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Post by Slinger on Feb 10, 2024 14:05:53 GMT
As the forum doesn't have an AV section, I thought I could at least give it a dedicated post to keep things separate.
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Post by Slinger on Feb 10, 2024 14:27:41 GMT
My new TV is not plumbed into the AV system yet, and that's for a very good reason, quite apart from my ancient joints and sheer laziness.
I received an email from eBay today, on behalf of my favourite budget cable manufacturer, JuicEBitz® offering a 10% discount on their products with the code 24SNOWY10
I thought I'd have a look around their store and, lo and behold"
They're out of !m, but I ordered a 2m to try out against one of my AQ Cinnamon cables. I've never been disappointed in any JuicEBitz® cable yet, they have consistently punched above their weight, I thought it must be worth a punt.
The price was £14.99 - reduced from £18.99, because they seem to have a sale on as well - and with the discount code it cost me a paltry £13.49.
The last experiment I tried was with an 8K optical HDMI cable, and to be honest, I couldn't detect any improvement, so reverted to AQs. We'll see how the JuicEBitz® cable, at about 20% of the price I paid for the optical cable at the time, fares.
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tonedeaf
Rank: Trio
Oldies are Goldies
Posts: 168
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Post by tonedeaf on Feb 10, 2024 15:51:16 GMT
I've had nothing but pain using my 8kUHD HDMI ARC connections between my TV and AV amp. Fingers crossed I've re set the amp and had a connection for the last month without the sound dropping out.
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Post by Slinger on Feb 10, 2024 15:55:57 GMT
I've had nothing but pain using my 8kUHD HDMI ARC connections between my TV and AV amp. Fingers crossed I've re set the amp and had a connection for the last month without the sound dropping out. I take the sound out of the TV separately via a TOSLINK optical into my AV amp. |
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tonedeaf
Rank: Trio
Oldies are Goldies
Posts: 168
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Post by tonedeaf on Feb 10, 2024 16:00:35 GMT
Toslink only puts out standard 5.1 DD / DTS, with new smart TVs I take the sound and pictures from the TV rather than using the TV as a monitor only. ( Well I switch the speakers off and select HDMI AV).
Using this allows me to send Hi Res audio ( Atmos etc) when a programme has it encoded.
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Post by Slinger on Feb 10, 2024 16:17:38 GMT
Toslink only puts out standard 5.1 DD / DTS, with new smart TVs I take the sound and pictures from the TV rather than using the TV as a monitor only. ( Well I switch the speakers off and select HDMI AV). Using this allows me to send Hi Res audio ( Atmos etc) when a programme has it encoded. Yes, that didn't occur to me. The new telly has DTS Virtual X decoding and Dolby Atmos, so I might have to rethink the setup. |
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Post by Slinger on Feb 11, 2024 19:52:41 GMT
Checking back, I've just realised that my Yamaha AV receiver will be 5 years old this year. Financially speaking it is not a good time to have that realisation.  Still, checking out new ones will give me something to do. Just looking, honest. |
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Post by orange55 on Feb 11, 2024 20:06:33 GMT
Is recommend looking at the Anthem’s. They offer great sound for their money and the ARC room correction is really good.
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Post by Slinger on Feb 11, 2024 20:56:08 GMT
Is recommend looking at the Anthem’s. They offer great sound for their money and the ARC room correction is really good. Nice, but £2K - £5K is a lot more than I'm willing to spend. |
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seanm
Rank: Trio
Posts: 169 
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Post by seanm on Feb 12, 2024 8:56:47 GMT
Slinger,
As I mentioned in my previous "audio only > 5.1 amp" thread, I believe the historical AV amp topology is dead since smart TVs are much more at the centre of things now and modern surround formats require more bandwidth than can be squeezed down optical/coax.. hence ARC and eARC. With my new to me, 2012 Onkyo TX-NR717, I have had some success feeding sound from the telly to the AV amp back down the HDMI lead via ARC. Now this seems to work OK with 2.0 and old school lossy 5.1, but anything beyond this drops back to 2.0 PCM. In my case, this is to be expected, 2012 amp is ARC only and the more modern Samsung telly has eARC. However, looking at the manuals of even modern kit has thre are often phrases like "it may not work"... it all seems to be down to manufacturers only partially implementing spec's for HDMI standards and things like ARC/eARC. Reading online seems to confirms lots of problems. The industry is doing itself no favours in this area, the myriad of formats feels like betamax vs VHS etc.
I needed a stop gap amp, and I was willing to try and open the door to newer surround formats, but I have been put off and will wait for a while before committing to spending real money.
Sean
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Post by daytona600 on Feb 12, 2024 10:42:55 GMT
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seanm
Rank: Trio
Posts: 169
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Post by seanm on Feb 12, 2024 12:03:38 GMT
Daytona,
Many thanks for the reply... I like the look of that amp, I have glanced at it before.... looks like a neat solution built around components I have an interest in and probably respect for....
What I was originally looking for was something similar but with support for up to say 7.1 speakers and modern surround formats without the video switching side, all of the legacy connections and all the bulk. I have had reasonable but modest 5.1 speakers for ages... and my circa 2009 AV receiver was starting to fail.
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Post by daytona600 on Feb 12, 2024 13:26:44 GMT
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tonedeaf
Rank: Trio
Oldies are Goldies
Posts: 168
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Post by tonedeaf on Feb 23, 2024 8:22:08 GMT
Have a look on eBay, gumtree etc, there's always nearly new 2nd hand AV kit going for peanuts with modern day features. Also don't be put off with eARC /ARC.
My Yamaha AX6A that replaced my brand new Marantz Cinema 50 after 6 months of constant niggles 'only ' has ARC but is a much better amp, more reliable and I can't see any difference in the picture.
As you say the new breed of smart TVs are the centre of the AV system more so than years gone by, when the TV was just a monitor with the speakers off.
Just my 2p
Stewart
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Post by julesd68 on Feb 24, 2024 14:53:06 GMT
What a palaver.
Mum needed a new Blu-ray player so I bought a well reviewed Panasonic from Amazon to match her other gear. It was pants - so sloowww to load, you could make a cup of tea waiting. No WiFi which I didn't realise so we couldn't use network services as there was no hope of running a network cable. To make things worse the remote control interfered with the other Panasonic gear and I couldn't be bothered to fix this. So it went back today.
Bought a new Sony from an excellent local store in South Manchester. They told me the Panasonic was pretty old and that the brand is winding down this kind of gear. The Sony was a breeze to set up in a few minutes. The player is WiFi loaded for the same price as the Panasonic. Film loading much quicker and a simple interface, excellent picture; it's tiny too. Job done.
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Post by Slinger on Feb 24, 2024 15:05:36 GMT
What a palaver. Mum needed a new Blu-ray player so I bought a well reviewed Panasonic from Amazon to match her other gear. It was pants - so sloowww to load, you could make a cup of tea waiting. No WiFi which I didn't realise so we couldn't use network services as there was no hope of running a network cable. To make things worse the remote control interfered with the other Panasonic gear and I couldn't be bothered to fix this. So it went back today. Bought a new Sony from an excellent local store in South Manchester. They told me the Panasonic was pretty old and that the brand is winding down this kind of gear. The Sony was a breeze to set up in a few minutes. The player is WiFi loaded for the same price as the Panasonic. Film loading much quicker and a simple interface, excellent picture; it's tiny too. Job done. After the horse has bolted, allow me to close the stable door for you. If you scroll down to " Product details:" on Amazon listings it should contain the line " Date First Available" which will tell you how old the technology is. It's also worth plugging the full name of the item into Google and looking at a few of the retail listings. Often you will find it's no longer being sold outside of Amazon, and second hand on eBay, which is another indication of its age. |
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Post by Slinger on Feb 25, 2024 22:04:24 GMT
I've just bought one of these on eBay. It seems to tick all of my required technology boxes, and talking of boxes, it comes in it's original one, including all the bits that came with it, including the Audyssey Sound Optimization kit. www.denon.com/en-au/shop/avreceiver/avrs660h Oh come on, nobody wants to see the front.  |
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Post by Slinger on Feb 26, 2024 20:22:42 GMT
Wish me luck, it's coming via Parcelfarce.
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Post by Slinger on Feb 27, 2024 17:13:29 GMT
How odd, it had a Parcelfarce tracking number, but this afternoon it's changed to a DPD tracking number, and they have, apparently, got my parcel and look forward to delivering it tomorrow. Something going right for a change? Maybe. Now I just have to rely on Amazon and Royal Mail to deliver my new remote, and the mains lead. If you don't hear from me for a while don't worry, it's probably just me trying to get up off the floor once I've plumbed everything in. I'll finally be able to hear my new TV in all its glory too, even though it may be from a horizontal position.  As an aside, TV sound seems to have improved immeasurably. I'm almost happy listening via the TV speakers. If I didn't already know how much improvement a decent AV amp makes It's within the realms of possibility that I'd be happy, and wouldn't even consider a sound bar, let alone a separate amp and half-a-dozen speakers. The telly has a backward firing speaker that's dubbed a " subwoofer", and I wonder exactly how much difference it's making. I would say "quite a bit.". |
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Post by MartinT on Feb 27, 2024 18:37:20 GMT
Are you going for 5.1 or some other surround setup, Paul? Using what speakers?
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