I am trying to decide whether to hook up my Sony SCE-CD595 CD player (please note that though this is an SACD player, I am no longer using it to play SACDs) to my Harmon Kardon AVR 520 receiver with a Monter Cable Lightspeed digital fiber-optic toslink line or with a pair of MC Interlink 400mkII analog RCAs.
I imagine the CD player is reading the digital data off the disc turning it into an analog signal, then converting it back to a digital signal before sending it down the fiber-optic line after which the receiver converts it back to analog. By the same line of thinking, I imagine that the digital signal from the CD is converted to analog only one time and stays that way all the way through the RCAs and into my receiver.
To avoid all that DAC work, I'm thinking that the analog RCA hookup might be better. But to avoid EM interference, I'm thinking digital optical might be better.
If anyone out there can shed some light on my thoughts and/or make a recommendation, I would very much appreciate it. Thanks for your time and help.