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This post is directed to the SSP-800 owners who started out with the single board processor, and kept the unit at least long enough to experience it with the dual DSP boards. I am going to have to make some assumptions here, at least concerning those who have used this unit as much or more for surround theater, versus 2 channel listening. I would like to get everyone's take on the performance of their SSP-800 before the upgrade, when you were using the lossless codecs from your Blu-ray players. I know we are going to have a variety of lossless Blu-ray players that were being used while everyone was waiting for the new boards to make their way into the processor.
From the posts that I have scanned in the past year, give or take, it seems like the most commonly used BR player is the Oppo. I know there are some Pioneer Elites out there, and some Panasonics too. The choice or brand of player isn't a huge concern of mine, even though I have to surmise that it does affect how much difference one might notice, experience, or enjoy.
If you all are lost as to where this is going, just bear with me. I suppose this takes me in a couple of different directions as far as my questions are concerned. First of all, for the people who were already running Classe pre-pros, such as the SSP-300 and the SSP-600, If you were running a Blu-ray with Dolby HD and DTS Master Audio, and running analog out to your processor, and not using any post processing at all, was there much, if any difference between the 300/600, versus the 800 with single board? If there was a difference, could any and/or all of you give me your take on how different?? Can it be put into easy to understand vernacular, so that a simple minded guy like myself can easily understand. My brain wants to try to use reasoning and conclude that it shouldn't make much, if any difference if you are just passing your PCM signal straight through with it's processing already being handled by the Blu-ray player. If I am way wrong, please correct and educate me.
Next we get into the discussion and opinions of no longer using the processing of the source players, and now delegating those duties to the newer and updated versions of the SSP-800 with the dual boards. Regardless of which Blu-ray player you were using, I would really love to know what your take and opinion is on how much different, better, similar, or what have you, did the performance get on that much anticipated lossless format that everyone waited so anxiously for. If you could use a percentage scale to describe what you feel the difference was, that would make it very easy to put into perspective for all of us that are stuck on the fence on what to do, and trying to determine if it's worth spending the thousands it takes to upgrade.
I would be curious to know if there is anybody at all out there that actually prefers the decoding of their Blu-ray player over that of the processor?
I know that is would be so much easier to get both audio and video on one cable, but if you are doing a lot of 2 channel listening, I am assuming that the balanced interconnects are being used quite frequently.
The whole HDMI thing is certainly a very convenient way to enjoy viewing and listening without needing a snake nest of cables, which brings me to one other topic that makes me go hmmmmm??? I might be totally missing something here, but people will spend way up in the thousands of dollars for power conditioners, power cables, speaker cables, jumper wires, interconnects, etc. What throws me a little off balance (which is not hard to do!) is the fact that there can be thousands of dollars of what one perceives as the very best sounding, best performing, best way to maintain a signal, but yet in most cases, that HDMI cable is perhaps the weakest link in the entire chain.
I'm curious if this has crossed anyone else's mind that there can be more money tied up in cables, cords, conditioners, and wires, but yet in many cases that little HDMI cable is being summoned to provide both audio and video. Granted there are different quality levels of HDMI cables, but as a whole, they do not differ all that greatly like all of the different shapes, sizes and flavors of the other goodies.
I hope that nobody takes that as criticism in the least, it's just a bit of a mystery to me that perhaps I am missing something here.
In summation, I would love to hear opinions on just how much difference the different stages of the SSP-800's development compared to the older 300 and 600 when the Blu-ray player was doing the decoding. How much difference the Classe's decoding made over what the players were being asked to do, pre dual DSP upgrade?
I don't know if it would help anybody with their opinions or advice, but my current Blu-ray player is a Pioneer Elite BDP-05FD, and it is my desire to move up to the BDP-09FD when somebody tires of a very slightly used, mint condition one. Used for used, it seems as though the 05s bring in the $275-$350 range and the 09s seems to bring around $1200-$1300. FWIW, I will not have to lose any money on the 05, and I figure I can move up to a $2200 MSRP player for $900-$1000.
I personally do not have any experience at all with the Oppo. I live in a rural area, and I don't know anybody remotely close to me that shares the same hobby that has been around the Oppo and the Pioneer Elites both. I hear mixed opinions all of the time and it seems like they each have their strong points and their weaknesses when compared to one another.
I am quite happy with the sound that I have with my BDP-05 running analog through my SSP-600. I am anticipating that spring fever bout of upgradeitis that will haunt me and taunt me until I do one of three (maybe 4??) things. I would also welcome any and all of your input on the choices that I am contemplating, because I won't be doing it all for sure. At least not on the short term basis anyway.
I am trying to determine whether I would benefit more by upgrading my SSP-600 to the SSP-800, OR going ahead and bumping my system up to 7.1 and putting my left and right fronts (Wilson Audio Sophia 2s) on CA-M400 monoblocks and delegating the CA-5200 for center, surround, and rear duties, or neither of those, and instead, going ahead and going with Wilson WATCH Surrounds to better match my front end that has the WATCH 2 center, and picking up a CA-2100 or CA-2200? It wouldn't be feasible/affordable for me to do 4 of the WATCH Surrounds and using them for rears too. I think that even if it was affordable, I don't think there will be enough information coming from the rears to warrant such an upgrade, as what I have now does a very admirable job being used as surrounds.
Please correct me if I am wrong, the surrounds will have considerably more information that the rears on a 7.1 system won't they? I have my 5.1 surrounds behind my head and spread pretty far apart and they seem to do quite well. I would think that moving the surrounds up a little ahead of directly into my ears like the diagrams show, and keeping the rears where the surrounds are now, should work out fairly well and prevent me from having to repair drywall...heaven forbid!
I apologize for the lengthy thread, but I would be very, very grateful to learn from the Classe gurus ;x( here that have already "been there, and done that!" I truly look forward to hearing some thoughts, ideas, and even facts.
From the posts that I have scanned in the past year, give or take, it seems like the most commonly used BR player is the Oppo. I know there are some Pioneer Elites out there, and some Panasonics too. The choice or brand of player isn't a huge concern of mine, even though I have to surmise that it does affect how much difference one might notice, experience, or enjoy.
If you all are lost as to where this is going, just bear with me. I suppose this takes me in a couple of different directions as far as my questions are concerned. First of all, for the people who were already running Classe pre-pros, such as the SSP-300 and the SSP-600, If you were running a Blu-ray with Dolby HD and DTS Master Audio, and running analog out to your processor, and not using any post processing at all, was there much, if any difference between the 300/600, versus the 800 with single board? If there was a difference, could any and/or all of you give me your take on how different?? Can it be put into easy to understand vernacular, so that a simple minded guy like myself can easily understand. My brain wants to try to use reasoning and conclude that it shouldn't make much, if any difference if you are just passing your PCM signal straight through with it's processing already being handled by the Blu-ray player. If I am way wrong, please correct and educate me.
Next we get into the discussion and opinions of no longer using the processing of the source players, and now delegating those duties to the newer and updated versions of the SSP-800 with the dual boards. Regardless of which Blu-ray player you were using, I would really love to know what your take and opinion is on how much different, better, similar, or what have you, did the performance get on that much anticipated lossless format that everyone waited so anxiously for. If you could use a percentage scale to describe what you feel the difference was, that would make it very easy to put into perspective for all of us that are stuck on the fence on what to do, and trying to determine if it's worth spending the thousands it takes to upgrade.
I would be curious to know if there is anybody at all out there that actually prefers the decoding of their Blu-ray player over that of the processor?
I know that is would be so much easier to get both audio and video on one cable, but if you are doing a lot of 2 channel listening, I am assuming that the balanced interconnects are being used quite frequently.
The whole HDMI thing is certainly a very convenient way to enjoy viewing and listening without needing a snake nest of cables, which brings me to one other topic that makes me go hmmmmm??? I might be totally missing something here, but people will spend way up in the thousands of dollars for power conditioners, power cables, speaker cables, jumper wires, interconnects, etc. What throws me a little off balance (which is not hard to do!) is the fact that there can be thousands of dollars of what one perceives as the very best sounding, best performing, best way to maintain a signal, but yet in most cases, that HDMI cable is perhaps the weakest link in the entire chain.
I'm curious if this has crossed anyone else's mind that there can be more money tied up in cables, cords, conditioners, and wires, but yet in many cases that little HDMI cable is being summoned to provide both audio and video. Granted there are different quality levels of HDMI cables, but as a whole, they do not differ all that greatly like all of the different shapes, sizes and flavors of the other goodies.
I hope that nobody takes that as criticism in the least, it's just a bit of a mystery to me that perhaps I am missing something here.
In summation, I would love to hear opinions on just how much difference the different stages of the SSP-800's development compared to the older 300 and 600 when the Blu-ray player was doing the decoding. How much difference the Classe's decoding made over what the players were being asked to do, pre dual DSP upgrade?
I don't know if it would help anybody with their opinions or advice, but my current Blu-ray player is a Pioneer Elite BDP-05FD, and it is my desire to move up to the BDP-09FD when somebody tires of a very slightly used, mint condition one. Used for used, it seems as though the 05s bring in the $275-$350 range and the 09s seems to bring around $1200-$1300. FWIW, I will not have to lose any money on the 05, and I figure I can move up to a $2200 MSRP player for $900-$1000.
I personally do not have any experience at all with the Oppo. I live in a rural area, and I don't know anybody remotely close to me that shares the same hobby that has been around the Oppo and the Pioneer Elites both. I hear mixed opinions all of the time and it seems like they each have their strong points and their weaknesses when compared to one another.
I am quite happy with the sound that I have with my BDP-05 running analog through my SSP-600. I am anticipating that spring fever bout of upgradeitis that will haunt me and taunt me until I do one of three (maybe 4??) things. I would also welcome any and all of your input on the choices that I am contemplating, because I won't be doing it all for sure. At least not on the short term basis anyway.
I am trying to determine whether I would benefit more by upgrading my SSP-600 to the SSP-800, OR going ahead and bumping my system up to 7.1 and putting my left and right fronts (Wilson Audio Sophia 2s) on CA-M400 monoblocks and delegating the CA-5200 for center, surround, and rear duties, or neither of those, and instead, going ahead and going with Wilson WATCH Surrounds to better match my front end that has the WATCH 2 center, and picking up a CA-2100 or CA-2200? It wouldn't be feasible/affordable for me to do 4 of the WATCH Surrounds and using them for rears too. I think that even if it was affordable, I don't think there will be enough information coming from the rears to warrant such an upgrade, as what I have now does a very admirable job being used as surrounds.
Please correct me if I am wrong, the surrounds will have considerably more information that the rears on a 7.1 system won't they? I have my 5.1 surrounds behind my head and spread pretty far apart and they seem to do quite well. I would think that moving the surrounds up a little ahead of directly into my ears like the diagrams show, and keeping the rears where the surrounds are now, should work out fairly well and prevent me from having to repair drywall...heaven forbid!
I apologize for the lengthy thread, but I would be very, very grateful to learn from the Classe gurus ;x( here that have already "been there, and done that!" I truly look forward to hearing some thoughts, ideas, and even facts.
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