Yamaha Top-ART: Digitized Inputs?? (1 Viewer)

[Jagan Seshadri]

I read Yamaha's Top-ART blurb:
Digital ToP-ART Design
Yamaha's Digital ToP-ART (Total Purity Audio Reproduction) design philosophy maximizes digital quality and minimizes analog circuitry. Specifics include high performance digital circuitry using Burr-Brown 24-bit DACs for all input channels, a digitally regulated volume control, processor direct switch, high density Cinema DSP circuitry, utilizing the world's first 44-bit LSIs, two decoding LSIs, and low impedance drive amplifier.
Do they mean that all analog inputs are digitized to 96/24 right off the bat? Wouldn't this be a bad thing for SACD or DVD-A analog sources, since you're introducing another cycle of A/D + D/A conversion within the receiver?
Somebody who's in the know, please share your knowledge!!
-JNS

 

[John Garcia]

processor direct switch would defeat any processing on incoming signal. I believe they are only talking about the digital inputs. Multi-channel analog inputs are typically not processed (SACD, DVD-A, Dolby Dig., etc...) Otherwise, I would say stay away from it. (I'm not a huge fan of Yamaha for AVR anyway)

 

[Jagan Seshadri]

Still, all analog sources would be digitized at the input, processed (unless the "Processor Direct" mode was chosen), and then resolved back into analog to go to the amplifier stage. This is ok for most analog inputs anyway, and according to Yamaha, is better for the signal's integrity (no more scratchy volume dials, scratchy EQ's, or scratchy balance controls, for example).
But this setup would be worse for a high-bandwidth analog signal's integrity because the input digitizing would cause additional quantization noise (and yes I'm being very very picky here for argument's sake).
So then, is the "6-channel input" set of inputs exempt from being digitized ever (let alone processor bypassed)? One would hope so.
Are there any Yamahackers out there who'd know?
I may have coined a new word there..
-JNS