Stereo to home cinema amplifier upgrade?

[SlurmSlurper]

Current kit:

Denon 1920 DVD/DVD-A/SACD player

Sony BDP-S370 Blu-ray/SACD player

Rotel RA-05 stereo amplifier

Focal.JMLab Chorus 714 S floor-standing speakers

Samsung LE32BDX 37" (CFL) LCD TV

DigitalStream DHR8203U 320 GB Freeview HD+ DVR

Budget: £500-£800

Background/question:

Although my current kit has served me well, I've lately run into a few issues, which has lead me to start thinking about the move from the Rotel stereo amplifier to a home cinema amplifier:

1) The Sony Blu-ray player's analogue output is awful, so much so that the DAC in the Samsung TV does a better job.

2) The Sony Blu-ray player converts SACD's DSD to 16 bit/48 KHz PCM when sending it as PCM over the HDMI, instead of 24/88.2, 24/96 or 24/192, thus the extra resolution of SACD is lost.

3) Because of points 1 & 2, I have had to keep my old Denon 1920 as it is miles better at CD and SACD playback.

4) The DigitalStream Freeview HD+ DVR doesn't cope with down-mixing BBC HD's 5.1 Dolby Digital stream to stereo, meaning that, as the Samsung TV can't decode Dolby Digital, many films and Later... with Jools Holland are littered with audio drop-outs which often make them completely un-watchable.

My main focus has always been music, which is why I've thus far resisted the move from hi-fi to home cinema. My music tastes are somewhat eclectic, featuring rock, folk, country, blues, pop, trip-hop and electronic, but most of my albums feature female vocalists.

I also live in a small flat with a L shaped kitchen/living room, which means that 5.1 would not fit without resorting to 'style' speakers. Needless to say, in the interest of neighbour relations a sub-woofer is a no no!

Therefore my ideal solution would be a home cinema processor that could handle PCM, DSD and all of the DTS and Dolby formats and their down-mixing to 2.0, or a 2.0, 2.1 or 3.1 home cinema amplifier that met these requirements. However, I'm aware that neither of these things exist except for in my head!

So given the above requirements, are there home cinema amplifiers that are highly musical that handle PCM, DSD and all of the DTS and Dolby formats (and their down-mixing to 2.0 ) in my price range?

 

[matthewpiano]

Auditioning is going to be essential here as you have a very good amp in the Rotel.

However, there are some very talented receivers out there now and it is perfectly possible to get excellent music performance from the right combination of components. Personally I'd suggest looking at receivers from Yamaha and Onkyo as I've found these two brands place considerable emphasis on excellent performance with 2 channel material. You'll need to go towards the top of your budget to really make it worthwhile but these days I don't think it is necessary to compromise on the functionality you want to get satisfying sound quality.

 

[SlurmSlurper]

Thanks, I think Onkyo's TX-NR809 is on the shortlist, not so sure about the Yamaha ones though as I can't find any info about DSD over HDMI support (though I could rely on the Sony Blu-ray player to do this).

That said Marantz's NR1602 slimline A/V amp has its appeal too, as I don't need huge amounts of amplification or legacy analogue audio and video connections. Looks like I'll have to wait the review to know whether it's worthy of consideration.

 

[matthewpiano]

That's 3 potential auditions - about right! So why not go and listen for yourself?

 

[SlurmSlurper]

I was in my local hi-fi store getting their opinion and they leant towards the Yamaha for music too. They also didn't know of any other solution to my dilemma other than a A/V receiver, but also said they weren't great at music (this was of no real surprise to me given the cheap DACs and opamps in home cinema gear, even in high end models).

I think an audition is in order and I'll be arranging one in the coming weeks.

Cheers :cheers:

 

[SlurmSlurper]

Since my last post the DigitalStream Freeview HD+ recorder has had its AC3 to PCM conversion issues fixed via a firmware update. This was the most pressing issue.

I also found an informed article (24/192 Music Downloads ...and why they make no sense: http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html) that suggests that high bit rate/high sample rate audio (e.g. 24-bit/96 KHz) makes no perceivable difference to sound reproduction and that the noticed improvement actually comes from the better masters/mastering techniques used on these releases. I backed this up by performing my own ABX (double-blind) experiment, which pitted a 24-bit/96 KHz track vs. the same track down-mixed to 16-bit/44.1 KHz. The test showed that I couldn't differentiate between the two (i.e. guessing correctly only 50% of the time).

This has lead me to look elsewhere for the sonic upgrade, specifically to the Cyrus 6 DAC or Cyrus 8 DAC, which are amplifiers that have an on-board DAC.