THe AV HD Dilemma - Classe ,Chord or wait for Denon pre-pro!

[Jamie_t]

Hi All

I'm caught at present in the dilemma I'm sure many of you are facing. I want to upgrade my hifi to premium equipment but I'm also big into my AV (including DVD-A + SACD). I've sold my Yamaha RX-Z9, which was great for movies but very disappointing for Audio and was hoping to get the New Denon AVC-A1HD but the release date keeps getting pushed back (now even Denon Japan has said end December). It will be mid next year before I can get it in Australia of Hong Kong!

After researching what else is around 2 things have happened A) my budget has gone up (as it always does..!) and b) There is nothing on the high end market I am aware of that has kept anywhere close to the pace of HD.

The Dilemma I'm facing is that all of the high-end processors I've looked at have fantasitc sound but are getting very dated and very expensive considering this! Most if not all are likely to be superseded early next year so I'm reluctant to shell out premium prices, for dated functionality and a soon to be obsolete models.

Option A. hold out until next year to see if the Denon AVP-A1HD + POA- A1HD live up to the hype, which it may not, at least not for the money!

Option B - accept high quality sound but dated AV technology.
Chord DSP-8000R + SMP2400 = USD$16.5k (equiv)
Classe SSP 300 + CA 5200 = USD$15.1k (equiv)

Option C - get an expensive future proof power Amp and cheap high spec HD processor used as a pre-amp i.e
Denon 3808CI + CA-5200 = US$10.8k
Denon 3808CI + SMP-2400 = USD$8.5k

Questions
1. Has anyone done anything similar recently
2. Does a cheaper processor kill the sound from a good amp
3. Which 5ch Amp - Classe CA5200 (US$9.7k), Chord (US$7.4k) or other

Any advice would certainly be appreciated!

Jamie

[clewlor]

It's a tough question and really depends on what is most important to you. I have found so far that there is no "magic bullet" and that what looks to be the ideal product now and is yet to be released, usually has it's pros and cons like everything else by the time it gets here (and then something else is announced which everyone gets excited about...). I think the Denon piece looks great so far on paper.

For your option B, one thing that never goes out of style is great sound and build quality of components. You can add around them - external HDMI switcher and video scaler, for example. But eventually they go from old to ancient.

However, the price points of some of these new pre/pros are fantastic and are great values. You can get very good (not great) sound, a scaler, and all the bells and whistles you can think of for less than $2k. But again, if you never use those bells and whistles they may be a waste and then you might want to go with option B and concentrate on other things.

I have never liked option C - it's like splitting the middle and neither one is exciting to me. You know you will upgrade again soon and it's always in the back of your mind.

It's a tough call and each choice is hard to come by. However, I have found that if you keep waiting for the next best thing, you will never make a decision - paralysis by analysis. Good luck.

[Chris D]

Jamie, I recently went with option C, but really only because I already have high-end separates, and I don't want to take a step DOWN in quality by taking a step UP in some modern technology and replacing my nice processor with a HDMI receiver. So I'm in the process of adding a Denon 2808Ci as an outboard HDMI decoder, passed to my processor via multichannel analogs.

If I were buying a complete system brand new, I might do something different.

[LEVESQUE]

The Anthem D2 is working perfectly now with 1080/p24 from both my HD-DVD and Blu-ray players to my 1080p24 projector.

The D2 gives you high-end multi-ch PCM sound over HDMI, a great and flexible video scaler on par with the latest Lumagen and DVDO scalers (I did replace a DVDO VP50 with the D2 since it was better! yes better then a flagship high-end video scaler), and 1080p24 in and out w/o any problems. The room-eq software is comnig soon since beta-testing is goin well right now.

It's the only pre/pro on the market working with both multi-ch PCM over HDMI AND supporting 1080p24 form all the HD players able to do it.

The Transformer HD-DVD was unbelievable yesterday with multi-ch over HDMI and 1080p24. Sound and picture was terrific, and the D2 let me enjoy the new HD formats fully. :B