thevortex said:Regardless of how we connect the Receiver and the DVD player - if we use 'Source Direct' would not the DVD do all the work? And if we use 'Pure Direct' would not the AVR do all the work?
'Source Direct', 'Direct', 'Pure Audio', 'Pure Direct' are various terminologies introduced in the AVRs in the recent past. All these terminologies are relevant only for two channel stereo. When you have connected the DVD Player to the AVR using two Analogue RCA connectors, and you play a Redbook CD, the DVD Player does the DAC conversion and sends the data in analogue form. The AVR just amplifies it for the speakers. What these terminologies mean is that in the AVR, the signal path for two channel stereo is reduced for purity, and many AVRs switch off all video circuitry and most of the display also.
Two channel audio can also be transferred through HDMI, coaxial, and optical in digital form for the AVR to process.
For multichannel audio, the method chosen depends upon the connection. If you connect using coaxial, optical or HDMI, the DVD does not do anything. All audio processing is done by the AVR. If you connect and choose multi analogue connections, the audio processing is done by the DVD Player and the AVR just amplifies.
thevortex said:Also in your above example - for DVD Audio one cannot rely on HDMI connection. So how would we connect to the DVD and the Receiver? Do we need to switch from HDMI to Coaxial manually or should we have both connected at the same time?
The restriction is with coaxial and optical for multichannel audio. HDMI has no restriction. You need not do anything manually. You can actually have a set up where all the connections are done - RCA, HDMI, coaxial or optical. Depending upon what kind of disk your are using, you can set the source in the AVR. Actually unless you are very finicky, a single HDMI connection will work the best for all types of data.
As I said somewhere else, whether to use the AVR or the DVD Player for audio decoding will depend upon the models. If you are using an entry level DVD Player, just use an HDMI and leave all the decoding to the AVR. If you are using a high end DVD Player, you can to experiment between the two and decide which one you like. Then you use that unit to decode.
thevortex said:And finally I have heard a lot about Receivers having the capability to deliver LPCM or Linear PCM - what is that supposed to do? And how do we use it? Is this relevant when listening to Audio CD's?
LPCM is a methodology to encode audio in digital form. The term PCM, is more general and is a digital representation of analogue signal, and its transmission. LPCM has become more prevalent with the advent of True HD, and DTS HD. When an AVR has LPCM capabilities, it means that the AVR can receive and decode multi-channel audio streams. LPCM is usually transferred through HDMI.
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