Newbie Needs Help

[prebles]

I'm a newbie just starting to look at HT. I have two questions that I hope aren't too dumb.

1. As a general rule, will a new DVD player (even an inexpensive middle-tier one) tend to produce better CD performance than my 1992 Rotel CD player just by virtue of 13 years of general technology improvements?

2. I'll soon be listening to the Rotel 1056 and the Pioneer Elite 56TXi in my receiver search. My understanding is that the Pioneer, with its 7 channels, will allow me to bi-amp my Vandersteen 2Ci left/right speakers. Is it correct that I cannot bi-amp with the 1056? If so, any opinions on the 2-channel performance of the Vandy's with the 1056 vs. the bi-amped 56TXi?

Thanks in advance.

[simonb68]

1. As a general rule, will a new DVD player (even an inexpensive middle-tier one) tend to produce better CD performance than my 1992 Rotel CD player just by virtue of 13 years of general technology improvements?

This may be true but I wouldn't say it's a general rule, 2ch audio performance of modern equally priced DVD players differs to a fair degree. It will also depend on whether you use the DACs in the player or whatever pre-amp you are using - the difference between a poor and a good 2ch DVD player will be markedly less when a good pre-amp is used (possibly a generalisation, but I think mostly true).

Conclusion - demo your CD player against any contender for its replacement

2. I'll soon be listening to the Rotel 1056 and the Pioneer Elite 56TXi in my receiver search. My understanding is that the Pioneer, with its 7 channels, will allow me to bi-amp my Vandersteen 2Ci left/right speakers. Is it correct that I cannot bi-amp with the 1056? If so, any opinions on the 2-channel performance of the Vandy's with the 1056 vs. the bi-amped 56TXi?

Being only 5 channels, in a 5 speaker set up obviously there will be no spare channels, but even if you were only using 3 speakers I still *believe* that this is not an available option. On the older 1055 you could redirect the front channels to rears if you were using a separate power amp. Whether this functionality has been extended to allow you to do what you want I don't honestly know - check the manual.

HTH
Simon

EDIT for typos

[Po\/\/er]

Correction, only the later 1056 has the redirect function.

[simonb68]

Correction, only the later 1056 has the redirect function.

Are you sure?

[Kevin D]

1055 = redirect fronts to center rears only
1056 = redirect fronts to center rears OR zone 2.

As stated, neither will redirect 'rear' channels to front for biamping. The 1067 has the option to redirect the center rears to zone 2 and still have 5 channels of sound left, but still no bi-amp option.

Kevin D.