Video Asylum

Posted by oscar (A) on April 21, 2005 at 18:47:56

In Reply to: High end 2 channel and HT combined, can I do it? posted by Atver on April 21, 2005 at 09:32:06:

When faced with either upgrading/replacing my pre/pro with six-channel analog bypass solution for hi-rez MC, I opted instead for a separate pure analog 6-channel preamp/switcher. Later on, I added a decent MC Universal player.

For hi-rez SACD or DVD-A, I run 6-channel analog from the player to the MC analog preamp which routes everything to the amps/speakers.

For HT, I can either use

(1) the players digital output to feed DD/DTS to the digital pre/pro which than feeds 6-channel analog to the analog preamp. or

(2) the players 6-channel analog output (player does decode DD/DTS) directly to the analog preamp.

If I had found the right Universal which accepted digital audio inputs from satellite/cable box, I might have been able to lose the pre/pro altogether. As it stands now, I'll eventually need a new prepro anyway for 6.1/7.1/(10.2?) HT processing.

For 2-channel CD/SACD, I use the 2-channel analog output from the Universal since the preamp stage on the MC analog preamp is much better than that for my pre/pro. Eventually, I'll opt for a serious 2-channel SACD player solution to go with the Universal player solution. I do think the Universal is holding it's own pretty well against my stock 777ES but I suspect I could do a lot better.

I'm hoping to add five (5) monoblock amps eventually but that's a long ways off.