JimRochester

I just upgraded to a SONY s350 from the s300. Well worth the the upgrade by the way. Faster boot time, full lossless audio and better upconversion.

My question is this: It seems even my standard DVD's have much better sound now. Is it the player, the receiver or both? The clarity especially from the surrounds is amazing (even from the s300). When I upgraded my system I upgraded to Blu-ray and a Pioneer Elite receiver from the Yamaha I did have. The surrounds and center are the same however I switched to smaller L/R channels with a seperate sub instead of large with an integrated sub.

Although I appreciate the technology of lossless audio, everything seems so lifelike now. I watch DVD's I've had for years and hear things I've never noticed before. Even the dogs who would never look up unless they heard a dog barking on the screen, are now routinely disturbed from their nap by planes flying overhead and bullets whizzing by. It's not just louder, it's 10x clearer. Both systems were set up using a sound meter so it has to be pretty close.

We often talk about receivers for the purpose of HDMI, and Blu-ray for the better PQ and AQ, but this has literally reinvigorated my whole collection. People should upgrade just to make their SD's look and sound better.

Sdallnct

You switched to much to soon to be able to tell exactly what happened. It is sort of like when you have a problem you trouble shoot by doing one thing at a time. You are in the same boat. Something good happened, but since you did so much at one time, no way to tell what it is.

I see you have a A35 in your system. Does your HD DVD's sound better? Do SD disc's on the A35 sound better?

I think it much more likely you are experiencing the improvement or change in speakers (especially to a separate sub), and receiver, then change in DVD players since we are talking SD to SD and not the upgrade to lossless.

Speakers have the single biggest impact in sound. People often underestimate this. Even good sounding speakers sound different from one another.

Perhaps you also have something set different when you changed receivers? Or heck even the disconnect and reconnecting of equipment could have corrected a loose wire or something.

And of course, the change in DVD players could have effected the sound on SD Disc's. But truthfully, that would be the last place I would look. If I had to put money down, I'd say the effect came from something else. And if the change is as dramatic as you say, then I really doubt is was a result of the change of DVD players. It's not like you went from a piece of junk player to super high end one.

X

If you're using a digital connection between the player and receiver you're getting the same digital signal from your old and new player. Unless your old player wasn't able to pass DD or DTS or was seriously screwed up in sending that digital signal the player should not be a factor in sound from SD material.

JimRochester

Although I liked the upconverting of the A35 better than the s300, I usually used the SONY for playing SD's only because the SONY can be replaced when it breaks and the Toshiba can't. In retrospect I guess they both sounded better but I guess the last couple movies I watched it was just so apparent. The surround speakers are still the same or I just would have attributed the imrovement to them.

My old setup I used digital out, my new setup uses HDMI.

X

You are going out through a different route but the digital signal should be the same. It has to be or it wouldn't be decoded correctly.

Spiky

Our audio memory is very poor. It would have to be a crazy quality jump for you suddenly be able to hear a bullet from a soundtrack that your old system couldn't reproduce. It is very common to notice details that were never noticed before each time you listen to something. It is fairly uncommon that a hardware change is the reason.

edclem

It seems to me that the more likely source of any sound quality improvement would be in better D/A convertors in the new receiver.

DVD Polizei

When I upgraded my system I upgraded to Blu-ray and a Pioneer Elite receiver from the Yamaha I did have. The surrounds and center are the same however I switched to smaller L/R channels with a seperate sub instead of large with an integrated sub.

It could be you had way too much sound being forced to the front channels, thereby drowning out the surrounds and even the center. Separate sub instead of integrated will also sound different (i.e., "better").

In addition to the new receiver you purchased, and so on, you probably do realize better sound to some degree. Whatever the reason, I'm glad you're hearing it.