Apologies for my ignorance, as I am a newbie into HiFi.

I have a Yamaha RX-V2500 amplifier and I just bought today NAD c542 CD player for listening to stereo music on CDs only. I am confused with different opinions from salesmen and may I seek your advice on what interconnect should I use for listening to 2-channel music to get the best out of my system. My questions are :

1. Should I use Analog or Digital interconnect ?
2. If Analog, is there any recommendation for any decent analog interconnect for my combination ?
3. If Digital, should I use Coaxial or Optical ? (My understanding was that Optical is for 5+ channels for movies, etc). What about coaxial ?
4. If Digital Coaxial, the salesman recommended Van Den Hul DigiCoupler 75. Is there any better recommendation.
5. If I use Digital Coaxial, am I byepassing most of the electronics in the CD player ? Regarding digital output, the NAD C542 manual says that "The serial data output is taken after the error correction but before the digital-to-analogue conversion and filtering". BTW, what is digital-to-analogue conversion ? If I go with digital out, am I missing on the sound quality or will it improve the sound quality ?

Please advise as I am lost with all the technicalities.

I use both kinds of connection and IMHO:

1. Should I use Analogue or Digital interconnect?

Depends. If you use the digital connection you will be using the amplifiers D to A converters (which could be a good thing, depending on the quality of your CD/DVD player). With an analogue interconnect you will be using the players D to A converters and you get to 'fine tune' the sound by your cable choice (if you are in to that sort of thing...)

2. If Analogue, is there any recommendation for any decent analogue interconnect for my combination?

So many cables out there, so little money... : - ) I'm not the right person to answer this as I believe any well designed low capacitance\low resistance cable is perfectly fine. I am sure other forum members will have strong views on this one!

3. 3. If Digital, should I use Coaxial or Optical? (My understanding was that Optical is for 5+ channels for movies, etc). What about coaxial?

Both types will carry the same data and are equally capable of carrying 2 or 5.1 channel digital signals, although when using a DVD player you sometimes need to configure the output to be suitable for the amp. As you are using a CD player this shouldn’t be a problem.

I personally prefer optical as the cables are cheaper and the two components remain electrically separated. Mind you, quite a few people report that co-ax sounds better (I have never noticed any difference).

4. If Digital Coaxial, the salesman recommended Van Den Hul DigiCoupler 75. Is there any better recommendation?

Any good quality co-ax digital cable will be fine.

5. If I use Digital Coaxial, am I bypassing most of the electronics in the CD player?

Yes, pretty much. But it’s worth a try. Borrow a cable if you can and see what difference it makes. I have a Panasonic DVD player that is pretty much unlistenable when playing CD's via its analogue output but works really well when connected via its optical out and being used as a transport. Go figure…

In answer to your other questions, Digital to Analogue conversion is where the signal is changed from a series of digital bits to a analogue waveform suitable for most conventional amplifiers. Some designs amplify in the digital domain and only convert the signal to analogue to the last possible moment for delivery to the loudspeakers.

As far as the ultimate sound quality when comparing analogue and digital connections - only you can be the judge. Try both - in fact, if your amp supports it why not connect it both ways?

Wilfred,

I would suggest using the analogue output of your CD player into the stereo CD input of your amplifier. The digital conversion within the CD is geared toward reproducing the 16-bit, 44.1kHz Pulse Code Modulation digital datastream of CD in stereo and that's all. In contrast, the DACs within the Yamaha are designed to do a range of stereo and multichannel tasks, with a variety of different digital datastreams. CD is just one of its arsenal of digital conversion systems. The difference is not vast though.

Digital connections on CD players are used to either upgrade the existing DAC within the player, or to hook that player to a digital recorder. You are doing neither by hooking this to a home cinema amplifier's converters. Oh, and there's no hard or fast rule about whether coaxial or optical is best; they should be functionally identical - but in some systems, the coaxial is better optimised than the optical, and vice versa.

I wouldn't get het up about different types of cables. There are thousands out there; find a cable that allows you to take demonstrators home for the weekend, play around with them and see if one takes your fancy. Don't go overboard, though; if you have spent more than 15% of the original cost of your CD player on a cable... make sure you have a lifebelt on!

That said, I know some who think all cables are nonsensical and go with the freebie cables in the box. I also know people who would happily spend £400 on cables for a £200 CD player. Which one's right? who knows.

Both of the boys above go into great detail, all ill say is use analogue.

Might aswell give my twopence worth here. I can offer nothing in terms of figures and physics but I have both kinds (pretty high end too) and have swapped them around to check this out myself. The digital wins hands down. But then again - perhaps it's just a far better cable than my analogue.

I'm using an LAT DI 30 MKII Digital Interconnect between my cd and amp and had a swap around with my Russ Andrews Kimber PBJ analogue interconnects. The LAT is simply better - clearer, more detail, slicker bass - just everything about it really.

Yet again, whether I can better the results further by getting their top of the range IC300 analogue interconnect in place of the digital one is anyone's guess. Would love to see for myself actually, only if it WAS better I'd be very annoyed due to that "oh crap, I have to have it" feeling!

Mathias,

What you're comparing there isn't the two type of cable, you're actually comparing the DACS in your amp and CD player. In your case, the amp won.

Oh jeez - you see I don't really get much of the technical aspects of this stuff (other than knowing some cabling set ups are far superior to others - what's decent and what's overpriced crap!

I kinda know of DAC (and that it's found inside or sometimes outside a cd player) but haven't really got a clue what it is.

In your opinion then - would fab interconnects do a better job than a fab digi coax since I'm planning to ditch the multi channel amp and get a groovy stereo one - but where I can use my beloved digi cable rather than fork out for yet more stuff. I've been looking at reviews of some of the rotel stuff (the RA range up to about £400.)

Any suggestions?

Cheers for your help.

There are very few stereo integrated amps that you can connect digitally to a cd player and none that I can think of below £400 so you may be forced to use analogue.

The DAC is basically what converts the 1s and 0s in to sound.

The sound improvement you're gettiing is because the dac in your home cinema amp is better than the one in your player.

ok, cheers for that. Well I'm selling that amp along with a buch of stuff so I'll have a cheeky wedge to lay down on my first 'grown up' bit of kit - 'grown up' to me is anything from at least 350 and above. Don't want to go too mad with it. Mind you it looks like there's a lot of good stuff around these days and it's bound to be better that what I'm using. I may ditch my current cd player too. If I do that I'd probably put no more than 500 down for both. mmm decisions.

Perhaps I'm asking all the wrong questions but it's not easy trying to decide what the best upgrade would be. Am def gonna be rid of the amp - it's good but I'm only using it for stereo and I know that a similarly priced stereo one will probably have my tongue on the floor!

Yours confused,

M

Remember that £350 buys a lot second hand. Stereo amps are very reliable and are a good second hand buy - particularly if less than 10 years old.

yeah sure that's cool Have seen someone online selling their Quad 11L speakers for £200 ONO. Does that sound any good? Have read some decent write ups for these.

Haha no i don't - know that now. Always good to get another person on board for nerdy hifi banter! Since this started I've completely redone my system and bought all new kit - amp, cd, speakers with very very tasty cabling to go with it!

Well I discovered a company call LAT International a few years ago and found them to not only outshine the Russ Andrews stuff I had but also cost a lot less. So I ebayed all the old gear and bought from that lot instead. Their top power cable only cost me £70 (since I bought 5 of them) and they out classed all the Russ gear hands down. Anyway, about a year ago (to complement all my new kit) I decided to get LATs top biwire cable and analogue coaxial and they're great. I'll never have to buy any cabling ever again (unless I do a full on surround set up) as these will just last forever.

There have been numerous people picking arguments with me in the past about 'fancy cables' and them being nothing but "snake oil" but I know this to be utter rubbish. I don't earn much money and what I do treat myself with had better do what it says it does or it's going back - plain and simple. I was a bit of a sceptic myself till I gave a powercord a go and thought - mmm, why does my cd player suddenly sound like I've just bought a new one? Some people are just stubborn I guess.

Take a look at the site and see what you think.

http://www.audusa.com/lat.htm

A friend of mine uses the Lat Audusa stuff, swears by it. As for mains cables, I cannot hear any improvement in my  set up, probably because the mains supply must be fairly clean I guess, and thats despite havin 4 different makes, inc RA, KK and Zion.