Dan .... The switching power supplies from your TV and cable box are creating a lot of RF and DC offset which is carried from one component to the next via the cabling
You may be able to limit or block some of this accumulated noise before entering the dac or HT processor by using a TOS link cable instead of a digital Coax cable from your cable box's audio out
SPS will generate RF during normal operation ... the Hi Freq noises can couple back to your equipment and be presented as a harsh or digital sound ... I believe your real complaint
SPS will also create DC offset by their normal mode of operation (they draw current in uneven pulses creating this problem )
The DC offset can reduce the component's transformer's efficacy which cause the clocks and dacs to lag/go out of time and increases jitter ... which = harsh digital sound
Also if you feed your TV from you HT processor ... your TV via the video cable can be adding noise back into the audio section of the HT processor via the power supplies ... try hooking up the video out of the cable box directly to the TV bypassing the HT processor
Picture painted with broad strokes as the quaility and stiffness (ability to reject noise) of the component's power supplies vary so much from component to component
You may be able to limit or block some of this accumulated noise before entering the dac or HT processor by using a TOS link cable instead of a digital Coax cable from your cable box's audio out
SPS will generate RF during normal operation ... the Hi Freq noises can couple back to your equipment and be presented as a harsh or digital sound ... I believe your real complaint
SPS will also create DC offset by their normal mode of operation (they draw current in uneven pulses creating this problem )
The DC offset can reduce the component's transformer's efficacy which cause the clocks and dacs to lag/go out of time and increases jitter ... which = harsh digital sound
Also if you feed your TV from you HT processor ... your TV via the video cable can be adding noise back into the audio section of the HT processor via the power supplies ... try hooking up the video out of the cable box directly to the TV bypassing the HT processor
Picture painted with broad strokes as the quaility and stiffness (ability to reject noise) of the component's power supplies vary so much from component to component