digital optical, co-axial or 6 channel phono ?

[admin_exported]

I currently have a Cambridge Audio Azur 540r V2 amplifier and am awaiting delivery of a Panasonic DMP-BD30 Blu-Ray player.

Speakers running from the amp are tannoy fx 5.1 system.

What is the best way to connect the new player to my amp, I can use digital optical, digital co-axial or the six channel direct input.

Which one would be best to use for my system.

 

[nads]

presuming the BD player can decode the HD audio then the Six channel and get the player to decode.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure if the player will decode the audio into the six channel sound or if it will just give a pro logic type output, I believe normally the hd audio would only be available from the hdmi output. So would I get a better result from an optical or co-axial or the six channel outputs on the rear of the player bearing in mind that my reciever does not have any HDMI capabilities to decode the sound output.

 

[professorhat]

The BD30 will not decode most of the HD formats onboard (most notably, DTS HD Master Audio, Dolby TrueHD or Dolby Digital Plus). However, on some Blu-Ray discs such as Casino Royale, you get the PCM uncompressed soundtrack and this can be transferred along the 6 channel outputs but not the optical / coaxial. For that reason, I'd use the six channel outputs.
Of course, you could have both connected up and switch between the two outputs i.e. for standard Dolby Digital / DTS, output via coaxial to your amp and let the amp decode, then only use the six channel outputs when you're running a Blu-Ray with an uncompressed PCM track available.