I have a Pioneer DV-578A-S DVD player, a good Yamaha 5.1 receiver, and nice Boston Acoustics speakers.
This weekend I was playing an ordinary CD using the analog out from the player, then switched over to the digital out. I expected them to be relatively the same, but the digital was much different, having dramatically increased highs and lows.
I didn't spent a mint on my 3 ft. cables, but I bought them from a pro-audio (music industry) supplier, thinking they'd be fairly good.
I know no one is going ot have a difinitive answer -- I'm more fishing for theories. Is this more likely an issue of cable quality, or more likely an issue of digital-to-analog converter quality in the player as compared to the receiver? (Is the difference between good and superb cables HUGELY obvious?)