PCM sound is amazing!!

[admin_exported]

Hi All,

Just thought I'd share my first time experience with PCM multichannel sound.

Ive got a NAD M25 amp & just bought the NAD T175 preamp all hooked up to my playstation 3.

First experience with PCM sound is amazing...so gutsy & powerfull but also quiet scenes have so much drama.

The sound is truly amazing

 

[Anonymous]

I replaced my Yamaha Z9 with the M25/M15/M55.The Z9 was brilliant but the Nads are even better! PCM and the rest.

 

[biggus_1961]

so is this pcm multichannel an alternative to blue ray giving true doldy digital and hd dts ?

 

[biggus_1961]

[quote user="dave75"]
Hi All,

Just thought I'd share my first time experience with PCM multichannel sound.

Ive got a NAD M25 amp & just bought the NAD T175 preamp all hooked up to my playstation 3.

First experience with PCM sound is amazing...so gutsy & powerfull but also quiet scenes have so much drama.

The sound is truly amazing
[/quote]

How does the T175 compare to the integrated recievers by NAD and did you compare the T975 (or just superceeded T973) seven channel power amp with the M25

 

[Clare Newsome]

[quote user="biggus_1961"]so is this pcm multichannel an alternative to blue ray giving true doldy digital and hd dts ?[/quote]

Yes - PCM is uncompressed audio, available on some (but not all) HD releases. It takes up vast amounts of space, which is why (even with vast capacity of HD discs) there isn't room for it on every disc (often depends on how many other soundtrack options and/or extras are also crammed on).

The HD versions of Dolby Digital and DTS are also excellent, but at the end of the day they're still compressed (albeit far less than their SD counterparts).

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="biggus_1961"]so is this pcm multichannel an alternative to blue ray giving true doldy digital and hd dts ?[/quote]

Well when an AV receiver decodes dts Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD it is basically "unzipping" into PCM sound anyway, which then goes into the amp circuitry. However if your receiver can't decode the HD formats itself, chances are your Blu-ray (or HD DVD) player can - and it can then send the PCM sound to the receiver. To take advantage of this though the receiver needs to be able to accept PCM over HDMI, so it can't be just a simple HDMI switching receiver (check the specs of the receiver to be sure).

Many people with PS3s use this method since the PS3 can't bitstream the HD formats over HDMI so the only way to get the HD audio is to let the PS3 decode it and send it as PCM instead. Unfortunately the PS3 can't (currently) decode dts Master Audio though so you won't get HD audio from discs with only that as an option. It is rumoured that the PS3 may get a firmware upgrade at some point to decode dts Master Audio though.

 

[biggus_1961]

Ok the picture is getting clearer now but how does one know if my av reciever is caple of pcm multichannel as i carn't recall seeing any badges on the front of recievers 'shouting about it' as they do for dd/dts etc...I like NAD gear and as they have a 'music first' policy can one assume it would play pcm multichannel after say a ps3 has decoded it and i assume again the ps3 would need to send that signal via its hdmi out to the hdmi in on the av reciever ..

 

[Anonymous]

G'day Biggus,

As far as i know as long as your receiver supports audio through HDMI it should be able to transport PCM from your player to your receiver through HDMI. Of course either your player or receiver must be able to decode to the PCM sound...in my case I use the PS3 that does this (and set the PS3 to output PCM). I'll likely get a dedicated Bluray player when some more decent options come out but the PS3 is pretty good in the interim.

The high def sounds really are amazing & significantly better than the standard DD etc (even my wife was impressed!!)

Re the T175...I didnt get a chance top demo it against anything else as I pre-ordered it...Its significantly better than my old denon though. With the M25...I think its a fantastic amp (& looks great), i reckon its a bargain for around $4,500 AUS...just very hard to get...

Dave

 

[biggus_1961]

Thanks Dave..Well in Aus we have only just got the latest NAD av recievers on the shelf but the T175 is price listed so should be here soon as with the T955 five channel power amp..Havn't had a chance to put up the M25 with the T955/T975...Only a AU$1000 between M25 and T975 so should be a good battle between the two 7 channel power amps...And i note the T175 costs significantly less than the masters pre-amp so i'm quite looking forwards to comparing them as its time to upgrade to something with hdmi inputs.....cheers....ian

 

[david_tring]

[quote user="Clare Newsome"]

[quote user="biggus_1961"]so is this pcm multichannel an alternative to blue ray giving true doldy digital and hd dts ?[/quote]

Yes - PCM is uncompressed audio, available on some (but not all) HD releases. It takes up vast amounts of space, which is why (even with vast capacity of HD discs) there isn't room for it on every disc (often depends on how many other soundtrack options and/or extras are also crammed on).

The HD versions of Dolby Digital and DTS are also excellent, but at the end of the day they're still compressed (albeit far less than their SD counterparts).

[/quote]

Hi Clare - just to confirm your point - if a Blu-ray disc has a choice of PCM (LPCM?) or DD/DTS HD format audio then we're better off selecting the PCM option?

Is (Blu-Ray) PCM still going to be better even if my amp is doing the decoding of the DD/DTS-HD soundtrack internally from the HDMI feed (Onkyo TX-SR875)?

I know that PCM from a normal DVD will always be down-mixed to "only" stereo so I've always ignored this playback option.

 

[Clare Newsome]

[quote user="david_tring"]

Hi Clare - just to confirm your point - if a Blu-ray disc has a choice of PCM (LPCM?) or DD/DTS HD format audio then we're better off selecting the PCM option?

Is (Blu-Ray) PCM still going to be better even if my amp is doing the decoding of the DD/DTS-HD soundtrack internally from the HDMI feed (Onkyo TX-SR875)?

[/quote]

Yes and yes - look out for the 5.1 or even 7.1 channel PCM mixes on Blu-ray discs. I'm really looking forward to watching 3:10 to Yuma tonight - i've heard a little of the 7.1 PCM soundtrack in our test rooms, and it's awesome. Our neighbours are going to hate us....

 

[The_Lhc]

Clare Newsome:
look out for the 5.1 or even 7.1 channel PCM mixes on Blu-ray discs. I'm really looking forward to watching 3:10 to Yuma tonight - i've heard a little of the 7.1 PCM soundtrack in our test rooms, and it's awesome. Our neighbours are going to hate us....

So, if you've got the option between 5.1 PCM and 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, which would you go for? given that the DTS will make use of the extra two channels?

 

[Gerrardasnails]

Clare Newsome:
david_tring:

Hi Clare - just to confirm your point - if a Blu-ray disc has a choice of PCM (LPCM?) or DD/DTS HD format audio then we're better off selecting the PCM option?

Is (Blu-Ray) PCM still going to be better even if my amp is doing the decoding of the DD/DTS-HD soundtrack internally from the HDMI feed (Onkyo TX-SR875)?

Yes and yes - look out for the 5.1 or even 7.1 channel PCM mixes on Blu-ray discs. I'm really looking forward to watching 3:10 to Yuma tonight - i've heard a little of the 7.1 PCM soundtrack in our test rooms, and it's awesome. Our neighbours are going to hate us....

Spiderman 3 with PCM audio is the best I've experienced so far and I had to have it on low - astounding sound.

 

[professorhat]

the_lhc:Clare Newsome:
look out for the 5.1 or even 7.1 channel PCM mixes on Blu-ray discs. I'm really looking forward to watching 3:10 to Yuma tonight - i've heard a little of the 7.1 PCM soundtrack in our test rooms, and it's awesome. Our neighbours are going to hate us....

So, if you've got the option between 5.1 PCM and 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, which would you go for? given that the DTS will make use of the extra two channels?

I can't imagine this ever coming up. But, let's say in theory it did, I would go with 5.1 PCM because I only have a 5.1 system. If I had a 7.1 system though, clearly it makes sense to make use of the 7.1 soundtrack - there's so few of them around it would be mad not to!