HR series audio - HDMI vs Toslink

[gadgtfreek]

At the suggestion of another member, I tried using toslink for audio as opposed to using the HDMI for everything. I was very happy with the sound, and left it that way for two weeks.

Ive now swapped back to HDMI and am not happy with the sound at all. Dont know if any of you have experienced this, but IMHO, the HDMI audio feed is not as good as the toslink feed.

 

[Rey]

At the suggestion of another member, I tried using toslink for audio as opposed to using the HDMI for everything. I was very happy with the sound, and left it that way for two weeks.

Ive now swapped back to HDMI and am not happy with the sound at all. Dont know if any of you have experienced this, but IMHO, the HDMI audio feed is not as good as the toslink feed.

i've experienced this too. but it also depends on the receiver. some sound pretty much the same on both and others the hdmi sounds better. i recently returned and onkyo receiver because of this same reason. want to go with a pioneer elite to see if it goes better.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Yeah, Ive got an Onkyo 605 and Im seeing a difference. Will just hook the Toslink back up, because the 605 handles HDMI lossless audio from blurays very good.

 

[Rey]

the one i returned was the onkyo tx-sr806. my old panny sounded better. i know it sounds ridiculous. they both pump 130w per channel but the panny has no HDMI switching, no ability to decode dolby true hd or thx. i will look at the pioneer elite models next.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Not an elite, but not much difference, the 1018 is a great rcvr.

 

[Rey]

thanks elway. i just looked at that pioneer and it looks quite good. i'm going to go see it. thanks for the recommendation

 

[grydlok]

At the suggestion of another member, I tried using toslink for audio as opposed to using the HDMI for everything. I was very happy with the sound, and left it that way for two weeks.

Ive now swapped back to HDMI and am not happy with the sound at all. Dont know if any of you have experienced this, but IMHO, the HDMI audio feed is not as good as the toslink feed.

I prefer toslink.

 

[sampatterson]

thanks elway. i just looked at that pioneer and it looks quite good. i'm going to go see it. thanks for the recommendation

FWIW, I love my Pioneer Elite receiver (vsx-94txh). No issues with HDMI switching with computer, Blue ray, Xbox 360 and 2 satellite receivers and incredible sound. 1080p24 thru to Pioneer Elite plasma with Dish works also. I had Denon and Yamaha (high end) receivers before and I have been much happier with the Elite.

Sam

 

[Rey]

Not an elite, but not much difference, the 1018 is a great rcvr.

i just purchased it today! i'll see if i like it with my current setup which is turning into a mixing of brands nightmare. i like having the brands all the same but it's getting difficult to do so.

 

[Rey]

FWIW, I love my Pioneer Elite receiver (vsx-94txh). No issues with HDMI switching with computer, Blue ray, Xbox 360 and 2 satellite receivers and incredible sound. 1080p24 thru to Pioneer Elite plasma with Dish works also. I had Denon and Yamaha (high end) receivers before and I have been much happier with the Elite.

Sam

what do you think of the 1018?

 

[gadgtfreek]

Let me know. I've been looking at it and the Denon 1908.

 

[Rey]

Let me know. I've been looking at it and the Denon 1908.

elway the 1018 is excellent! I'm amazed how much better it sounds than the onkyo tx-sr 806 and it's almost half the price! The sound processing is excellent. The HDMI switching has no video loss and the optical(tos-link) and HDMI connections for sound are excellent. The only negative is the on screen system menu. looks like DOS but does the job. also you need smarts to handle all the features and adjustments that are possible with the 1018.The average user reviewed this product as difficult to use. I also compared the 1018 with an elite at the showroom and there was really no difference in sound. It packs a punch at 130w per channel. Handles all the latest sound formats like dolby true hd,dts hd and it also sound excellent using PCM instead of bitstream.

 

[gadgtfreek]

great! how was their MCCS(?) speaker/room calibration?

 

[Rey]

great! how was their MCCS(?) speaker/room calibration?

It worked great. although i like a little more bass in my setup so i manually changed some settings in the 9 band eq section. one negative, the speaker room calibration did set my L&R surround speakers to large instead of small so i changed that manually. besides that the sound was impressively clean after the auto calibration but i like my sound a little more boomy so i raised the setting for 63hz a little higher. you can store up to 6 different options to choose of eq settings. another good feature is that the settings aren't universal meaning you can have different audio settings for each source except for the phaser audio option and a couple of others. most of them can be different from source to source.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Nice.

 

[Rey]

Pioneer Electronics USA

 

[gadgtfreek]

Now on sale for $500, not bad. Hard time deciding between it and the Denon 1909.

 

[Rey]

Now on sale for $500, not bad. Hard time deciding between it and the Denon 1909.

you're getting a lot of bang for the buck. In any case you could always return it like I did with the onkyo and was ready to do the same with the pioneer if i didn't like it.