does upconversion entail audio upsampling?

sponger

I was slow to join the Blu Ray club and just recently picked up a Sony S790 blu ray player, effectively mothballing the old Denon DVD 558.

I was aware that this blu ray player -like most others- upconverted DVDs, but I was expecting visual improvements only. To my surprise, the audio seems to be coming through better as well. I initially chalked it up to the placebo effect resulting from the heightened visuals tricking my ears into thinking they were hearing something better as well.

But, there's a dialogue track on my Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon dvd which contains about 2 sentences that have never sounded right. That changed when the same dvd was played on this blu ray player. The Denon dvd player I had been using, while not being audiophile by any stretch of the imagination, had no major shortcomings to my knowledge. So, I've ruled that out as an explanation.

I tried to do my homework on audio upsampling within this context, but I've found no definitive evidence to support my hunch. Any insight on this subject is much appreciated.

BlueFox

Does your audio connect to the AVR via analog, or digital cable(s)? If analog then one possibility is the DAC in the new player is better than the previous player. If it is digital, and everything else is the same as with the previous player, then maybe the jitter level is lower with the new player.

sponger

It's an HDMI cable to the receiver. But, your post got me to do a quick search on this subject, and it seems that a proper analog signal will outperform a digital signal? I guess this 24 bit DAC is pretty standard nowadays and not much of an improvement over the HDMI signal. But if I were to upgrade to a player with, say, a 32 bit DAC and switch to analog, I guess that would be worth the few extra Benjamins?

Just wanna add a couple of more questions to this. Thanks for your patience.

1.) If using only the HDMI cable, what would be the improvement in audio performance of a higher-end blu ray player (e.g., Oppo, Marantz, etc.) over this run-of-the-mill Sony?

2.) Would I lose 1080p if I switched to analog?

Thank you.

sponger

Nevermind. Did some forum digging. Thanks.

SDA1C

I always wondered about down sampling. Does it compress or omit.

arny

SDA1C wrote: »

I always wondered about down sampling. Does it compress or omit.

Omit.

acmf74

sponger wrote: »

It's an HDMI cable to the receiver. But, your post got me to do a quick search on this subject, and it seems that a proper analog signal will outperform a digital signal? I guess this 24 bit DAC is pretty standard nowadays and not much of an improvement over the HDMI signal. But if I were to upgrade to a player with, say, a 32 bit DAC and switch to analog, I guess that would be worth the few extra Benjamins?

Just wanna add a couple of more questions to this. Thanks for your patience.

1.) If using only the HDMI cable, what would be the improvement in audio performance of a higher-end blu ray player (e.g., Oppo, Marantz, etc.) over this run-of-the-mill Sony?

2.) Would I lose 1080p if I switched to analog?

Thank you.

I cant seem to find this post. Do you have a link? I always wondered about this. thanks

sponger

acmf74 wrote: »

I cant seem to find this post. Do you have a link? I always wondered about this. thanks

It wasn't this forum. I just kept typing different configurations of "hdmi vs analog" and "DAC w hdmi necessary?" and so on and so forth until I read enough threads pointing towards the notion that truly hi def audio must happen via an analog connection.

I was considering a Panasonic BDT 500 for its "premium audio" via a 32 bit DAC, but a couple of reviews say that an analog connection is needed for that "premium" audio. I'm still pretty much totally clueless about this as well.

tonyb

Why ? Fairly simple.....if you want to use the dacs in the BDP, or any other player, you use the analog connections. If you don't, then use the digital. Any piece can't convert the digital to analog if the signal leaves the player still in the digital domain.

tonyb

It's also not just the dacs in any given piece that dictates the sound. The analog output stage and build quality is just as important if not more. Same goes for the piece you connect your player to....receiver, pre-amp. The oppo is a universal player, so the benefit is not having to buy different pieces of gear. It also has some better parts in it over a 200 buck player.

When you connect a player by hdmi, your telling the receiver to do that digital to analog conversion which is why some spend the money on that part of their system instead. When you connect to the receiver by analog, your then telling the player to do that conversion. Every signal in the digital domain has to be converted to analog somewhere in the chain.