CD out: Digital or Analog?

heimert, try it both ways and use what you prefer. I'm not that familiar with your B&K, but some similar devices have DSP manipulation that is only availible with a digital signal. Whether or not this manipulation is good or not is controversial.
Porschecab, if you use the analog out you are hearing the DAC built into the CD player. If you use the digital out you hear the DAC in the processor (when properly set up). If you use the analog pass through of the processor you hear the what ever analog signal that was presented to the processor with out (or more likely very little) effect of the processor.

Phild & Dan: Analog pass-through means exactly that. Many processors convert an incoming analog signal into a digital signal, process it, then convert it back to an analog signal. The analog by-pass skips this stage. Many newer models have this stage, in order to accomodate SACD and DVD-A inputs. In the absence of a digital input for SACD & DVD-A, this unfortunately is the only way to maintain any integrity of those signals, since they leave the player as analog signals. One of the underlying assumptions for the A/D, then D/A conversion processing was the DAC's in the processor were better than the DAC's in the cd player. Although this can be the case, it creates its own problems. So, in the end, to paraphrase from the real estate business, listen, listen, listen,

Using the digital out put does provide the oportunity for increased jitter.

For me, the type of gear I have owned, analog has always been a noticable improvement. Which really stinks because with a dvd/cd combo things would be cheaper if I only had to buy the digital verses digital and analog cables.

As always, just try.

Marty

For those above who seem a little confused when it comes to the difference between analog and digital signals, just remember this: Please to do not attempt to take a digital output from a player and run it into an analog input on your processor/preamp/reciever (a digital output will be just a single connection containing all channels, not separate L/R, etc.). You definitely do not want to feed your amplifiers, speakers, or ears an unconverted digital datastream!