Sony BDPS-550

[lcd4ever]

Just ordered my new receiver, Sony STR DA 2400es to go with the above, will have to re-organise my racks just to get an HDMI to reach from the TV to the receiver, just wondering will I still require my Digital coaxial lead from receiver to blu-ray to carry the older sound codecs(DDigital DTS) or will the HDMI lead handle everything, allowing me to remove the coax altogether ?

Also what do I set the HDMI output on the 550 to to allow the receiver to take over ?

Does it matter what the 'audio priority' is set to (ie analougue outputs or optical/coaxial) since neither will actually be getting used.....

Amazing what can keep you up at night......and I haven't even got the Receiver yet......lol....

Oh almost forgot I was browsing the instructions for the receiver(downloaded from Sony site) and notice that if you are not using the full 7.1 set up as in my case you can use the free set of speaker terminals to biamp the receiver(receiver has a biamp setting through this surround terminal), now I was going to use the 2 sets of front speaker terminals to biwire......will the biamp option offer any improvement sound wise over biwiring ?

thanks

Craig

 

[Gerrardasnails]

lcd4ever:
Just ordered my new receiver, Sony STR DA 2400es to go with the above, will have to re-organise my racks just to get an HDMI to reach from the TV to the receiver, just wondering will I still require my Digital coaxial lead from receiver to blu-ray to carry the older sound codecs(DDigital DTS) or will the HDMI lead handle everything, allowing me to remove the coax altogether ?

Also what do I set the HDMI output on the 550 to to allow the receiver to take over ?

Does it matter what the 'audio priority' is set to (ie analougue outputs or optical/coaxial) since neither will actually be getting used.....

Amazing what can keep you up at night......and I haven't even got the Receiver yet......lol....

Oh almost forgot I was browsing the instructions for the receiver(downloaded from Sony site) and notice that if you are not using the full 7.1 set up as in my case you can use the free set of speaker terminals to biamp the receiver(receiver has a biamp setting through this surround terminal), now I was going to use the 2 sets of front speaker terminals to biwire......will the biamp option offer any improvement sound wise over biwiring ?

thanks

Craig

HDMI will be fine for all audio. So, you can get rid of the coaxial. Set audio priority to hdmi.

What do you want to biamp with? If you have a stereo amp, just use the front left and right pre outs on the Sony and connect your stereo amp to it.

 

[lcd4ever]

Thanks for the quick reply.....

I thought the 'biamping' setting was strange as I don't want to add a stereo amp just yet(will eventually add one), but the manual says to connect the hi or low frequency speaker terminals to the front speaker posts with the other connected to the unused surround terminals and set the receiver to 'biamp' mode. I was going to connect one of the front set of speaker terminals to the hi frequency terminals of the speakers, connecting front speakers 'B' to the other and set the front speaker setting to A + B as I am doing with my old 5.1 receiver now......just wodered if there would be any difference ?

Just while you touch on the subject though Gerrardasnails, if I do add the stereo amp to the preouts; I take it the receiver accesses the front speakers via the 'pre-out' terminals and volume control etc would be via the receiver(is there a setting on the receiver for this ?). And if listening to stereo music the receiver would be shut off altogether ? The whole pre/ power amp set up is completely new to me as I have only ever used integrated amps in the past......

 

[Dan Turner]

Bi-amping using the spare rear surround amplifiers in the receiver will definitely be an improvement over bi-wiring. Then you'll have one power amp module within the receiver dedicated to each drive unit on your speakers, rather than one per speaker in a traditional single stereo amp scenario. For films alone, you should definitely do this if the rear surrounds are unused.

If you are also using the main front L&Rs for stereo music and you already have a stereo amp, then whether the receiver bi-amping the front speakers will be better than the stereo amp single-amping them will be down to how good the stereo amp is. If it's anything half-decent it's likely to be superior. In that case the way you describe using the front L&R pre-outs on the receiver to hook into the stereo amp is exactly right - there is no control on the receiver, but you need to always set the stereo amp to the same volume setting when used with the receiver for films, some have a 'processor' mode for this which fixes the gain and just effectively turns the stereo amp into a power amp, but much the same can be achieved by setting the volume to a pre-determined position.

If you go the latter route then you may find that the sound changes in tonal character as sounds pan accross the front, due to using different power amplification - I used to have this kind of set-up and I found exactly that because my stereo amp was so much better than my receiver. In the end I went with completely separate stereo and surround systems to avoid the compromise.