Upgraded RDC-7 v. latest AVM-20 & B&K Ref 50?

[pepar]

How does the (constantly) upgraded RDC-7 compare to the latest rev AVM-20 and B&K Ref 50?

TIA!




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"The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed." - William Gibson

"I like the future; I'm in it." - Firesign Theater

[Burke Strickland]

I guess we could do a features comparison chart, but as I found out a year and a half ago when I bought my RDC-7 after looking at quite a number of other pre/pros, merely matching features (or even having ones that look better on paper) doesn't guarantee that competing products actiually sound or perform better.

I'm going to try to get actual hands on demos of the AVM-20 and the REF 50 this coming weekend -- NOT because I have any reason whatsoever to "upgrade" (actually I just did that this past summer getting the latest RDC-7 revision to THX Ultra 2) but because I like to keep current with what's "out there".

In the meantime, I already know those two face some pretty steep competition from the RDC-7. :>)

Burke

[pepar]

I guess we could do a features comparison chart, but as I found out a year and a half ago when I bought my RDC-7 after looking at quite a number of other pre/pros, merely matching features (or even having ones that look better on paper) doesn't guarantee that competing products actiually sound or perform better.

I'm going to try to get actual hands on demos of the AVM-20 and the REF 50 this coming weekend -- NOT because I have any reason whatsoever to "upgrade" (actually I just did that this past summer getting the latest RDC-7 revision to THX Ultra 2) but because I like to keep current with what's "out there".

Excellent! I'm very interested in hearing your comments on the comparison. And yes, it is the SOUND that I care about; the features match up fairly closely.




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"The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed." - William Gibson

"I like the future; I'm in it." - Firesign Theater

[pepar]

I guess we could do a features comparison chart, but as I found out a year and a half ago when I bought my RDC-7 after looking at quite a number of other pre/pros, merely matching features (or even having ones that look better on paper) doesn't guarantee that competing products actiually sound or perform better.

I'm going to try to get actual hands on demos of the AVM-20 and the REF 50 this coming weekend -- NOT because I have any reason whatsoever to "upgrade" (actually I just did that this past summer getting the latest RDC-7 revision to THX Ultra 2) but because I like to keep current with what's "out there".

Burke,

Which weekend was that?




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"The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed." - William Gibson

"I like the future; I'm in it." - Firesign Theater

[Burke Strickland]

Interestingly, I had been thinking about posting an "update" on where this stood. I'm glad you are still interested. I had planned to check out the other gear the weekend of December 14, 2002, but I'm about a month behind schedule. :>)

While I was able to spend plenty of time (several hours) that weekend with the Anthem AVM-20 at the dealer where I had bought my Integra RDC-7, because of the Christmas rush, it just wasn't feasible to get the same kind of time with the B&K Ref 50 at the other dealer.

Since I wasn't actually buying anything, even though I've bought a ton of stuff there in the past, I didn't feel that I could ask them to turn over their high end demo room to me for that long a time -- I could see from the crowd that I needed to come back when things had settled down. I think this week end might be long enough to have waited.

At the Anthem dealer, several others were in and out of the room during my demo and a few even stayed to listen for a while, but no one was seeking a demo of something else in there, so it was no problem continuing my demo with my "standard material" as long as I needed. The other dealer has a lot more stuff crammed into one room and generally higher traffic levels in the store anyway.

Burke

[Burke Strickland]

How I went about checking out three current, competing pre/pros:
OK – I’ve listened to all three now – the Integra Research RDC-7 (original and upgraded), the B&K Ref 50 and the latest-rev Anthem AVM-20. Although I did listen to each in surround mode, I do not think the differences in the sound of pre/pros typically show up with Dolby Digital or DTS, although in operating features, the way they handle selecting surround modes, for example, might be vastly different. It is with two channel music where they either excel or fail (or fall in the mediocre middle). So most of my listening was to stereo music. I will state up front that my evaluation was entirely subjective (no measurements taken) and I did my listening on different days with different associated equipment (so no double blind test). So how, you might ask, would impressions from such an evaluation be at all useful?

First, I used the same recorded material for each, material that in some cases I have heard on every system (through all the various iterations of upgrading) I have owned since the age of 15 and on most of the other systems I’ve auditioned as well. The rest I’ve also heard enough times on enough different equipment to know how it should sound.

Second, each pre/pro was used with equipment that might typically be associated with it in someone’s home. All of them had a DVD player as the source deck using the digital outs, so the DACs of the pre/pro got a work-out, not the source deck's. The Anthem AVM-20 was mated with an Anthem MCA-5 amp and drove the top of the line floor standing Energy speakers and Paradigm Studio 100s (not at the same time of course). :>) The B&K Ref 50 was connected to a B&K Reference 200.7 power amp and Martin Logan Odyssey speakers. I have listened to the Integra Research RDC-7 at the dealer with the RDA-7 amp with Paradigm speakers and at home with Acurus, Yamaha and BEL (Brown Electronics Lab) amps and Magnepan MG 3.6 speakers, as well as Definitive Technology BP-2000s.

Third, sound alone doesn’t make a pre/pro (although if it sounds really bad, it is automatically out of the running). Its operating features and user interface play a big role in its day-to-day usability. In other words, it might have silky sound but if it is a kludge to operate, it will probably not get played very often. (Sure, you could program your Pronto to overcome a lousy out-of-box interface, but I’m not evaluating the Pronto here, just the pre/pros.) :>) So I took a look at how easy (or difficult) it was to perform the basic operations necessary to play music (selecting source, setting volume, choosing correct output mode, etcetera) and switch to another output mode and back with each pre/pro.

Right off, let me say that all three sound good. But they exhibited some differences that bear noting.

Integra Research RDC-7:
Of course, I have listened to the Integra Research RDC-7 at home now for over a year and a half with several different amplifiers driving the front channels and using the Magnepan MG 3/6s and a pair of Definitive Technology BP-2000s for the sake of comparison. When I first brought it home, it was in its "original" form and it has been upgraded twice -- first with the user-installable programming upgrade and then last summer with a hardware and software upgrade performed at an authorized service center. The upgrades were not aimed at altering the RDC-7's two channel music performance, but added a number of features for movie and surround music playback that some owners find indispensable and others are under whelmed by.

In all three incarnations, I have enjoyed the superb performance of the RDC-7 on stereo music -- clarity, definition, lack of coloration anywhere in the audio frequency spectrum, engaging presence, "real-sounding" soundstage -- and find it better in that role than a stereo pre-amp I still have on hand from my pre-HT days. And far better than the Yamaha DSP-A3090 which I had been using as my converged-system front end before getting the RDC-7. There has certainly not been any degradation of the sound with the upgrades -- it might actually sound slightly better with the latest in place, but who knows? (Or cares -- it sounded great before and still does.)

The RDC-7 user interface is as "intuitive" as any I've ever encountered. I had the unit up and running properly -- connected to other components and making music -- within 45 minutes of unpacking it. Virtually everything that needs to be selected, set or adjusted can be controlled from the front panel as well as the remote. While some of the more esoteric settings (such as substituting radio station call letters instead of its frequency number on the display) may require a gander at the owner manual, day-to-day operation is straight forward and relatively surprise free. The RDC-7 is not only a pleasure to listen to, but also a pleasure to use.

I will acknowledge that I listened to the other pre/pros with a decided bias toward the RDC-7 – basically challenging them to topple the king from the hill, as it were.

Anthem AVM-20:
When I was listening to the AVM-20, on some selections I heard some things in the music I hadn’t really “noticed” except with its predecessor, the vastly inferior AVM-2. On one track in particular where a male bass voice was supposed to be harmonizing with the female vocal lead, on both the AVM units, the male voice dominated, whereas when played on all other equipment, it blended into the background with the instruments. Some people might think “wow – I’m now hearing DETAIL that I never heard before.” But that kind of “detail” isn’t really desirable. With the earlier AVM-2, this kind of thing – almost an autopsy of the music with the separate parts laid out on the examining table (exaggerated soundstage) -- happened all the time and got very fatiguing. On the AVM-20, it happened in only a few spots in some of the songs. But just enough to be annoying.

Otherwise, the AVM-20 acquitted itself very well. Even with speakers inferior to the Magnepan MG 3.6s that I enjoy at home, in general it produced a pleasant sound, with instruments properly placed along a continuum between the speakers, as opposed to the broad and deep soundstage I enjoy with the Maggies (which is about what I expected having auditioned the speakers before). Having had the AVM-2 in my home system for a week and finding its sound stage rather exaggerated (with individual instruments sounding alternately several feet wide, then pinpoint narrow, then back to bloated, and with placement somewhat "scattered") I was relieved that the AVM-20 didn’t produce any weird soundstage effects, but basically gave the speakers free reign to do whatever they were capable of.

I am sure many people will buy the AVM-20 and enjoy it. They may even like the effects I objected to. I would not want to take this one home, however, since, although significantly improved over its predecessor, (from "totally unacceptable" to "very good"), it still exhibits just enough of the characteristics that turned me off before that I didn’t need a week with it to walk away from it. So the user interface really became irrelevant at that point, although I will say that I had no problem at all controlling the unit without once consulting the owner manual. (Most of the AVM-20's important functions can be selected from the front panel without muss or fuss.)

B & K Ref 50:
The B&K Ref 50 was smooth sounding and had no distinguishable sonic flaws that couldn’t be attributed to the Martin Logans, which I have listened to a number of times with different electronics and find them inferior to the Maggie 3.6s when it comes to stereo (two channel) music despite their price being more than half again as much as the Maggies. Although the cymbals sounded muted and the sax a bit distant on a jazz instrumental, that could have been the speakers rather than the pre/pro. However, there was nothing about the sound that said “buy me” either. This pre/pro did nothing with these speakers vis a vis soundstage, clarity or imaging, etcetera, that a Denon receiver didn't do based on prior listening.

But even though I could probably live with its sound, I found the user interface to be a major annoyance. Unlike the RDC-7, where virtually everything is easily controllable from the front panel, the Ref 50’s design in effect REQUIRES use of the remote and an external video display to figure out what is going on (and I'm not talking about initial set up, but rather daily operation). The big knob on the right hand side of the front panel that looks like a volume control changes function depending what menu option is selected, and boy, oh boy, can that lead to some interesting unplanned-for settings changes. What might be considered by the designers to be a versatile innovation -- a multi-function control knob -- is actually a PITA to try to use. Selecting options via the remote was slow and cumbersome.

While the interface is very customizable and virtually everything has options to be set, it is not a real simple task to just turn on the unit, select a source and play music. And if it takes a second career in programming to figure it out and making it work efficiently takes a macro or whatever, sorry – I am majorly not interested. It took almost as long just to figure out how to switch the already-set-up Ref 50 from multichannel for DVD to stereo for CD -- even though it was being played in the same source component -- as it took to connect and set up my RDC-7 to play CDs from scratch at home. Oh, sure, once you "know how", it will go faster -- maybe only a couple of minutes instead of 15. :>)

The Ref 50's customizing and programming will very likely appeal to some potential owners. That’s fine – some of my friends love to diddle with their Pronto too. :>) I prefer spending my time listening to music, and being able to control it with something I can OPTIONALLY customize, but not HAVE to jump through those hoops to make the blankety-blank thing work. I could probably have talked the store manager into letting me bring home the B&K Ref 50 for a side by side comparison with the RDC-7, (since I’ve bought a lot of stuff from him for over a decade at three different stores), but since its user interface didn’t appeal to me at all, I decided to pass on that.

Summary:
The Integra Research RDC-7 sounds great and is easy to use. The Anthem AVM-20 sounds OK and is fairly easy to use. The B&K Ref 50 sounds pretty darned good, but almost requires a special course to figure out how to operate it. My ranking of the three on sound (taking into account the differences in associated equipment) would be 1) Integra Research RDC-7, 2) B&K Ref 50, 3) Anthem AVM-20 and my ranking for user interface would be 1) Integra Research RDC-7, 2) Anthem AVM-20 and 50) B&K Ref 50.

This may not be the kind of comparison that gets published in magazines, and may not be the type of information you were looking for, (and ultimately each of us needs to look and listen for ourselves before buying something this expensive anyway), but my several hours of listening and playing around with each of the other two pre/pros satisfied my curiosity and convinced me that it is not yet time for me to “upgrade” by buying a different pre/pro. The twice-upgraded RDC-7 is still "it" for me.

Burke

[Burke Strickland]

Addendum:
If I were to select components strictly on how they LOOK, of the ones I checked out in the comparison above, the B&K Ref 50, with its semi-oval read-out on its minimalist front panel (which costs it plenty in usability), and the Martin Logans, with their subtley curved, industrial-look perforated metal grilles, would win hands down. But I buy HT equipment to listen to, not to make a fashion statement. Although I expect anything I buy to look better than what I might have produced in junior high shop class, :>) it doesn't necessarily have to be a candidate for display in the MOMA Design Collection either :>) -- as long as it sounds great.

Burke

[Burke Strickland]

An Invitiation To Visitors From Other Forums

We're glad you are taking a look at this thread in HT Guide Forum's Club Integra. In addition to participating where you are already a member, why not register here at HT Guide, too? If you are interested in Integra and Integra Research products, we invite you to join the discussions in this forum. Click on the word "Register" in the upper right hand corner of this screen and once signed up, post your questions to be answered by others with similar interests, and share what you know with them.

Afficianados of B&K products will find another place on HT Guide Forum to compare notes in the Club B&K/Club Harmon. http://www.htguide.com/CFBoards/inde...CFB=1&forum=16

If you are the owner of, or thinking about buying, something in the Anthem line, HT Guide Forum also now hosts Club Anthem.

http://www.htguide.com/CFBoards/index.cfm?fuseaction=listings&CFB=1&forum=4

There are other areas to participate in as well. Check out the whole list of areas that are included in the HT Guide Forum and jump in where you find an area that appeals to you! http://www.htguide.com/CFBoards/index.cfm?CFB=1

Burke

[Ricky]

Burke,

Nice write-up. I have heard people raving about the Ref50 interface, but surprised to hear you like the Integra's much more. I used to have the Onkyo 989 receiver, which should have the same user interface as the Integra; I thought it was very easy to use...almost as easy as the Lexicon MC1

The hard thing about comparing three prepros in three different systems is you don't know what else can be contributing to the differences: speakers? room? amps?

[Burke Strickland]

Ricky --

Thanks for you comments.

The hard thing about comparing three prepros in three different systems is you don't know what else can be contributing to the differences: speakers? room? amps?

Yep. That's one reason I was fortunate to be able to listen to the other units in dealers' showrooms where I have listened to other gear before, using the same music through the same kind of speakers as had been in the rooms before. Even though the rooms and speakers were different for each of the three, at least I had some prior experience in each environment, so I had an idea of what to expect each place. It would have been even more of a handicap trying to compare them if I had to walk into the rooms "cold".

Since another member asked for our opinions about how the three units compare sound-wise, I'm glad I could share my experiences. But, again, this was not intended to be a rigorous scientific test. I was basically trying to determine if the newer competition which I had been reading so much about offered anything that would entice me to consider "upgrading" by buying a new pre/pro. With over a year and a half of excellent service from my existing pre/pro (enhanced with two of its own upgrades along the way), I sure did not need to "justify" its purchase. On the other hand, even though they all sound good, I didn't experience anything with the others that would motivate a change.

But I'm glad I spent the time and effort to listen to and play around with the others. Even faced with these competitors, my opinion of my pre/pro hasn't changed. I'm still quite pleased with the performance, features and value of the current Integra Research RDC-7 and continue to recommend it. But as I said in summarizing my findings, "ultimately each of us needs to look and listen for ourselves before buying something this expensive anyway".

Burke

[Burke Strickland]

pepar --

Have you had a chance to take a closer look at any of these units yet? Any thoughts you'd like to share?

Burke

[pepar]

pepar --

Have you had a chance to take a closer look at any of these units yet? Any thoughts you'd like to share?

Burke

Burke - Thanks loads for the comparison! I've not had a chance to read it all - but I'm headed back there right now. I've not made the move yet, and now the Aragon Stage One is on my short list as well. Wouldn't happen to have any input on that one, would you?




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"The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed." - William Gibson

"I like the future; I'm in it." - Firesign Theater

[pepar]

This may not be the kind of comparison that gets published in magazines, and may not be the type of information you were looking for, (and ultimately each of us needs to look and listen for ourselves before buying something this expensive anyway), but my several hours of listening and playing around with each of the other two pre/pros satisfied my curiosity and convinced me that it is not yet time for me to “upgrade” by buying a different pre/pro. The twice-upgraded RDC-7 is still "it" for me.

Burke

Burke, this is precisely the information I was looking for! Thank you very much. The Aragon Stage One sounds like a contender for the to spot; any experience with it?




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"The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed." - William Gibson

"I like the future; I'm in it." - Firesign Theater