Toshiba HD-A2 - $200.00 plus shipping

[Eddie Horton]

Someone above said you have to have an HDMI 1.3 receiver to take advantage of the new audio codecs, such as DD+ and Dolby TrueHD. This is not the case. There are HDMI 1.3 receivers that will decode the new formats, but the players are fully able to convert the bitstream to PCM and send it to an HDMI 1.1 or better receiver. Also, for those lacking HDMI, you can get the signal over analog inputs, as well. Just wanted to clarify this a little.

[Mag_Neato]

My Aquos has HDMI, but not my receiver. It has the direct inputs for analog though. If I had a player that supported DD+/Dolby true-HD etc. would it still sound as good as a new receiver with HDMI 1.3? Do the new receivers take a digital stream and do the D/A conversion internally for these new lossless formats, or are they receiving a decoded analog signal from the HD/Blu-ray players?

[Quinn]

You have to get the higher end players like the HD XA2 to get one that will send the new lossless formats decoded over analog. The PS3 doesn't have analog outs either.

I'm not replacing my Marantz SR7200 just to get the new audio formats. I will be using a toslink and the "older" audio formats.

[Eddie Horton]

Actually, my Toshiba D1 that I bought in April of '06 will send DD+ and TrueHD over analog and it sounds great. I have a Yamaha HTR-5790 that doesn't do HDMI.
Ed, the new receivers take the bitstream and do the D/A conversion. Older, 1.1 or 1.2 receivers, or those with analog inputs take the signal after the D/A conversion is done in the player.

[tp7539]

I've actually built a pc and will connect the xbox 360 hd drive to it. I have a 7.1 sound card with analog outs....and will run that to my receiver. As it's been stated, this will give my system the ability to play the new audio formats. But as I understand the main difference between running the sound over analog and having a receiver that accepts the sound of over hdmi, is that with analog I won't be able to manage the bass effectively. It will pass through and deliver bass to each speaker equally, but may be lacking as it relates to the real low frequency on the dvd soundtrack that is intended for the sub.

I'm sure it will sound exquisite, and I've set my system up intentionally this way. But without having heard it yet, this is my input based on research.

[Eddie Horton]

From my experiences, that's the main advantage of HDMI as it relates to these players and AVR's.......bass management. In my setup, using analog, the bass management is done in the player. Fortunately, my AVR will remember different speaker and sub level settings for analog inputs and digital inputs, or it would be a pain to level match everything since the sub level is low out of the D1. It took some tweaking and turning the sub up to compensate for the analog level out of the D1 and cutting the sub level in the AVR for all my digital sources so all inputs were still level matched. HDMI makes this much easier. I'm thinking of picking up a Yammy RX-V661 for pre-pro use. It's getting great reviews, has tons of bells and whistles, and will layer 7.1 on top of 5.1 HDMI sources from my D1, and all for under 400 bucks. The only drawback is that it will not transcode component to HDMI and it only has 2 HDMI inputs, but nothing's perfect.

[muzz]

Everyone is making a BIG DEAL of this HDMI CRAP, listen, HDMI WASN'T created for YOU, it was created for THEM....... CONTROl......
HDMI is NO better than 6 analogs,show me proof it is, I'll give ya a gold star!!