Thread: What receiver should I buy?

Posts: 51
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Post by bryzmon January 31, 2011 (11 of 51)
Onkyo HT-RC270 does DSD and within the price range.

Post by mercutio February 1, 2011 (12 of 51)
I bought the Onkyo RC-260, because it was two inches shallower than the 270. Such are the factors in buying equipment.

I was happy enough with my old stereo equipment, but I’ve followed SACD-net for a while, tracked the conversation topics, and decided to try out SACD. Kal Rubinson was particularly persuasive. He confirmed that any disc player will do if it’s just going to be used as a transport to send the DSD via HDMI. Most a-v receivers are going to process DSD as PCM, but at up to a 192/24 rate. Kal and others persuaded me that the best should not be the enemy of the good, i.e., something like the RC-260 is going to provide a resolution that is better than what I was getting via 44.1 cd. The RC-260 is providing a suite of processing that is interesting and, also, fun to tinker with. The Audessey dynamic EQ is especially nice, allowing one to listen at low volumes yet still hear a good dynamic range.

Total bill:

$113 for a Pioneer universal player (no Blu-ray; I have one of those in my tv/family room), via Amazon

$284 (!) for the RC-260, via Amazon

$122 for surround speakers to match my mains, via Ebay

$69 for a matching center speaker, via Craig’s list

$94 via Ebay for an Oppo 971-hd, which as it turned out didn’t pass through the DSD via HDMI but instead sent it as PCM. I’ll give it to my son or re-sell it.

I admire people seeking to ever upgrade their systems. However, I’m paying tuition for a third child to go to college, so I’ll need to stick to budget, good-enough equipment. The WAF is always an issue. But also, in my experience, I haven’t seen sufficient marginal return on sound when I’ve auditioned higher-end items, such as a $1000 cd player. Maybe it’s there, but I can’t hear it.

I listen to my daughter play the violin; she usually practices in the kitchen, which is lined with wood cabinets and has wood flooring. The room and adjacent space fill with sound and vibrate to the violin’s frequencies. That’s the sound of music. As more than one SACD-net poster has noted, live music is the real deal, and I’m lucky enough to live in college town that has live professional and student music going on all the time.

While an electronic music system can’t reproduce a live experience, a system can provide a pretty good facsimile and give you access to unique productions and performances. For several years I haven’t bought cd’s because I listened to near-cd quality material on Rhapsody over a Squeezebox. But now, because of my new system, I’ve started buying hybrid cd’s. I suspect other folks with universal players will do the same thing, so maybe we’ll see an uptick in demand for SACD format, at least in classical music.

Post by flyingdutchman April 19, 2011 (13 of 51)
So again, what receivers these days passes DSD without PCM conversion over HDMI?

Post by Disbeliever April 19, 2011 (14 of 51)
flyingdutchman said:

So again, what receivers these days passes DSD without PCM conversion over HDMI?

Ask the manufacturers or their distributors

Post by flyingdutchman April 19, 2011 (15 of 51)
Disbeliever said:

Ask the manufacturers or their distributors

Why? Are you too lazy to answer or just too belligerent to give a damn? I ask here because people have experience with different receivers.

Post by Kal Rubinson April 19, 2011 (16 of 51)
flyingdutchman said:

Why? Are you too lazy to answer or just too belligerent to give a damn? I ask here because people have experience with different receivers.

I doubt that anyone has made a careful survey of the changing landscape of AVRs to be able to answer this question. (Have you checked at AVS forums?) At best, most of us have experience with a couple of them. So, if you really want a fairly comprehensive list, you will have to do it yourself or, at the very least, compile the list from the fragmentary information that others can contribute. Unless you are too lazy.....

Kal

Post by Osbert Parsley April 19, 2011 (17 of 51)
Kal Rubinson said:

I doubt that anyone has made a careful survey of the changing landscape of AVRs to be able to answer this question. (Have you checked at AVS forums?) At best, most of us have experience with a couple of them. So, if you really want a fairly comprehensive list, you will have to do it yourself or, at the very least, compile the list from the fragmentary information that others can contribute. Unless you are too lazy.....

Kal

Leaving the creeping note of acrimony aside, it would be helpful perhaps if a thread were set up to list the receivers that can accept the DSD signal via HDMI and then convert it straight to analogue without going via PCM.

I know many (including Kal) say that conversion of the DSD to PCM is necessary if you want to use such things as Audyssey to balance and improve the in-room effect of the surround-sound from the speakers, but it would be interesting to those of us who prefer to tweak the room rather than the system to get the best sound experience.

The refusal of the audio manufacturers to be transparent about such issues as this is one factor that I believe has hampered a broad adoption of SACD across the music-listening market.

Post by Kal Rubinson April 19, 2011 (18 of 51)
Osbert Parsley said:

Leaving the creeping note of acrimony aside, it would be helpful perhaps if a thread were set up to list the receivers that can accept the DSD signal via HDMI and then convert it straight to analogue without going via PCM.

Agreed.

Post by Disbeliever April 19, 2011 (19 of 51)
flyingdutchman said:

Why? Are you too lazy to answer or just too belligerent to give a damn? I ask here because people have experience with different receivers.

I only find out what I know by communicating directly with the manufacturer, I am certainly not lazy in these matters or belligerent despite giving some manufacturers a hard time. I have done more than anybody else that I know to find out correct info from various manufacturers even when they try to mislead consumers by being evasive. However I can not be expected to know everything as you seem to want. It seems you are the lazy one here.

Post by Disbeliever April 19, 2011 (20 of 51)
Kal Rubinson said:

Agreed.

This has been done not so long ago but I do not remember the thread or Forum, obviously an update may be useful but my experience is that conversion to PCM is not a problem, and is in fact desirable if I could find a better sounding receiver then the very versatile ( D.L.L. H.A.T.S. excellent phono stage & FM tuner) comparatively low cost Sony that converts to PCM I would. However it is best to use a good stereo amplifier to feed front speakers and use the receiver as a pre-pro for MCH SACD.

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