Bluray owners- Which connection to get best sound?

All of the above?
I have the HDMI going to my 50" plasma. Then I have the FR & FL analog outputs going into my preamp, Sub analog output to sub. Then I have the coax digital out put going to my receiver to drive the surrounds. Simple as mud.
Probably not the optimal HT sonic setup, but I'm a 2-channel guy, what do you expect?
Great picture though.

John

Considering that most Receivers or processors have poor analog to Digital converters I would recommend using digital out (Coax over Toslink) and let your processor do the work. Later when HDMI 1.3 becomes the norm your receiver will strip off the enhanced audio track off that single cable that barely stays clipped in (new standard for locking HDMI connectors are also making their way into the arena).

Jmcgrogan2: Unless your Preamp has DAC's or unless your Receiver has really poor DAC's. You should route your source through your Receiver digitally (coax) and then run out of the reciever to your via preamp outputs (analog) into your preamp if it has a HT pass through. Otherwise you will have to make the volumn that you calibrate your Receiver output to. If it is your main source then your current method will work but will make you constantly adjust the volumn of both the receiver and preamp while watching a movie to level match the Center (not sure if you are running one)

Chris

I use a HDMI cable for both my PS3 and my HD-DVD player. Before I bought my Anthem AVM 50 I had to use the analog inputs on my AVM 20. You dont need HDMI 1.3 (1.1 will work) to get the new sound formats, the player decodes the sound and then sends it out to the processor or receiver in PCM. At this point, there isnt a processor or receiver that will decode the new sound formats. ONLY the player is capable of doing it. If you use the standard Toslink or Dig Coax cable you WILL NOT be able to receive the full bit rate the new sound formats (Dolby TruHD, 5.1 PCM, or DTS-MA)are capable of.

Bottom line, if you want full resolution, use either HDMI or you analog(multichannel)connections.

Chris,

Thanks, but I would never buy a preamp with DAC's in it. To be honest, I rarely (once every couple months) even turn on the receiver, or run through my preamp. I'm not worried about perfect audio calibration. I rarely watch movies on a disc, and when I do, 90% of the time I just run it through the HDMI and listen to the audio through my TV.
I'm not a big HT buff. The video of the Blu-ray is nice, and I do use Netflix, but only two movies a month. Believe it or not, I have trouble squeezing that much movie watching into my schedule.

John

(For DVD not Blu-Ray player) I found that using the analog out from the player into the reciever, and using the reciever for volume control only gave me the best sound for my 5.1 system. For some reason using digital out from the player and having the reciever do the processing sounded harsh and edgy.

Greetings,
I use the 5.1 analog out connections to get the uncompressed audio. This sound is considerably better than audio via the digital connection. I don't have the hdmi connection for uncompressed audio so i can't tell you anything there. The only problem i see with the sony player(not sure if the pioneer is the same) and the analog out is, i can't change speaker distance in player and have to use the processor to control that.

I use the coax digital out from the Pioneer BDP-HD1 with my Valhalla digital cable. This feeds my Theta Casablanca. The sound is awesome. I wish some of the new blue ray players had a digital balanced out .

Rugyboogie,
You should try the Analog connections out into your Casablanca( Six shooter?). The sound is noticably better. I had it connected with the Virtual Dynamic Revelation Signature digital cable and switch to analog direct connect to my processor. Wow.

Pthai
Thanks for the info.
I had the Six shoolter on loan to me. Yes the sound was somewhat different in the analog domain using Theta's Six shooter than going straight into digital, but the extra cost of the Valhalla single ended cable times 5 did not wow me over.
I also found that the DTS prossing in the Pioneer was not as full sounding as that of the Casablanca III. I do not listen to 5.1 audio for music strictly 2 channel.
When I want to listen to music I use the ASR Emitter II exclusive which is IMHO much better than the Six shooter.
Take care.