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Originally Posted by hdseeker  My receiver does have 5.1 analog and optical but it doesn't have hdmi input so no lossless sound, yet as of now.
If I have a hd-dvd or blu-ray player than can send lossless audio, would it be better to connect to analog 5.1 or optical? |
Apples and oranges. The HD audio is light years better than what you get from optical. To put it another way, a DD 5:1 stream on DVD is 448Kb bitrate. The bitrate output from optical on the various HD players can vary a LOT, from 640 to 1.5 Mb. From the 5:1 analog outs on a HD/BD player (Only the Toshiba A35 or XA2 offers this in HD-DVD), you get true lossless audio which can originate as a 2Mb stream or more ( a lot more). Depends on the quality of the sound track on the disc, and these can vary from average to stunning quality. GIGO. If you have this capability, it's certainly worth using.
So the question is whether your setup will allow you to actually hear the difference, and the answer is probably yes. But it really depends on the quality of the amp/preamp and speakers.
I will say one thing, once you've heard lossless audio on a good HT system, you will never want to hear anything else again.