TrueHD/DTS+HD Receivers?

[gregch]

Anyone know if there are any receivers that do the new HD audio formats, for less than £500 - except for the Onkyo 605?

 

[Alsone]

What do you have against the Onkyo's?

 

[gregch]

[quote user="Alsone"]
What do you have against the Onkyo's?
[/quote]

Well, I know this won't go down well here, but I'm afraid to me (and to my wife) the look of this stuff is important, and the Onkyo is truly hideous IMHO. Plus, in common with most A/V receivers it seems, it's the size of a battleship - which means it won't fit where it has to go.

 

[Alsone]

Fair enough.

Quick bit of googling, the cheapest Pioneer is £699 (LX50), Sony don't do one that I could find, Panasonic only make 1 receiver so far as I could find and its not True HD, Denon do one the AVR 3808 but it costs £1,000.

So I guess the answer is no unless you can think of any brands I haven't covered.

 

[gregch]

[quote user="Alsone"]
Fair enough.

Quick bit of googling, the cheapest Pioneer is £699 (LX50), Sony don't do one that I could find, Panasonic only make 1 receiver so far as I could find and its not True HD, Denon do one the AVR 3808 but it costs £1,000.

So I guess the answer is no unless you can think of any brands I haven't covered.
[/quote]

Thanks for that. I really like the look of the Pioneer, but again it's just too tall! It has to fit into an MDF Italia unit with a shelf depth of just 17cm - meaning that the receiver has to be no more than 15cm tall to allow for some air circulation above (there's plenty at the back as it's open).

No, I can't think of any you haven't covered. I guess I'll go with a non-TrueHD solution. Looking at Dolby's website, it's too clever for me to understand but it seems to suggest that most HD discs currently require the player to do the processing, so as long as you have multichannel inputs on the receiver, you can have the player do the TrueHD decoding and pass the outputs through the receiver...

 

[Anonymous]

That's correct. Your HD disc spinner can do the decoding (best to check though), which is then output through the analogue multichannel outputs. Most AV amps do have a set of 5.1 inputs.

 

[gregch]

[quote user="Mr_Orange"]That's correct. Your HD disc spinner can do the decoding (best to check though), which is then output through the analogue multichannel outputs. Most AV amps do have a set of 5.1 inputs.[/quote]

OK, so that might work. And then presumably you'd hook up the HD player directly to the TV via HDMI for the picture side of things - or if you connect via HDMI to the receiver will it still take the 'decoded' TrueHD from the analogue inputs, rather than what's sent with the picture via HDMI??

This is a whole *world* of confusion for me right now!

Actually, it would be useful to see a feature in the magazine dealing with how to hook up various A/V components - or maybe a 'beginners special' to avoid boring those regular readers who understand all this stuff!

 

[Anonymous]

If you are happy with the 5.1 analogue connection from HD player to amp, then I would just send the video direct to the TV via HDMI.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm in a similar position to you, and I'm going to wait a bit. I'll keep the Yamaha amp I have, decode through the player and use regular 5.1 until prices come down and specs & inputs increase. 2 in and 1 out is usless and the manufacturers will most certainly increase the number of inputs, add Tru HD as standard and probably bundle in true upscaling for amps in that mid price range. I've just come back from the US where, for example Sony do an amp (DA5300) with SIX HDMI inputs that can be picked up for $1300, which is give or take £650 in real money! In the UK, the closest model seems to be the DA5200 which is a few quid pricier but only has 3 HDMI inputs. Neither do Tru HD sound, though. The 5200 does upscale, though....

 

[Andrew Everard]

STR-DA5300ES is available in UK, but at the usual consumer electronics exchange rate of £1=$1.