Ht receivers?

[hyperducky]

Jon,

I would love to see some home theater receivers on the bench. Since I and I'm sure many others cannot afford to have separates. Is this an issue because most ht receivers have DAC's built in does that make it difficult to bench against separate amplifiers and preamps?



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[Kal Rubinson]

I think most AVRs are sold by the feature set.

[Ovation]

Pretty much. At some point I'll likely add a power amp but, in my current space and levels of usage (infrequent and late in the evening, usually) I'm not using my AVR's power beyond a fraction (small room with Yamaha RXA-1000), let alone require extra power. In a bigger room I'd already have a separate power amp, though I might still be using an AVR as a pre/pro for features and cost benefits.

Any AVR with truly amazing power is likely in the price range of separates and it would make more sense to future proof with an amp.

[JonMarsh]

Though I am guilty of a number of serious video indulgences in the past, including large CRT projectors and early HT digital projectors, I don't have a conventional multichannel AV setup. My GF does.

What I do have is an M51 DAC with HDMI pass through- so I can decode PCM audio off the blu-ray player in my mancave and pass it through to the Sony 50" display in my "mancave".

Even AV processors, as opposed to receivers, tend to not have particularly stellar audio performance- though they nominally work with 24 bit audio, the actual noise floor of the units at 1VRMS output from a pre-pro is often not that good... It's THD+N that counts. Now, I'm not saying it's not good enough for movies and other video, but for music? Well, for example, we've been working on an OEM NCORE solution for some of the guys, and TEK had bought a relatively recent high end model Pre Pro, and when we started looking into the ratings, in detail, it was a bit disappointing.

My Audio Precision is an APx555 Dual Domain, which means I can test digital in and out and analog in and out and any combination of the above, for the most part. OTOH, what I've been testing right now is stuff I have on hand; and there will be some things tested for other forum members and other purposes, of course- a lot of the latter.


The weak points of AV Pre-Pros and receivers tend to be the volume control IC's, and the fact that most of them run the analog circuitry on power supplies of +/- 7V, which doesn't leave much headroom to stay away from the area's where common mode effects in current sources and level translators start to interfere with the audio performance. What I mean by that, is that a high grade op amp running on +/- 15V or 18V supplies will start to see secondary internal distortion effects (regardless of output load) often around 3V away from the rail voltages. With these higher rails, that's well away from where you're pumping signal on a normal basis. With +/- 7V rails (even on "high end" units like Marantz 8801 and 8802) you don't have the same headroom, and one needs to keep the gain structure down for the signal level to not get too high. But consequently, you're also running up into the noise floor as the limiting factor.

Yes, I'm being picky here, and for a lot of folks it's Mach Nichts. But then again, for a lot it isn't, and if one thinks or hopes that a typical HT processor will do the same job on music that a good separates system will, both from the audio digital decoding, and the signal path, well, I suggest getting out more and listening- go listen to some live acoustic music, and take some of your favorite disks in to a good high end shop. You may not be able to afford that gear, now; maybe never, but you'll have calibrated your expectations better, and may be more likely to recognize and take advantage of an exceptional bang for the buck piece of gear if you come across it.

I'm not a reviewer and don't intend to become one, but I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to have some lists of recommended gear based on actual use and testing at various price points. Expect to see more of that in the future; unfortunately, like probably everyone else, I have a lot of what I think might be good ideas, and a lot less free time than I'd like... :W :B

[JonMarsh]

And yeah, I'm planning on doing a major update to GF's HT setup with new custom designed speskers (to go with the new sub built last year) and more modern electronics- still under investigation. She's pretty happy with the Cambridge Audio Blu-Ray player I got us a couple of years ago, though we are often streaming more video off the iPad Pro than the disk machine.

New 2channel playback is being setup with a Roon based player this weekend- described in the digital audio section.

[Norm]

When I worked the retail side of HiFi & HT the ARCAM HT Receivers were quite good. Immediately obvious someone who knows what a good sounding amplifier is all about was involved. Anthem pre/pros were also very good for the buck$, that was before they entered the receiver market.

[JonMarsh]

There is such a wide range of what one can encounter in that market... unfortunately from very low end stuff, to some seriously nice stuff still at varying price points.

If I was in the market for a surround sound processor (probably will be the end of the year, as mentioned), I'd be looking at the NAD M17 processor, probably coupled with an M27, mostly because I don't see myself having the time to put together a seven channel setup! And we've already got a new sub that I'd built with Hypex 500W amp.

http://nadelectronics.com/products/masters-series/M17-AV-Surround-Sound-Preamp-Processor

http://nadelectronics.com/products/masters-series/M27-Seven-Channel-Power-Amplifier

And given that I have an M22 and work with the ncore stuff a lot on the bench, I know what I'd be getting into...

[hyperducky]

Does the M27 use the nc400 amp modules or is it same/similar circuitry on boards produced for NAD?


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[JonMarsh]

The M27 uses ncore OEM modules, but not at as high a supply voltage as the M22, and the adjust the pre-clipping point also like the M22 depending on the overall loading and supply voltage.

one of the things you DON'T want to do is hard clip a self oscillating Class D modulator; you sweep down from the carrier frequency to the frequency of the audio signal and what's in between so it puts some hash on the signal that doesn't sound good; the way to avoid that is pre clip the signal before it gets to the modulator so that it's a nice clean soft limiting- this is part of what NAD brings to the game.

[hyperducky]

Jon how does the emotiva xmc-1 compare to the m17?


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[Hdale85]

I've really been eyeying the XMC-1 myself, especially since they are adding updated HDMI 2.0/HDCP 2.2 and Dolby Atmos etc. It's supposed to be pretty darn nice audio wise.

Also the Yamaha Pre/Pro uses the the ESS Sabre 32bit DAC's which have one of the lowest noise floor rating of any dacs but hadn't been used in consumer electronics much until recently as they are quite expensive. Granted the other circuitry involved in the pre/pro makes a difference as well but this unit was said to be the best sounding on the market for music, although I'm not sure it's been compared to the XMC-1 either.

http://usa.yamaha.com/products/audio-visual/aventage/cx-a5000_black_u/

With that said Jon seems to be more into the traditional high end brands out there lol.