Ask S&V

Q My Panasonic DMP-BDT500 Blu-ray player has four 192-kHz/32-bit Burr-Brown DACs. To take full advantage of these, should I use analog RCA cables to connect the player to my Denon AV receiver? I would only use an analog connection to the receiver’s CD input for music and would still use an HDMI hookup so that the Denon could decode high-resolution soundtracks on Blu-ray.—Paolo Fiorentino via e-mail

A Yes, you will need to run RCA cables from the Panasonic’s analog stereo output to take advantage of the player’s DACs. And while there’s nothing wrong with also making an HDMI connection from the player and letting the Denon handle the work of decoding high-rez movie soundtracks, another option would be to run four pairs of RCA cables from the player’s 7.1-channel analog output. Blu-ray players like the DMP-BDT500 feature built-in DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD decoding, so you don’t necessarily need to use an HDMI connection to a receiver or processor to hear soundtracks in high rez. Depending on your setup, it might even simplify things. Just make sure your receiver provides a 7.1-channel analog input to accept the RCA cables coming from the player, and you’ll be in business.