Best pre/pro for home theater?

ksrigg

ksrigg

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I have been using the Sherwood Newcastle P-965 for years, and love it for home theater but with the latest Dolby ATMOS, and other formats, along with the new 4K technology, I think I may be missing something.

What is everyone using?

I see a lot of discussion of the Anthem AVM 60, and a few others, and am looking for some thoughts. I love the Acurus RL-11 for dedicated stereo listening, so I am covered there, but am I missing anything with the new formats?

Any thoughts?
 
BlazeES

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Dolby Atmos and DTS-X are amazing and the further expansion of Dolby Vision and HDR tech (if you're akin to streaming content) should be equally rewarding.

Can't speak about how other companies are presenting these supported formats but I can say - first hand - that Yamaha nailed it in my mind. Been enjoying the Yamaha 3060 AVR since mid-summer 2016 and the difference in 'presence' and sound staging is truly impressive. The only caveat with these newest decoders is that you really need the additional speakers to get the full effect. I have added front presence speakers to my arrangement but skipped the rear ones. I have an LG OLED tv and the Oppo 103 which up-scales the image to 4K and passes the Dolby Atmos and DTS-X packages to the receiver and besides the impact of blu-ray movies looking beyond anything I expected, my older DVD collection has never looked better.

Same as it ever was, this new tech forces you to invest in new system pieces. If you have all the necessary gear, the experience is top shelf.

I for one think it's too soon to invest in a true, 1st-gen 4K blu-ray player because the Oppo up-scales perfectly and I'm not really interested in purchasing replacement 4K discs for a handful of favorite movies or shows.

Here's a good summary on the web... of current AVR offerings:

https://www.lifewire.com/best-home-theater-receivers-1300-and-up-1846334

The Anthem is in there.
 
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ksrigg

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Thank you for your reply. I have several WOPLs, and all the speakers, so that is not a problem at all.

I just recently bought a Vizio 70" 4K and am loving it but know I am missing something with the lack of the latest decoding formats.

I love the Sherwood Newcastle. It is a great pre/pro, and I just want to be able to listen to Dolby Atmos, and DTS latest codecs..

I am streaming, and am waiting for the 4K players to come to market. I wish that some company would make a pre/pro which could be updated with new audio formats as they came along, but I realize they all want to make money every year, and all that, but maybe they could charge for the new firmware???

Have you compared your Yamaha to other pre/pros?

Have you heard any other offerings?

Would you recommend the Yamaha over the other brands offerings?
 
BlazeES

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I've demo'd Marantz, Pioneer, Onkyo and Yamaha at a nearby Magnolia Design Center and a video only type shop + my best friend owns a generation older Atmos capable Onkyo AVR that I've had some extended time listening to. I was once a die-hard Pioneer Elite fan for AVRs ... but no more. The Yamaha 3060 nails it in my mind by the mere fact that it's DSP's are super flexible and give you lots of sound field adjustments. Plus, the internal calibration functions - with the microphone - have provided solid results. If you're more akin to upper end stuff, perhaps you can make the case that the Marantz or Anthem are your type of rig but I can't say if there is a real return on investment for the price point to be honest.

Everybody's systems and room dynamics are different - so it's hard to make a solid recommendation. What I can say is that Yamaha seems to have made the right choices in configuration & controls with the proper dynamic power in their amps. As a 'pre', I would assume they haven't left anything to chance. And they support their stuff with timely firmware updates. That said, I'm nit-picky about audio quirks - the main reason why I finally ditched Pioneer Elite. My Yamaha doesn't have sync lock issues when the encoders kick in at the beginning of playback and I haven't had any lip-syncing issues either where my previous Pioneer Elite had major problems in that area and it didn't even support Atmos/DTS-X.

My wife and I are currently running through the 'Game of Thrones' seasons which were mastered in Dolby Atmos. The difference in sound quality when you flip between the Dolby Digital and the Dolby Atmos decoding is like a night & day difference. The best way I can explain it is that the small nuances in the sound field are not speaker position "localized" like you usually get accustomed to with 5.1/7.1 sound fields or God forbid ... the earlier days of Dolby Pro Logic. The movement of sounds around the screen, the height and depth of field perception is mind blowing from the simplest of sounds like birds, crickets or wind or fast moving stuff that gets crammed in during battles, crowds, explosions, car chases or fly overs. The natural presentation of voice/dialogue is way better too.


I would personally recommend the Yamaha line for home theater, but only if you planned on using it's on-board power. It would be shame to buy any AVR with multi-channel amplification if you're trying to gin up a system with mainly external amps. My audio only rig is located in a different room and thereby dedicated to the 'classic' component mindset.
I suppose if someone wanted to use WOPL power for mains and internal AVR power for surround drivers, that might be cool. But dedicating WOPLs to lower duty surround channels seems to be a waste of WOPL potential in my mind.



ksrigg said:
Thank you for your reply. I have several WOPLs, and all the speakers, so that is not a problem at all.

I just recently bought a Vizio 70" 4K and am loving it but know I am missing something with the lack of the latest decoding formats.

I love the Sherwood Newcastle. It is a great pre/pro, and I just want to be able to listen to Dolby Atmos, and DTS latest codecs..

I am streaming, and am waiting for the 4K players to come to market. I wish that some company would make a pre/pro which could be updated with new audio formats as they came along, but I realize they all want to make money every year, and all that, but maybe they could charge for the new firmware???

Have you compared your Yamaha to other pre/pros?

Have you heard any other offerings?

Would you recommend the Yamaha over the other brands offerings?
Click to expand...
 
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FredR

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All the HT gear is in an armuior built in the 1850s and from the house I grew up in down in New Orleans. The challenge was to fit all pre/pro/amps in the lower middle cubby:


20170322_213257707_iOS.jpg
 
BlazeES

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FredR said:
All the HT gear is in an armuior built in the 1850s and from the house I grew up in down in New Orleans. The challenge was to fit all pre/pro/amps in the lower middle cubby:


View attachment 28641
Click to expand...

Oh wow. That's sweet. I've always wanted to do some kind of vintage furniture component fit like that. You've given me new inspiration.

Nice compliment of amps for your CX too. I also spy that you're an Xbox & TiVo type too... just like me.

Thanks for sharing man.
 
FredR

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BlazeES said:
Oh wow. That's sweet. I've always wanted to do some kind of vintage furniture component fit like that. You've given me new inspiration.

Nice compliment of amps for your CX too. I also spy that you're an Xbox type too.

Thanks for sharing man.
Click to expand...
You bet. Problem with the cubby is cooling, so I have a three 140mm fan tower behind the stack running 24x7.

20170322_220139550_iOS.jpg
 
Elite-ist

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This is an interesting thread for me to follow as I will be looking at an upgrade for my AV system. We are renovating the rest of our upstairs and all the cabling runs are completed for the AV system. I am keeping all the components hidden from view in a separate rack area. I have been looking at 70" TVs and looking through several reviews on equipment.

Nando.
 
ksrigg

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It is pretty confusing, as is the whole 4K, UHD, HDR, DV, experience.

I may just stick with my Sherwood Newcastle for a while longer.

I did buy a Vizio M70-D3 and I can tell you about that particular TV....as I am on my third one, and am waiting for the fourth one to arrive (as an exchange from the Vizio folks...) My advice would probably be to either buy a Vizio E Series 70" (E70-E3) or wait another year. The M Series, although better on paper, seems to be plagued with issues. I tried to save some money and buy refurbished. The first one arrived with a smashed screen, the second one had debris in the screen. I finally bought a new one and the panel appears to have the diffusion layer delaminating. I'm waiting on a replacement from the Vizio company, and if it is not any better, I will buy the E.... I really wanted the best panel I could afford and the M has a 120 hz native panel with 64 LED dimming zones. The contrast is amazing. Blacks are REALLY black...and it does support HDR10 and Dolby Vision. I was a little leary of the SmartCast system, but I'm getting use to it, and it really ain't half bad. I see the logic in keeping the casting off-board. It might be future-proof, in that all the upgrades will happen on your device..ie cell phone or tablet..and not the set itself.

I considered and looked at all the major manufacturers sets...Samsung, Sony, LG....but their price is either sky high, or their panel is 60 hz..and the contrast isn't that great..

I previously had a lowly Vizio D650i-B2....and I think it is an amazing TV although it is 1080 and I really wanted to go 4K...

You might want to wait and get the 75 inch Vizio E Series...it has a retail under 2K.....but you can get the 70 incher for 999....and they recently upgraded the firmware to work with HDR....and I don't think it has the issues associated withe the M Series panels.. Hell, there is even going to be an 80 inch model....

A lot of folks are really happy with their Sammys.....so, I guess it is really all in the eye of the beholder..

Back to the pre/pro....I may have to wait for the Atmos technology to either trickle down some more, or try to get a used processor...I am not ready to spend the big bucks for a brand new processor.

I'll bet the Yamaha sounds awesome. How many speakers do you have in your system? How many "channels" are there? Are you running speakers above? How many does it take to get the "effect"? Thanks for all the information...I have always tried to be on the cutting edge....but man that line is getting really blurry.....can anybody say 4K player????
 
BlazeES

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I'm running a down-scaled setup for my HT arrangement.
Two mains. A center. Two Atmos/DTS-X 'presence' speakers. Two rear surrounds and a sub.
It's essentially a 5.1 system with presence drivers added ... so a bastardized 7.1 setup.
The nice thing about the Yamaha AVR is that you DSP rearrange the default sound-field to your configuration... and more importantly... to your liking.

I don't have the room geometry to add side firing surrounds or the interest to add rear 'presence' speakers.
The DSP in the Yamaha units allows for phantom creation of front & rear presence speakers and it actually works good
- similar to what Dolby Pro Logic did with a phantom center back in the day. But better.

In my view, the main contributions for the sound-field come from the front positions and are augmented by the rears and sub.
Now if I had a dedicated home theater room, like in a basement or something, I would go full gonzo on a 11.2 system.

* * *

With respect to Atmos trickling down. It's already established and available in many lower cost AVR offerings and embedded on Dolby True HD encoded movies now coming out.
It's DTS-X that has been slower in it's roll out... on the content side.
 
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