Listening to a demo of swtiching a Marantz BR player hooked up to Anthem D2 between HDMI and multi channel analog inputs convinced me analog beats HDMI on High Rez audio any time (may be unless you venture into 20K+ Meridian territory). This induced me to first upgrade my Denon HDMI transport to a Pioneer BPD-09 (wich has stellar analog outs), using the analog MC bypass in my Onkyo 885. The differene was night and day.
Now the weakest link was my Onkyo 885 analog preamp section, so out went Onkyo and in came the Theta six shooter. Another dramatic improvement. The need for a single box BR / SACD player forced me to replace my Pioneer BDP-09 and Theta Compli SACD player with the Marantz ud9004. The Pioneer + Compli to Marantz improvement is quite as dramatic as was getting Pioneer or the six shooter, but it is definitely another step up.
While admittely the CBIII doing duties as Six Shooter controller and SSP for my satellite receiver is not efficient use of rackspace, the results are stellar. I am seriously wondering how much of an improvement CBIII + HDMI can deliver over SS + ud9004. On SACD the analog route will definitely rule. Playing regular DTS 5.1 sounds better through the SS than over S/PDIF into the CBIII Xtreme cards, so one has to wonder what HDMI magic can Theta possible deliver to outperform the the Marantz SS combo in the absence of Room EQ.
Let's hope Theta delivers so we can find out...
Now the weakest link was my Onkyo 885 analog preamp section, so out went Onkyo and in came the Theta six shooter. Another dramatic improvement. The need for a single box BR / SACD player forced me to replace my Pioneer BDP-09 and Theta Compli SACD player with the Marantz ud9004. The Pioneer + Compli to Marantz improvement is quite as dramatic as was getting Pioneer or the six shooter, but it is definitely another step up.
While admittely the CBIII doing duties as Six Shooter controller and SSP for my satellite receiver is not efficient use of rackspace, the results are stellar. I am seriously wondering how much of an improvement CBIII + HDMI can deliver over SS + ud9004. On SACD the analog route will definitely rule. Playing regular DTS 5.1 sounds better through the SS than over S/PDIF into the CBIII Xtreme cards, so one has to wonder what HDMI magic can Theta possible deliver to outperform the the Marantz SS combo in the absence of Room EQ.
Let's hope Theta delivers so we can find out...