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Topic: Which would you buy DTS-6D or DTS-6AD?

Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 02-08-2004 09:30 PM

Brad Allen...

The XD-10 is a hard drive based DTS player. As such, you only use your DVD-ROM drives to load in your discs once...after that the unit runs off the hard drive. From a reliability standpoint, this going to be more reliable and less costly to upkeep as compared to changing out CD-ROMs (or DVD-ROMs nowadays).

The XD-10 is clearly the way DTS is leaning for the future as well. I wouldn't be surprised to see the 6D go the way of the 6 and loose support.

I agree with the others on the orginal DTS-6 contruction though. They used truely industrial CD-ROM drive and the build quality of eveything inside was top notch. They also used Jesen audio transformers on the outputs which also was very smart...no noise problems there. I believe the original DTS-6 though did have some headroom problems as compared to the 6D.

For a DTS digital system...I'd pair a XD-10 to the Panastereo CSP-1200. That is a pretty darn flexible and good sounding system. With the current SMART deal, it is even more cost effective too.

Steve

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Jack Ondracek
Film God

Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002

posted 02-09-2004 12:43 AM

We have 1 DTS-6 unit, 2 DTS-6D's and one Dolby, all running through (loaded) CP-65's. I'm very happy with all of them in that configuration.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 02-09-2004 09:50 PM

I agree that its pretty cool how the DTS XD-10 can play a wide variety of formats, including 24-bit/96kHz audio.

Concerning the question of how Dolby would counter, it certainly would not make any sense to answer with a sound-on-film based system. There's only so many pixels you can get printed reliably on a film strip, and Dolby chose a pretty low number from the outset. To get much higher bit levels, you need much faster CCD cameras to "see" the high rez bitmap. And then you may have to laser record it to film. Overall it just seems pretty unfeasible. Dual systems are the way to go.

Of course, it should be said with all the hype surrounding "digital projection" things like next generation surround sound formats have taken a back seat. Right now, does anyone care if the standard improves above lossy compresed DD, DTS and SDDS?

If anything, DTS needs to work hard on getting its XD-10 units into the field as a "simple" way of eventually doing fully uncompressed movie surround audio. That's the future. These current lossy-compressed formats are mere interim steps. We're already seeing some steps into the future given the fact many special venue theaters and "D-Cinema" shows use uncompressed 5.1 channel Linear PCM.

If I were running things at either DTS or Panastereo, I would get on the stick about getting some kind of simple, affordable, next generation audio system together that both includes something like the XD-10 processor and a top-quality cinema processor to be able to handle a wide variety of uncompressed LPCM surround configurations at anywhere from 16-bit 44.1kHz to 24-bit/96kHz.

The way many of the D-Cinema systems seem to be set up is the LPCM surround system is proprietary and comes with the D-Cinema system. Potentially companies like DTS could get squeezed out in the long run.

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