RCA analogue sound doesn't cut it...

[Readysound]

Hello all, sorry for the long post, but bear with me on this...

I have a problem. I bought my A100 and hooked the sound up to my receiver (decent amp) via the analogue RCA connectors. Despite the NMT not being a great audio player (in terms of interface) I really liked the idea of being able to play my music collection, then turn my TV off, just having music on...

Then I decided I'd like my TV to go through the receiver too (for normal TV)... so I hooked the TV up via RCA jacks to my amp on another channel... happy days, now I could switch between TV and NMT on the amp to get them both going through the speakers... All is good! ...

...until I realised.... I use a HDMI cable to connect my NMT to my TV... since NMT audio is also passed through the HDMI cable I decided to compare the sound from the 2 channels on the amp : one direct from the NMT's analogue out, and the other from the analogue output of the TV... I tested them playing a high quality MP3 on the NMT @ 320Kb/s... the difference is IMMENSE!!!!

The output from my Samsung TV is so much better - so much 'fuller', bassier, and yet clearer! I couldn't believe it. I can only put it down to my TV having a much better DAC (digital to analogue converter) than the NMT....MUCH better!

So... my problem is I can't possibly go back to the NMT RCA out, so I just go through the TV for everything. But this means I have to leave the TV switched on when playing loads of music on the NMT! I can't find a way of just turning my TV off but leavinig audio processing on, and I don't know of a way to get the NMT to disable video only or blank the display when playing music. ARRRRGH. Can anyone help? I'm scared of getting screen burn with the static background on music playback.

Apols for the long post, but any help really would be appreciated!

P.S: SPDIF isn't an option because of my amp.

Thanks,

Readysound

[chris57]

Why can you use coaxial/SPDIF, even my 5 year old Sony receiver has coaxial input. What make/model of amp/receiver to you have?

Then you could have digital audio straight into your speakers. Even better than analogue after digital passthrough to your TV.

Even if your amp cant be used I would consider a cheap amp off ebay with DTS decoding, cost you $100 or so.