Trade Cambridge Audio 640C cd for Sony BD370?

[joel]

For interest sake, HDMI doesn't do CD that well.
The reason is that HDMI uses the video clock as a reference and as CD audio is at a different frequency there can be some jitter introduced.
Just been using an LG Blu-ray player with CD and using its coax digital out into a processor and was surprised at the overall SQ. Perhaps this is an option, but you would then have to set your receiver up to get audio from BD on one input(from HDMI if you want uncompressed  surround sound) and coax for listening to CD.

My opinion is to keep the Cambridge. 

[MxT]

I have the CA 840C and the Sony BDP 360 - CD playback on the dedicated is in another league athough the Sony is good- and If youre running it via an AV it all that you need- I used the Blu ray and and AVR for a long time and it kicked a$$

[KenMasters]

Okay, from what I understand it works so:

Analogue connection:

A good CD player will beat out an entry level BD player any day of the week as this way you are relying completely on the player for audio quality and the amp for amplification only.

HDMI / Coax / Optical connection:

Bitstream:
Sound quality relies completely on the reciever. There is no jitter as the decoding is done by the reciever. The player makes no difference to audio quality.

LPCM / PCM:
Still uses the reciever's DAC but decoding is done by the player. Jitter is introduced but a good player can improve the situation. Using an implementation of ARC (HATS, PQLS) should get around the issue.

[Viagara]

and If youre running it via an AV it all that you need

Herein maybe lies the answer If you are using it with an AVR.......

[Hi-Phibian]

Not to clued with HDMI specs but a bit of reading seems to suggest it is the trick of disabling the players internal clock and sending a clock signal from the DAC. Previously done by Arcam, Deltec and more recently wadia.

[joel]

The HDMI issue is that practically all digital signals are referenced to the video clock, and it is the trying to get audio frequencies to fit within the video clock speed is where issues arise.
Disabling the players own clock may help but the fact remains that if 44.1kHz doesn't happen to be divisible in some way with the video clock, there will be errors.

What some companies do, is to strip out the audio from HDMI, re-clock this and send it down a separate HDMI cable, that is clocked correctly.
My assumption is that as the coax or optical inputs and outputs on both BD player and AVR are purely audio inputs/outputs, the probably use the correct clock speed to begin with and this is why they sound better on CD.

Could of course be 100 % wrong.

[joshw]

Interestingly I currently have the Cambridge cd connected to the receiver by both digital coax and standard RCA cables.  When switching between the two there is a distinct difference in the sound.  The bottom end difference makes sense - the sub is used with an 80hz cutoff on the digital coax while there is no sub on the analogue.  The interesting thing is that the mid and treble also change.  The main change I notice is in the soundstage.  It's sometimes more focused on the analogue and sometimes more focused on the digital.  One reason that I've guessed for the difference is that the receiver and main speakers are working less hard when using the sub because all frequencies below 80hz are now no longer being amplified by the receiver or produced by the main speakers (I've set the speakers to "small" in the setup). 

Also interesting that the Cambridge cd outputs both analogue and digital simultaneously - there's no need to change anything on the CD player, just change the input on the amp.  I don't know if the Sony blu ray players do multiple outputs simultaneously, if so then I guess I could connect it to the amp by both HDMI and digital coax.

[joel]

Some of the difference you hear could be due to small level differences between analogue and digital inputs.

One probably plays a little louder than the other and this is possibly why you prefer one or the other

[Viagara]

Some of the difference you hear could be due to small level differences between analogue and digital inputs.

One probably plays a little louder than the other and this is possibly why you prefer one or the other

To add to that and I hope I am not repeating want someone has already said, when you use the analogue outputs of the CDP, you use the CDPs internal DACs and when you use the digital output, you AVRs DACs are used.

As your sub comes into play when you use digital output, I am sure some sort of DSP is applied to the signal as well, which to me is always a bad things, but some people don't really care as they like the sound.

An interesting test would be to take your sub out of the equation by disabling it and then compare the sound difference between analogue out and digital out.