Decoding lossless soundtracks: audible differences

RBFC

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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Albuquerque, NM
www.fightingconcepts.com
I've reads some reports that folks can hear audible differences when decoding a lossless soundtrack (Dolby TrueHD or DTS-MA) using either Bitstream from the player or LPCM from the player. In one instance, the player does the decoding and in the other instance, the receiver/processor does the decoding. Does anyone have any reasons that there would be audible differences between the two implementations?

Thanks, and Happy New Year!

Lee
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
15,813
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Seattle, WA
At high level, no. If you give the bit stream to the AVR/processor to decode, the transfer across HDMI link is therefore "data." People assume this means that jitter is done away with. Unfortunately, such is not the case. Once the local processor (DSP) decodes the bit stream, it then needs to output them using the HDMI clock. Otherwise, audio and video data lose sync. So we are back to square one, using the HDMI clock to drive out DAC. I think the incorrect assumption about how the bit stream works makes people think it sounds better when decoded by the processor as opposed to it actually sounding different.

At a micro level, local decoding or not, changes the signature of the system on power supplies and leakage onto the DAC clock circuits. There is no way to quantify this or say which is better as the DSP is always doing something.

For best functionality, decoding in the player is best as that way it can perform audio mixing for the extras.

And oh, happy new year to you too Lee!
 

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