Right now, I have my DVD Player (which plays DVD-A and SACD) hooked up to my Denon Receiver(AVR-4802) using just the analog audio outputs (one pair, red and white). I also have the option on the DVD Player to hook up 6 channel, as well as Coax/Optical Digital.
Now my question:
I understand that DVD-A can be formatted for 5.1 surround, which makes it so great, but at the moment I just have two main speakers (B&W DM601 S3) hooked up. On the DVD-A disc that I play, one side is for 2channel stereo, and the other side is for 5.1 surround.
With my current setup (just using the red and white analog RCA cables for the audio output), am I utilizing the DVD-A capabilities? Or can you only get the effect if you plug 6 sperate coax cables to the 6 different speaker outputs on the back of the DVD Player?
Dvd-audio only outputs from a dvd player's 5.1 analog outputs. Connect your front left and right outputs from the player's 5.1 analog out to the front left and right inputs on your amp's 7.1 analog in. This will allow you to hear the 2-ch dvd-audio mix on your disc.
For high-resolution (96KhZ) DVD-A sound, you connect 6 separate coax cable to the analog inputs. This usually bypasses all of the surround DSP on your receiver and is just an analog pass through. You can also connect the Coax/Optical digital inputs to play movies in surround sound or to play the DVD in DVD-V mode. This will also result in surround sound output and you can also use the DSP features in your receiver, however, it will play at 48Khz sampling at lower resolution. This is one of the big advantages of DVD-A. Since my player does not have good bass management, I can really boost the bass playing in DVD-V mode. However, when I want more resolution I play in DVD-A mode. Also since I have 8 speakers, DVD-V drives all 8, whereas the analog inputs only drive 6 speakers. It's nice to have a choice, DVD-A gives you this, SACD does not unless I play a hybrid in CD mode at lower sampling and only get stereo output.