| Editorial December 2006
 Making the Connection
Audio used to be such a simple affair. In the days of mono,
you plugged your turntable into your preamp, your preamp into your power amp, your amp
into your speaker, and you were off and running. Stereo merely doubled the task: You
plugged two outputs into your preamp/amp and connected two speakers. When CD came along,
that was still the case.
Then, driven by the video industry, came multichannel,
digital outputs, and a plethora of sound-delivery options. First there was Dolby Surround,
which required processors or receivers with Dolby Surround decoders. Home-theater systems
meant we now had more than twice as many speakers to connect. At this juncture, many
people still had separate video and audio systems, and audio connections had not yet
changed drastically. You still hooked up a CD player with a stereo RCA cable, and Dolby
Surround with an optical or coaxial cable. But Dolby Surround was rather quickly replaced
by Dolby Digital 5.1, which was delivered with the same single digital cable but required
another decoder, thus a new processor or receiver. Then there was DTS, which was basically
the same as Dolby Digital, except that it required yet another decoder -- and thus
a new processor or receiver. In short, connections are no longer innocent and simple.
But that wasn’t all -- enter SACD and DVD-Audio. The
signals of these formats, rather than being delivered from the player via a single cable
and then decoded and routed by a surround-sound processor, required six separate analog
connections -- a Medusa’s nest of wires. You had to have a new processor or receiver
that came with 5.1-channel analog inputs to enjoy high-resolution multichannel sound, even
if you were already enjoying Dolby Digital 5.1 through a single cable! At about that time
it became possible to deliver a regular two-channel signal through a single optical or
coaxial digital cable. The entire situation was and remains a mess, and many feel that
part of the reason for the failure of SACD and DVD-A was because of the difficulty in
setting up systems to play them back.
Now, very recently in the hookup game, we have a single
cable, HDMI, that can carry all signals, both audio and video. That’s great, and what
should have happened in the first place. But so far, only a few processors or receivers
come equipped with HDMI inputs. Besides, who wants to junk a favorite electronic component
just to accommodate yet another new cable system? In addition, many earlier HDTVs had only
component-video or DVI inputs. (In the case of the latter, you can buy a cable terminated
at one end with an HDMI connector, at the other end with a DVI connector. My Mitsubishi
monitor is connected to my Toshiba HD DVD player this way.)
There are lots of sound configurations out there --
two-channel stereo, and all the surround options: Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby
TrueHD, DTS, DTS-HD -- and no doubt a new one will pop up any minute. I used to think it
made better sense to have the decoders built into the processor or receiver, but all of
these recent developments have made me feel that it’s better to let the player do the
decoding. Toshiba’s first-generation HD DVD players included both HDMI and
5.1-channel analog outs. Because the player does the decoding for each system (and very
well, too) it outputs a pure signal that I can run into my 5.1 inputs on my three-year-old
Outlaw processor, which has no HDMI input. But Toshiba’s second-generation HD DVD
players reportedly have no 5.1 analog outputs; to get one of those models to
correctly decode all of the current sound formats, you’ll have to buy another
processor or receiver that has HDMI inputs. Sounds like a conspiracy, doesn’t it?
One thing’s for sure: You can’t assume anything
any more. When you buy a new piece of equipment, check carefully to see what kinds of
inputs and outputs and decoders it has. This is crucial if you want to use a new source
player with your current equipment, but even if you have all new equipment, it’s
quite possible that the connections won’t always work out. It’s now more
important than ever that salespeople know all about this stuff, and that websites show
detailed rear-panel photos of every component so you can verify beforehand exactly which
inputs and outputs it has.
Toshiba’s HD DVD players, by the way, function like
computers and can be updated from shareware discs. In fact, Toshiba has already released
several such discs. It would make sense to me that makers of processors and receivers
design their units to be able to physically accommodate any current and future possibility
through the use of unused circuits, jacks, plug-in ports, etc. Then, when the next new
audio or video decoding or connection system comes along, units already in the field could
be easily updated. But that wouldn’t entice the consumer to spend more money, so
it’s probably a pipe dream.
...Rad Bennett
radb@hometheatersound.com |
