Which is a better carrier of audio an hdmi cable or optical digital?

Question

i bought this pioneer surround system for my xbox 360 and im wanting to know if the sound will be better from the xbox or from the tv since the xbox is connected with an hdmi cable to my tv

Answer 1

I would recommend connecting to xbox optical digital, signal is faster from source instead of going through the TV.  The TV might delay the sound because of encoding, I don't believe you will lose any quality since HDMI is in digital.  I have a LCD Philip and I connect the surround sound to my DVD player.  The sound from my surround sound is faster and the sound coming out  my of my LCD.  It sound kind of like a echo.

Answer 2

TVs can't play multi-channel audio, so only your surround system can decode full surround audio, like 5.1 DD.

You can have audio from both HDMi and s/pdif.

HDMI provides convenience, but the actual bits are the same regardless whether you carry them over HDMI or s/pdif.

Of course the TV and the surround system have different decoders/speakers so it will sound differently.