running about.