I feel like I should know the answers to these questions; most of the people I know think of me as an insanely obsessive audiophile -- although I increasingly think of audiophilia kind of like being a Red Sox fan or a Deadhead: the devotion of moderately serious fans seems insane to civilians and completely pedestrian to true diehards.
Anyway, I'm in the process of downsizing my system. For the past five years, I've been using a Krell Standard SACD with a Cary SLP-308 preamp, a Rotel 1080 amp, and a pair of B&W 804s. (All of those components are, fwiw, on sale over at Audiogon.) Since I have assembled a decent collection of lossless and hi-res digital audio tracks -- i.e., 24/96 or better -- I'm also taking this opportunity to make my system more digital friendly.
To that end, I'd more or less decided on getting the Peachtree iNova for $1,799 (Stereophile has raved about both the iDecco and the Nova in the past) and also getting the Oppo BDP-95 ($999) as an all-in-one SACD/DVD-A/HDCD/CD/Blu-Ray/Blue-Ray 3D player.
Here are my questions:
1. HDMI connectivity: I know in the past, there's been some discussion as to whether you needed to use an HDMI output to get the highest possible audio quality from the Oppo players. The Peachtrees don't have HDMI -- for inputs, they have a USB, two coax, two optical, and an iPod dock. Would using either an optical or coax to connect the Peachtree and the Oppo give an equally high audio quality as using an HDMI for audio output?
2. The advantages of the BDP-95 over the BDP-93, which is half the price. In his CNet review, Steve Guttenberg talked about how the only real advantage of the 95 over the 93 is the DAC -- but I think that's pretty much moot running through the Peachtree. Is that right?
3. Finally...surround sound. Since this system would obviously be integrated into my home theater, I wouldn't be able to set up a 5.1 system because the Peachtree only does stereo output. That doesn't bother me right now all that much...but if I ever wanted to do a 5.1 setup, is there any way that would be possible to incorporate within this system, or would I need to cut out the Peachtree entirely?
I feel like I should know the answers to these questions; most of the people I know think of me as an insanely obsessive audiophile -- although I increasingly think of audiophilia kind of like being a Red Sox fan or a Deadhead: the devotion of moderately serious fans seems insane to civilians and completely pedestrian to true diehards.
Anyway, I'm in the process of downsizing my system. For the past five years, I've been using a Krell Standard SACD with a Cary SLP-308 preamp, a Rotel 1080 amp, and a pair of B&W 804s. (All of those components are, fwiw, on sale over at Audiogon.) Since I have assembled a decent collection of lossless and hi-res digital audio tracks -- i.e., 24/96 or better -- I'm also taking this opportunity to make my system more digital friendly.
To that end, I'd more or less decided on getting the Peachtree iNova for $1,799 (Stereophile has raved about both the iDecco and the Nova in the past) and also getting the Oppo BDP-95 ($999) as an all-in-one SACD/DVD-A/HDCD/CD/Blu-Ray/Blue-Ray 3D player.
Here are my questions:
1. HDMI connectivity: I know in the past, there's been some discussion as to whether you needed to use an HDMI output to get the highest possible audio quality from the Oppo players. The Peachtrees don't have HDMI -- for inputs, they have a USB, two coax, two optical, and an iPod dock. Would using either an optical or coax to connect the Peachtree and the Oppo give an equally high audio quality as using an HDMI for audio output?
2. The advantages of the BDP-95 over the BDP-93, which is half the price. In his CNet review, Steve Guttenberg talked about how the only real advantage of the 95 over the 93 is the DAC -- but I think that's pretty much moot running through the Peachtree. Is that right?
3. Finally...surround sound. Since this system would obviously be integrated into my home theater, I wouldn't be able to set up a 5.1 system because the Peachtree only does stereo output. That doesn't bother me right now all that much...but if I ever wanted to do a 5.1 setup, is there any way that would be possible to incorporate within this system, or would I need to cut out the Peachtree entirely?