RE: Re: AVR300

["Phil Harris" <phil@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Hmmm.... I was in two minds about which was better, but it
> was listening to a live album (Cinerama live in belfast) that
> made me favour the denon - it ust seemed more "live" than
the arcam.
> The other thing is I'm not 100% convinced the arcam was set
> up right - the guy seemed to think that it switched to audio
> bypass mode automatically when just bunging in a normal CD,
> but I dunno....
> I faffed with a few dsp modes and got a much better result usign
"party"
> mode than what he felt was 2 channel stereo - but I wanted to
> try it in just stereo mode so again, this was meaningless.
> It did not help that he did not have the right remotes for
> each amp - claiming the originals broken/loaned to customers...

OK - set up the AVR300 last night but since it was late and Jo and DS were
in bed I didn't have much chance to have a play (or even set it up
correctly). I'm running is as a 5.1 system with Miller & Kreisel
LCR55's for
front left / centre / right and Polk LS f/x dipole/bipole rears -
subwooferage is provided by a (now discontinued) Miller & Kreisel VX-7
sub.

I spent about half an hour setting up speaker distances and levels this
morning - itself a much simpler process than on my current Yammy DSP-A1,
nice to see that these things have become easier to set up - and whilst not
as straightforward as the Pioneer AX10's
stick-the-mic-where-your-head-goes-and-hit-the-button approach it was
really
pretty painless (as long as you have an SPL meter).

Next was get the HTPC installed up with PowerDVD (whilst I wait for the
supposedly imminent release of TheaterTek V2.0 this weekend) so that I can
start to squirt some PC generated audio through the Arcam and sit back and
wait for wifey and DS to bugger off out.

Gotta say that my father in law came round this morning and was asking me
what I thought and I said to him that I'd be taking it back in a fortnight
when I go for the Z9 demo ... I was pretty unimpressed from what I heard
last night but then again what can you do in the way of stretching a 7 x
100w AV amp at midnight when wifey and sprog are up in bed and we have
neighbours?

After a quick run through of Monsters Inc and now Armageddon I have to say
I'm revising my opinion a bit ...

It *ISN'T* in the AX10 mould (if you hadn't worked it out that's my fave AV
amp that is in any way affordable) - the AX10 will take a movie soundtrack,
pick you up and stuff you inside it, give you a good hard shaking and spit
you out. It has balls the size of Godzillas and will pretty much pile out
as
much current as your speakers need to spank them into submission whilst at
the same time being able to play music without sounding the amplifier
equivalent of an English schoolkid trying to speak French.

What it *IS* is a damn good decoder hooked up to a perfectly acceptable set
of amplifiers - the roller coaster sounds of the door hall in Monsters Inc.
certainly separate out from the general background "noise" better
than they
do with the DSP-A1 - similarly the start of Armageddon, where the meteors
first start showering down, is really well controlled with the meteors
taking a real "position" in space rather than being a noise whose
location
is pinned down because you can see where they are on the screen. Of course
it does hit its limits earlier than the big iron of the Pioneer AX10 - when
I had the AX10 on loan I don't think I ever got it to break sweat (although
it runs very hot - too toasty even for our cat to sleep on) but I've
definitely heard the Arcam start to sound a tad raggy this afternoon
although it was pretty bloody loud (and hectic) at the time.

So not completely convinced if it will go back in a fornight now ...
Depends
on how much the Z9 rocks my socks (or whether I can find a way to get an
AX10 a bit cheaper).

> You have such a way with words phil....so evocative of the
> image behind them
> :)

Strangely enough you aren't the first person to mention that...

Phil