Unfortunately the Home Cinema market is a Jungle of different standards – and a lot of misunderstandings in general. This makes it difficult to achieve the best possible Sound Quality from your Home Cinema system simply because it is so easy to make a poor decision when setting the system up – and in many cases simply using the Out-Of-Box defaults are not resulting in the best possible Sound Quality.

The market for TV, Video and Home Cinema is in a constant change – and this makes it difficult always to have the best equipment. With the Dynaton CubiQ Series products, we took the full consequence and applied a simple philosophy that we know is the best in High-End Stereo: Use the shortest possible signal-path and do not include “silly” functions and features that do not have a direct impact upon securing the best possible Sound Quality. In all Home Cinema systems comprising of Component Audio Products (where you have your DVD/Bluray DVD Player in one box and your Surround Sound Amplifier/Receiver in yet another box) you are paying for no less than 2x Surround Sound Decoders – because there is a Surround Sound Decoder in your DVD/Bluray Player and yet another one in your Surround Sound Amplifier/Receiver. Should Dynaton follow the general principle of having a Surround Sound Decoder inside the CubiQ RoomIE or CubiQ Selector then you would pay for at least 3x Surround Sound Decoders and hand on heart, you only need one… So we simply decided not to implement any Surround Sound Decoder in the Dynaton CubiQ Series Products as this would increase the price unnecessarily. Instead we prefer to give you the best solution that money can buy you and focus on the core: Truthful Sound!

If you look at the Home Cinema market in general the Movie Source has been the fastest changing with new systems all the time – and this means that your Home Cinema then becomes “obsolete” when new systems are introduced. Your look at the everlasting battle between different Movie Sources. First there was only TV, then came VCR’s but in no less than 3 different (and incompatible formats) Betamax, VHS and Video 2000 – then the DVD Player emerged also to be more or less a dinosaur of time today as Bluray DVD replaced the DVD. For a brief period of time there was Bluray 3D and now there is 4K and even possible 8K upcoming… The same goes for the Surround Sound Audio Formats – they keep on changing so our general advice to the clever Movie Lover is to buy a new Movie Player as the first investment in order to keep up with the ever changing formats. The reason that this is the clever investment is that the Movie Player will always have all the latest technology and if you just is patient in a couple of minutes then you can in fact benefit from the latest technology in your existing Home Cinema without having to swop all the equipment.

In terms of sound if you make sure always to buy a Movie Player that has Analog Outputs (which is not always the case so be aware of this when buying a new Movie Player). The advantage of having Analog Outputs is that this enables you to enjoy the latest Sound Format without necessarily to have 100% compatible equipment. Many Movie Lovers (and some Music Lovers that matter) believe that “Digital is better than Analog”. This may or may not be the case – it really depends… At the bottom-line it genuinely does not matter if you have Analog or Digital Sound if you do not make sure that you Control the Weakest Link as No Chain is Stronger Than The Weakest Link. In Home Stereo and Home Cinema the weakest link is by no way an issue of Analog or Digital Sound – the Room is always the Weakest Link so no matter if you have Analog or Digital Sound you cannot enjoy the best possible Sound Quality if you are not in control of the Weakest Link. To control the Weakest Link you need a CubiQ RoomIE!

If you do not have a CubiQ RoomIE then your errors from perfection are in the +15dB/-35dB range – and then it totally do not matter whether you have Analog or Digital Sound as the Movie Sound (or Music) is “destroyed” anyway… But with a CubiQ RoomIE and a CubiQ Selector you can use your Analog Sound from your Movie Player and reduce the error from perfection to typically +/-1dB. This is a far greater – and much more easily audible – improvement than worrying about your Movie Sound being Analog or Digital.

Tip: You will get Truthful Sound from your Movie Player’s Analog Output with CubiQ RoomIE and CubiQ Selector and this is far better than any Digital Sound that is not using Dynaton RoomIE…

Another potential advantage of using the Analog Outputs from your Movie Player is that you can then also surpass Digital Effects in your Surround Sound Amplifier/Receiver and that may also help improving the ultimate Sound Quality. So you should not really worry about using Analog instead of Digital in your Home Cinema!

That said you can of course also use Digital with CubiQ RoomIE and CubiQ Selector. All you need to do is to (manually) set-up your Movie Player to output LPCM Digital Output Format. This is by far the best option as it secure that you will never have Compressed Digital Audio but will enjoy the best possible Digital Sound Quality.

A word of warning: When using S/PDIF Coax or Toslink/Optical Digital Outputs from your Movie Player you will by default have Compressed Digital Audio – and honestly this is not what you want! You did most likely not buy an expensive modern Movie Player to get Compressed Digital Audio that has “destroyed” a lot of the Movie Sound information. You do not enjoy MP3 Compressed Audio Files – so why accept Compressed Digital Audio when you enjoy your favorite Movies? If your equipment cannot support the uncompressed LPCM Digital Format on your S/PDIF Coax or Toslink/Optical Digital Outputs then you will have far better Sound Quality when connecting the CubiQ RoomIE and the CubiQ Selector via your Analog Outputs!

Note: The S/PDIF specification do not formally support anything else than Compressed Digital Audio in Surround Sound so we do generally not recommend using S/PDIF for Digital Surround Sound! This means that you your use your Analog Outputs instead to achieve Truthful Sound!

The only Digital Sound that currently work with an uncompressed Digital Signal is HDMI.

So for best Truthful Sound, we recommend either Analog Outputs from your Movie Player – or connection via HDMI with uncompressed LPCM output.