Connecting a blu ray player to a non-HDMI equipped amp

[admin_exported]

I've just bought a Pioneer BD51 Blu-ray player. I was going to buy an LX 81 to power it, but then found out that the dealer who had sworn blind he had one for me to purchase suddenly didnt have a single Pioneer amp to sell!! I'm therefore left with using my old ARCAM AVR200 as amplification. I'm currently using an optical digital lead to run sound from my old ARCAM DVD to the AVR200 and I obviously have this option with the new Pioneer. However, I'm not sure whether this will give me better, worse or the same sound as I would get if I used 5 of the 7.1 audio outputs as connections to the AVR 200. I've read the instruction manual but I'm afraid I'm a little lost in the technical explanation it provides. Can anyone help? Many thanks Andy

 

[professorhat]

Hi Andy, looks like this one got missed. You'll actually be better off using the six multi-channel inputs into your amp and setting the Pioneer to decode HD audio internally as an optical / coaxial lead isn't capable of transmitting the HD audio formats so you will only be getting standard Dolby Digital / DTS. If you use the multi-channel inputs though, you can set your Pioneer to decode the Dolby TrueHD soundtracks (and DTS HD Master Audio soundtracks when they release the firmware which will allow this) to multichannel PCM. Your amp can accept this and you should then get a good improvement in sound with Blu-Rays which have those soundtracks.

Hope this helps.