Sorry probably a real newb question. But wondering should i run optical or 5.1 for better audio. Oh yeah still looking for other speakers...

I believe what you meant was optical, or coax, if not then go optical if you are running a decent reciever and let the reciever do the decoding. If you meant optical or coax.... that is up to debate but in my personal opinion I like the coax input better, but to each their own

You would want to use the optical out if you are going to want to use DTS as your DVD player does not have a built in DTS decoder. Also your Onkyo receiver has a much better DAC(digital to analog) converter compared to your DVD player so you would want to use the optical out for that reason as well.

optical

sound is 100% identical, so get Coax because it's a sturdier cable with a more solid connection.

avcables.com has a good $20 digital coaxial cable, and partsexpress.com has a good optical made by Dayton audio which costs $7.80 (about $14 shipped).

avoid the high priced Monster, bettercables.com, rhinocables.com cables, in my opinion, it just isn't worth it.

But some people think it's totally insane to spend any less than 10-15% of the total cost of your system on cables, so my opinion that high priced cables are a scam may be met with resistance by many. But I got sub cable, component cable, speaker cables, digital coaxial, and optical cable for all under $100, and love them all.

jabbas, I agree.

The digital bits don't care if they are optical or coaxial. The main difference comes down to these:

1. Optical is less subject to possibly picking up "noise" from elecrtomagnetic interfence. But note that this is the reason for the ground shielding on the coaxial cable, so it's probably a non-issue.

2. You are more limited on the bend radius for optical. If you bend it too tight you can damage it.

3. One of the cables, probably optical, will cost a little more.

These to me are not issues to worry about. The more important consideration for me was what outputs and inputs did I have, and I used whatever worked for them.

I also don't believe in snake oil of expensive cables. Don't by crap, but a good cable does not have to have the huge overkill factor of something like Monster. It's all about marketing and perception though... and people will swear when they spend more, that it sounds better. Which is cool. But people also think they get horsepower mods on their cars when they put a sticker on it.