Like I said In my first post, ALL audio through the new boxes is compressed with Dolby audio compression, then converted to Dolby 5.1 regardless of the original source material. Sometimes it's ok, most times a bad compromise. Verizon has their reasons they say and are supposed to be working on a fix for some time in the beginning of the year. The older 7200 boxes had an audio pass through option that allowed your equipment to do the decoding, and sounded way better than the current boxes. The same applies to their video scaling which cant be turned off any more. Your TV may have better scaling than the box, but you'll never find out unless you try OTA. If you think any other provider is better, I can say from personal experience that ATT Uverse is better for Audio, but they too apply video scaling in the box that cant be defeated, and there is no way to access the service menu to make system level changes. Also your TV may or may not be able to send DD5.1 out the optical out. No current TV can send higher level audio schemes via optical than DD5.1. The only way you have a chance is if you are using eARC, and to do that both the box and the TV and the soundbar have to be capable.
