I sincerely hope I'm not alone in my sonic woes! I've got the CA 540R CA DVD79 Mordaunt-Short 906 & 903S & 905C Mission Sub. I got these and expected at least morderate sound quality. On setting it up, was completely dissapointed! Zero soundstage, Zero musical detail, Zero clarity... same problem of the Rear surround volumes being low.
So I let them run for 4 days continously, non-stop, and it just, I say just begins to shine... then I ditch the Coax interconnect and get a cheap set of Kimber Timbre stereo connects and the music suddenly becomes warmer, fuller and more detailed. BUT still not that clean arousing sound I'm used to.
I love my music in surround, so the question is; I think NOT to use the 540 DAC for music, so I use the KK interconnects from the DVD/CD player 2-ch out to the CD/aux OR the DVD in on the 540R amp. Which sound manageable BUT this is simulated DD EX it could be better!
Am I supposed to connect all the 5.1 outs on the cd player to the 6.1 ins on the amp to get the best possible surround sound? That would require 3 pairs of interconnects!!!
OR should I ditch the KK stereo interconnects and get the KK Coax, but that would mean bypassing the CD player DAC and using the more inferior 540R DAC,... right? What interconnects would give the cleanest surround sound??????
I have a similiar setup except that I have the MS908s and MS309W sub. I am very impressed with the sound quality, soundstage et al.
I have Coax, 2-channel and 5.1-channel connected from DVD to 540R.
I do not use any DSP when listening to music on CD as I do not like the simulated sound and that is not only on the CA as I owned two Yamahas previously and never liked the sound using simulated modes.
When I want to listen to music in surround mode, I listen to DVD-A or DVD-V music and then mostly using the "direct in" mode except if the DVD has a DTS soundtrack.
Okay to answer one of your questions, I doubt if you will get better surround sound using 5.1 to 6.1 playing a stereo source and simulated surround. IMHO play it in the way it was intended i.e. stereo source in stereo mode, multi-channel source in multi-channel mode.
It is claimed that the 540R has a better DAC than the DVD79 because it is a higher model, but I have found the DAC on the DVD79 to give superior sound.
Finally someone who feels my pain! Thenks Abe. But you say the sound is good?
Let me get this straight. You connected the Coax(1), 2-channel(1) and 5.1-channel(3) DVD outs to the corresponding ins on your 540R? thats how many cable pairs? 5 pairs of connections? and then use the direct in mode on the 540R?
Well in total 9 cables. The interconnects are custom made by my friendly hifi dealer(I cannot recall which brand cables they used and the coax is QED.
What made a big difference(IMHO) was when I connected a set of Monster MX 1S bi-wire speaker cable. I felt that it gave me a much wider soundstage, although it could also be my imagination.
I should also add that it took a lot of experimenting with speaker positions before I was satisfied. I started off by setting the mains as large - they are quite big - but felt that something was missing. In the end I settled for setting the mains to small and allow the sub to do the hard work. This seems to allow more energy for mids and highs on the main speakers, thereby widening the sound stage.
If I say the sound is good, let me qualify that. I had two Yamaha receivers before this, RX-V450 & RX-V650, paired with older B&W speakers. I have also auditioned Denon 3805 paired with M&K, Rotel with various speakers, NAD, Marantz and a lot of other combinations and for the price I could not find a better combination than the CA & MS.
In essence we should get the same sound quality(depending on the room off course) except that I would probably get more bass from the 908s.
All I can suggest is to experiment with speaker positions and maybe speaker cables and I am sure you will find that you did not buy a lemon.