DVD-A & SACD... What to do ? (1 Viewer)

[Craig Luekenga]

Niles does make a box, the PS-1. It is a A/B audio
selector box. You will need 3 of them to switch
between SACD and DVD-A. I'm not sure how much
they are but I did see a price of $55.00 if I remember
correctly but I'm not sure on that. I think I will
be ordering 3 of them this week. I definitely think
these would be better than using Radio Shack switch
boxes. I don't think that I want to run audio signals
through video connections on a switcher. Niles even
make some switchers that will auto switch when it
detects a audio signal, but they are not cheap. I saw
that Radio Shack has a audio only switcher that has
three inputs and one output, and I think that would be a better solution for switching than a A/V switcher, but
you would have to use 3 of them instead of 2 A/V switchers.

 

[KeithH]

Brian, I understand your position. I have not observed any sound degradation with the Radio Shack switch boxes.

 

[Brian L]

Craig,

I do know of the Niles Audio Only device, in fact I own one. What I should have said was Niles does not have a A/V switcher that I know of.

And without putting too fine a point on it, I would be willing to wager that if you opened up a passive A/V switcher, you would find that there is not likely to be any difference at all between the video and audio path.

Conjecture on my part to be sure, but I have a shiny new nickel that says its so!

BGL

 

[Craig Luekenga]

Brian

You may be right, but why chance it? If there is
no difference between the audio or video inputs
then the impedance for one or the other has to
wrong. That is not my only concern with the
Radio switchers. I looked at the spec's of the
3 to 1 audio only switcher and the ch. separation
is only 60db and it is 70db between inputs. I
doubt that the A/V switcher is any better. I had
my dealer ask Niles about the ch. separation on
the PS-1 and the inputs are completely isolated
and so are the left and right channels so there
should be no cross talk between inputs or channels.

 

[TonyD]

ok that is the back of one of the switchers from the site someone psted here earlier.
i am guessing that the only dif from this to the 3 way switcher is one less input.

so.... how would i use 2 of these 3 wayers to add sacd and dvd-a to my denon 3300. considering it only has one set of inputs(denon)

i am confused because i dont see 1 set of 6 inputs and outputs on these switchers. just multiple sets of 2 in/outs.

so what am i missing.

i just bought a sony 755(got it off the shelf at C. CITY for 129) and want to use this with my panny 91 without crawling behind my stuff evertime i want to switch.

 

[Craig Luekenga]

Tony

On the A/V switchers you would use 2 Switchers.
Take 3 rca from DVD player and put in location
A on the first switcher, take the other 3 rca
and put in A on the second switcher. You would
be using the left, right and video for the
connections. Now take the SACD and put 3 rca
into B input on first switcher and take the
other 3 rca put in B on the second switcher.
When you want to listen to DVD-A you put
both switchers to the A position and when
you want to listen to SACD you put both switchers
to the B position. You also need to
take the 3 outputs from both switchers and connect
them to your receiver. Just make sure you have
all the cables matched going to the same inputs,
in other words make sure you have the left and right
fronts and center going to the same rca's in position
A and B for both players.

I just ordered 3 Niles PS-1 audio A/B selectors
and would use the same way except I will have to
switch 3 boxes instead of 2. This will cost more
but IMO this is the better way to go.

 

[Philip Hamm]

You may be right, but why chance it?

Obviously, the answer to that question is $$.

Many of us have the Radio Shack switchers and hear no sonic problems. The "specs" as published may not meet your personal crieria (or others') but my ears tell me that those specs are extremely conservative and the boxes exceed them by a large margin.

I have used the audio only portion of the boxes and used three stereo boxes instead of two A/V and I still can't hear the difference. Considering the performance I'm experiencing right now I'm not likely to upgrade. However, considering the price of the Niles boxes I would consider them if I was starting from scratch today.

 

[Mark All]

I've yet to find a universal player that has excellent performance in DVD-A, SACD, and video. They all seem to lack one thing that would make them truly universally appealing, whether it's inferior bass management and audio quality in one high-resolution audio format but good in the other, or soft picture quality or the chroma bug in DVD-video playback. I seriously considered the Yamaha 2300 unit. Unfortunately, it seems that the universal machines out now do not exceed the performance levels of units that are dedicated to DVD-A or SACD. Until there is one unit that beats the Toshiba SD-9200 for DVD-A sound quality, Sony for SACD sound quality, and Panasonic for video quality, I have to stick with the three unit solution. I don't use the DVD-A from the Panasonic CP-72 at all. I use the Radio Shack switch box method for Toshiba and SACD, limiting the length of all the interconnects to 3 feet. I too don't notice any difference in sound quality between the mechanical switching box method and a direct connection method. Y connectors never worked for me. I use inexpensive Monster interconnects for the front channels and inexpensive AR cables for the rear plus subwoofer. I don't have any particular reason for the cable choice other than that I had the cables laying around. The only other uses I have for analog interconnects now is for a turntable, subwoofer, and five going between the receiver and the amp. I've never been a big believer in differences between RCA cables as long as they're balanced and shielded. Now speaker wires, that's another story altogether.

 

[Craig Luekenga]

Well that's the case with me. I have a Pioneer 47a
and decided to try the 47ai and I do think it
sounded better than the 47a but not enough to
keep it. If the 47ai sub output wouldn't have
been so low I might have kept it. But then I
decided that I had enough of the chroma bug
on my 73" Mits and it went back. That's when I
decided that the only way to get good sound
quality was with separate DVD-A and SACD players.
Plus I think when HD-DVD comes along it will
be easier to choose a player if you don't have to
worry about getting SACD, DVD-A and HD-DVD all
in the same player.
I just bought the Denon 3800 3 weeks ago and
like it a lot. To bad the sub output is low on
this to, but Denon is experimenting on a fix
for this.
Today I picked up my Sony XA777ES and pretty excited
to get it hooked up, but that will have to wait till tomorrow. After spending this much money I couldn't
see using radio Shack switchers to hook them up.
I'm sure the Radio Shack switchers sound fine but
me being the perfectionist that I am just wanted
something better.