The Panasonic DMP-BD55 Thread

[BIslander]

Originally Posted by Blu-RayLover

The 7.1 analog audio outputs are just for that reason to allow anyone with 5.1 or 7.1 inputs to utilize the players internal decoder. This will allow the playback of the new codecs of Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD MA. As far as HDMI goes, well the jury is still out on whether or not this new hook-up is better than descrete, single cables for each channel. While I have used both HDMI and analog outs, it's too close to call, although HDMI is a single (one) cable as opposed to 8! It's now probably more of a convenience to use HDMI over the old analog line. Personally, I do find it easier to deal with.

Aside from the convenience of a single cable, the main advantage of HDMI is that it allows you to do bass management, time management, and EQ in your receiver. With analog, all of those things have to happen in the player before the digital-analog conversion. Most players have fairly limited speaker set up tools. Receivers are generally better.

Analog uses the DACs in the player while HDMI uses the ones in the receiver. You will get better sound from the device with the better DACs, all other things being equal, of course. That's one of the selling points for the Pioneer 51FD and 05FD, which use very high quality Wolfson DACs.