Best way to send sound from Blu-ray player to PC speakers

[Janzki]

Soon I'm getting myself an LG BD390 Blu-ray player, but for now I'm going to have to use my old Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speakers. The player has optical and coaxial digital outputs and 7.1 analog outs (RCA). Logitech has optical and coaxial digital ins and 3 x 3.5mm stereo inputs (which I used to use when the set was still connected to my PC). The Logitech built-in receiver is able to decode DD and DTS, but not the latest HD audio formats. The Blu-ray player is supposed to be capable of decoding DTS-HD and all the other "new" Blu-ray audio streams.

What would be the best way to connect the player to the speaker set? 3 x RCA to 3.5mm stereo or digital optical? As I've understood, I'm losing the HD part when using optical. But couldn't the player's perhaps deficient decoding negate the benefits of the analog route? Can't really decide between the two approaches.

 

[ashmedai]

At a guess, the circuit in the player is probably superior to the one in the Logitech pod. But you could try both - analog interconnect to use the player, digital to use the Logitech.

And yes, S/PDIF uses compression to handle more than two channels. This may or may not be audible to you.

 

[Janzki]

It's just that I don't have any cables yet. Still, maybe I should do what you suggested: buy both and return the other cable after testing. Thanks for the insight.

 

[ashmedai]

Might help that coax S/PDIF basically uses an RCA cable. But keep in mind that very thin gauge cables may have trouble getting sufficient S/N / effective bandwidth to work.

I'd grab a few reasonable-gauge RCA cables off Monoprice, and then maybe toss one of the cheaper optical cables on top anyway just because it's cheap.