1. MLPCM

Basically no difference between the BD-P1400 and PS3 via HDMI. Comparison was made using Cars, Ratatouille and Kung Fu Hustle.

 

2. Dolby Digital+ / TrueHD

The BDP-1400's bitstream output decoded by Onkyo sounds way better than the decoded MLPCM offered by PS3 for some materials. There were a lot more punch and enhanced clarity when playing back a Dolby HD demo disc, while Ghost Riders yielded only marginal sonic improvements.

 

3. DTS-HD Master Audio

Naturally, the Samsung is the king here as PS3 is unable to support DTS-HD at the moment. Compared to Dolby TrueHD, this sounds equally impressive, though I personally felt the soundtracks are a little more aggressive. Comparison was made using Fantastic 4 and X-men: The Last Stand.

 

Feel free to chip your personal opinion for those with similar gears especially for Audio using the flagship Sony ES.

 

Phil

 

 

 

 

One way to test this objectively is to get a Real Time Analyzer like TrueRTA and plot both peak charts for comparison.

One way to test this objectively is to get a Real Time Analyzer like TrueRTA and plot both peak charts for comparison.

 

Too bad I don't have the equipment. Even so, how do you pick up clarity from the chart? Peak high frequency response?

 

The differences between PS3 and P1400 using the DD+ and TrueHD disc are very obvious. Sam, you are welcome to drop by my place to convince yourself.

 

Phil

No, I meant to change the level on two charts until they are similar (implying that output levels are similar) and then see if you hear the difference because louder generally sounds better and you can pick up stuff that you can't hear in quieter passages. If you don't, it might be comparing two systems that are calibrated differently. If the internal decoding is louder at certain (or all) frequencies, then that might account for the additional "clarity"

 

If the PS3 sounds worse when the output is similar, it could simply be that the decoding quality isn't up to the Onkyo's or that other internal circuits are inferior. All I'm saying is that its not a given (and shouldn't be) that it is better to decode in the receiver vs the player. You are after all, comparing two different players, By the same token, a Onkyo 605 could sound worse decoding than an Onkyo 875.

 

To reduce the differences, what you might also try is 1400 to Onkyo bitstream vs LPCM to the same Onkyo. If they sound different at identical output levels then the 1400's decoding may be inferior, but the internal circuits, cables etc would be the same, eliminating variables.

 

Thanks for your invite. If I find the time, I'll blow the dust off my RTA and bring it over if it stil works ;D

Thanks for your invite. If I find the time, I'll blow the dust off my RTA and bring it over if it stil works ;D

 

That would be fun!

 

Phil

The other thing which I mentioned before is that MPCM is more prone to jitter and clocking issues over HDMI vs bitstream.

 

It's like using a cheap coax vs good coax for sending out stereo PCM. I can notice differences even with a modest system.

 

 

Why would MPCM be more prone to jitter than bitstream? The amount of data being sent should be close like 25-30 Mbits/s unless bitstream has some built in error correction...

 

I thought that jitter and clocking issues were usuallly used to compare optical vs coax, not good quality coax vs poor quality coax. I can hear the differences too, but I thought there were just due to signal loss in poor quality cables. I notice the difference between using a $2 video cable and a high quality belden cable, but hardly between a good belden cable and a $500 interconnect. I hear far more differences in speaker cables, but then thats probably due to losses associated to their length.

Yes bitstream signals are "reclocked" after decoding.

 

MPCM signals are just PCM signals and if I remember something c722 posted before, the HDMI MPCM protocol is not particularly designed to cater for clocking/jitter errors.

 

 

yes that's right, for HDMI audio transmission audio does not have its own clock. It's derived from the video clock.  This makes clock resync (i.e. iLink/DenonLink "master clock override") way not possible.  audio in bitstream has no clock either. But by virtue of undecoded the audio stream clock is generated in receiver anyway, thus reduce one level of possible jitters.

 

Although personally I find it difficult to comprehend the difference between MPCM and bitstream alone can be that great.  For the PS3 case, it could well be something else.  This is not the first case ppl reported bitstream just sounded better.

Interesting, but one could also argue that any jitter in the bitstream would be made even worse if it is decoded downstream as errors would be amplified. Kind of the logic as to why its better to deinterlace and scale video in the player rather than the display

Interesting, but one could also argue that any jitter in the bitstream would be made even worse if it is decoded downstream as errors would be amplified. Kind of the logic as to why its better to deinterlace and scale video in the player rather than the display

 

But bitstream signals aren't affected by jitter. There's error correction built in, and then the decoded PCM itself is reclocked.

 

Back to the old SPDIF cable quality, did you ever use crappy/good cables and see the PCM vs Dolby Digital comparison?

 

For me:

good SPDIF - good PCM and good Dolby Digital

crappy SPDIF - bad PCM and generally good Dolby Digital

Yes, I remember the discussion on avsforum some time ago. In fact, I found it:

 

http://archive.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=155075

 

I'd agree with you on the SPDIF cable quality, but HDMI cables have huge bandwidth.