Audio with HD

[Lionel]

Can anybody help me? I have been through the tortuous process of buying an home cinema set up : Panasonic 42PX60B Plsama, Denon 1507 amp, Denon 1730 dvd and Tannoy FX1 surroiund sound speakers. Yesterday, at least, the Sky HD box was installed, so I was feeling quite excited....

However, I am a bit flummoxed about the audio connections. I have optical cables from Sky+ to amp and from dvd to amp. I expected to be able to play any TV broadcast through the amp and speakers, but I could do so only after I connected the TV to the amp via a pair of phono leads. I found the same thing when I played audio cds via my dvd player - I had to add a couple of phonos. The instruction books are written in advanced Swahili so I can't work out whether this is what I should expect. Does anybody know if it is? Do the optical connections only kick in when a surround sound signal is received on a broadcast or on a dvd? Now I have made phono connections will I find that the optical cables are effectively redundant and I won't be able to play surround sound properly?

Moving on, I find that the Cambridge Audio "Professional" optical cables I bought from Richer Sounds fall out of their sockets if a flies brushes against them! Does Denon kit have lousy optical sockets or is is this an inherent problem? Do Cambridge make lousy optical leads? Should I just change them out for co-ax?

Any advice would be gratefully received. Lionel

[Jimdefruit]

Welcome to the forum Lionel. You lucky b****r all that lovely new gear to play with.

We are a satellite help forum and as most of your questions are about audo, you are unlikely to get a definitive answer unless one of our members also has a Denon 1730.

I would suggest your best approach would be to check into _http://www.avforums.com/forums/index.php, my favourite AV forum where full answers will be available.

[BGonaSTICK]

Yes, can't help with the amp side of things in any great detail, but I would certainly expect the optical-out from both the Sky HD box and your DVD player to be on regardless of whether it's a 5.1 output or not.

If your Sky box is connected to your TV via HDMI, this should also carry a full surround-sound audio.

As far as your Cambridge leads are concerned, it's a reasonable brand, but if you're not happy with them then you should take them back. They're no good if they don't fit properly. Did you buy the amplifier from Richer Sounds too?

You should definitely resolve the optical connundrum, because the sound quality will be massively superior via the optical connection.

As far as the Sky HD box is concerned, because the default audio output is probably HDMI, it might be a menu setting that needs changing. Does your DVD player also have HDMI?