Advice with connecting Stereo Receiver to AV Receiver and HDMI source

[admin_exported]

Hi,

I would like to add a stereo receiver to my existing home theater set up and I'm leaning towards the Rotel 1052. I own a Marantz SR8001 and my source is a PS3 (CDs and compressed music) connected via HDMI.

According to the following post (http://whathifi.com/forums/t/129222.aspx), it's recommended connect the source to the stereo receiver and then the AV receiver to the stereo receiver using pre-outs. This would be ideal if I owned a CD player with analogue interconnects but the Playstation 3 does not have them and the Rotel will not accept an HDMI connection.

In my case, here's how I'm hoping I can connect them

Playstation3 ---- HDMI ---> AV Receiver ---- Pre Outs ---> Stereo Receiver --> Front Speakers

First, does anyone know if that would work? Would the Marantz pre-outs send an analogue signal from an HDMI multi-channel signal?

Second, will there be a negative impact to the sound quality (even with Pure Direct)?

Thank you,

Michael T

 

[mattjax05]

Hi - Can I ask why you want to purchase a stereo amplifier? If you intend on using the ps3 as a cd/mp3 player I doubt you would benefit in better sound using a stereo amplifier. However, if you was to purchase a decent cd player as well as a stereo amp then you could connect as the post above suggest and you would definitely achieve an improvement on sound quality.

 

[mattjax05]

As an alternative you could buy a DAC and connect your ps3 to the DAC and then the DAC to the AV, the sound would benefit from a good DAC

 

[Anonymous]

Matt,

I've been told that a stereo receiver sounds better than an AV receiver - a claim that I haven't really put to the test. It might be worth the trouble to visit my dealer and audition some mid-end stereo receivers (e.g. Rotel 1052) against mid-end AV receivers (e.g. the SR8001) to see if I can hear the difference. Of course, the last thing I would want to do is buy a stereo receiver that sounds the same or worse than my AV receiver. An alternative is to bi-amp my front speakers (601s) with the SR8001 and/or buy new speakers (685s or 703s).

With regard to a cd player, I just returned a NADC542 which sounded identical to the PS3 with the Marantz handling the d/a conversion. Based on that experience, I've been led to believe that I would have to spend a significant amount of money to hear a difference between digital sources.

I've considered a DAC based on the number of folks who own one on this forum but my research on DACs (which is very limited) has shown that they do not work with HDMI. If I use an optical cable, then I lose the HD audio formats for movies which can only be transferred over HDMI.

 

[mattjax05]

I agree, you should get a better stereo sound from a dedicated stereo receiver and I recommend you do spend some audition time to hopefully prove this claim. With regard to the NADC542 did you ever let the CD player do the d/a handling as that would have been the best route (the AV would had just been responsible for amplifying the signal)

Could a seperate DAC be connected to the ps3 and then to the AV for CD playing purposes and also have a HDMI cable connected from the ps3 direct to the AV for HD audio? (might have to keep changing the ps3 settings for 'audio out' though)

There are lots of options available to you, maybe someone else can shed some light!