TauRus

RPTVs is a pretty mature technology and many brands IMHO have very good RPTVs, like a Hitachi I have. Based on my own experience, i would advise to have the following in mind when selecting an RPTV: for RPTVs convergense/geometry calibration is of vital importance. However not all models allow easy access to the service menu for calibration. There is an old and well respected site that provides ISF calibrators' point of view on which TV sets are better in terms of ability to be calibrated (more flexibility, more convergence points, more tweaks allowed, etc). Here is the link: http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/index.htm This should give you another dimension of thinking while picking a good RPTV. You can search there bu the brand and model nimbers to see what are their particular feedbacks.

Perhaps this dilemma with surround channel speakers has a solution: if you have a receiver like Denon 3803 that has A and B terminals for suround channels, you can place a pair of directional (in the rear for music) and omnidirectional (on the side walls for movies) speakers. Then you are able to assign particular sets of surround speakers to a particular audio format/input. It is also possible to use both sets together thus turning your system in a 7.1 setup.

I might be wrong, so take my comments with a big grain of salt, but i believe this unit actually started shipping last year. It is heavily discounted, which seems like another hint that this all digital amplifyer still has less than perfect audio. I dont rememeber the site, but i read quite an extensive analysis of the first generation of all digital amps made by Panasonic, Sony, HK. A very brief skinny of that review was that at the price level of these units it is hard to implement a high quality unit. While the idea of eliminating the D/A in the processing/amplification stages seems very nice, i remember the reviewer went on to say that amplifying a digital signal was not as straightforward as it seemed. I dont remember any of the technical specifics, i am sorry, and I am not an engineer. But what i remember from the review is that to achieve a neutral full range audio signal requires some serious design of the amplification stage, and it apeared that the first generation of these digital amps were a bit lacking in this aspect. But then again, we all came across many BS reviews, so maybe this was one of those. Just a word of caution.

Recently i happened to come across another speaker maker's web site: Final Sound. They specialize in electrostatic speakers and claim significant benefits of this technology over the age old dynamic speakers. I have not had an opportunity to listen to these electrostats long enough to make any relevant conclusion. I did listen a little to the Mirages at the Tweater stores a while ago and i liked some of the bigger Mirage electrostats but their price was way way higher anything i could seriously consider for purchasing. The guys at Final Sound seem to hint that their technology is even more advanced than that used in other electrostas like Mirages. Does anyone here have had any serious experience with these speakers? what is your opinion? And btw, could Klipsch benefit from this technology in some hyrid design combining horms with midrange electrostats? My interest in this technology is simply theoretical at this point, i do not plan to part with my Klipsches at all. Just love to keep track of the advances in technology and would be greateful if any of the Klipsch engineers would provide a comparative analysis.

glr, Since you said you liked your Adcom amp and the main reason for the "upgrade" to a receiver is processing capabiltites, I would agree with Griffinator in a way, and suggest to look for a nice affordable pre/pro, like Outlaw preamp for example, Model 950, currently selling at $799, and perhaps a B-stock item can be had for even less. I had a cance to listen to it extensively, and it is a very impressive unit. Just a thought ...

Folks, let me chime in here too. Like many said it already, take all these recommendations with a BIG grain of salt. Just pick two three units from different brands, take them home and audition. Thats what i did slightly more than a year ago. I was a long time Pioneer VSX line receiver owner. Btw, never had any reliability issues, even after I incidentally dropped the receiver while moving things to a new house. So, when the upgrade bug bit me, I naturally included Pioneer Elite along with Denon and Sony in my prospcts list. Well, Sony dropped off quite quickly. So, after a little bit of homework I narrowed down to mostly two receivers: Denon AVR3803 and Pioneer Elite 45TX, which are roughly in the same league. Unfortunately, none of the local dealers agreed to allow me to audiotion the units at home. And after some significant time that i spent in their demo rooms, the only conclusion i came with was that the only way i could really pick my receiver was to bring it home. So, i went ahead and bought 45TX at Tweater. They have if i remember correctly a 4 week return policy. So i kept the receiver for almost 4 weeks. I went meticulously through all the setup procedures using RadioShack Sound Level meter etc. I had the luxury of not jumping to conclusions and allowed the unit as well as my ears to "break in". I really liked 45TX, nice warm sound, this sexy MCACC thing, host of other useful features, great OSD. Yet, at the end of the fourth week i was still curious about the Denon unit. So I returned 45TX claiming it sounded "too bright" .... i know i know, that was bad .. At that moment AVR3803 was not immediately available, and since i already sold my old Pioneer, i could not stay wothout a receiver, so I "hired a temp" - bought a Panasonic SA-HE200 in Circuit City for less than $500. I never planned to keep it, but have to say i was pleasantly surprised by this unit. Plenty of power, quite neutral sound, nice design, some neat features, like the ability to boost the sub level in any audio mode (except 5.1 analog in) from the remote by 0, 5, 10 and 15 dB. The major drawback of this unit is its horrible manual. Setting it up was not a very entertaining process. Well, as you have guessed, it went back to CC in about 12 days and was immediately replaced by Denon AVR3803. Again, i had 4 weeks to play with the unit. It was proper;y set up and allowed to break in. In MY particular setup, Denon beat Pioneer, well and of course the much cheaper Panasonic, hands down. Powerful, clean sound, neutral to warm, but with a lot more pronounced high frequences - this all combined made my Klipsches really shine. No matter whether i used MCACC or not, Pioneer still did not produce such an enveloping and captivating sound stage as Denon did. You might say I never did the A/B test, true. I still believe that this way of testing is way more meaningfull that doing a so called A/B in the store. Btw, while listening these very same receivers on Klipsch speakers in the Tweater demo rooms i was less than impressed. What a difference your familiar home setup makes. Here, the only variable factor is the receiver, the rest is familiar: your speakers, your room, your records. You have the ability to proper;y setup the eqipment, thus being sure you are comparing apples to apples. True, the time factor plays a role here, but i say its a double edged thing: I also had plenty of time to listen to each unit and make my notes on everything, not just sound, but also other usefull features, thus capturing my user experience. I am still using Denon AVR3803 to date and am very happy with it. Now, here are a few more details about my less than stellar setup at home: Room: a large family room with "open to above" ceilings and oddly shaped openings to other rooms, in short, a vivid example of a room that should not be used as a Home Theater. Receiver: Denon AVR3803 Speakers: FL/FR - RF3II, CC - RC3II, SL/SR - RB-5II, SBL/SBR - Quintets (ooops), and, finally, the shame of my setup - RCC - Infinity C1. At times i am using 5.1 setup, sometimes add the rear channels for a 7.1 setup of sorts. Actually, here one of the Denon nice features comes useful: unlike other receivers i had, Denon has A and B speaker terminals for surround channels, not front channels. This allows for added flexibility - you can use the B terminals either for your second zone, or like me setting them up for the additional rear suround speakers. Receiver setup allows you to specify the speaker use (A, B or A+ for each type of audio format (DTS, DD, Ext IN, etc)!!! In my mind , this is a great feature. Think of it, you can use additional speakers even when listening to DVD-A or SACD. Subwoofer: well, what i have can hardly bear this proud name, but for the time it serves me ok - KLH 10" subbought a long time ago at Costco, still occupies its place patiently awaiting its replacement. Btw, yet another neat feature of Denon receiver: unlike other units, it allows you to boost the sub level by +5, +10 and +15 dB which comes very usefule if you are using a universal player for DVD-A/SACD. Well, hope this long post did not bore you to death, just tried to make one more point in favor of forgetting all recommendations and just getting the receivers to your home.

---------------- On 2/20/2004 1:13:01 AM Ou8thisSN wrote: I think the only reason you're saying that is not because you're thinking what is best for Klipsch, but what is best for YOU. YOu want people to know that you spent big bucks on your system, and want no chance for them to interpret your stuff as the sub-par simply because the same company also sells at Best Buy. Its really about your respective egos, and the chance of someone underestimating the power of either your pocketbook or the quality Klipsch products can produce. What is wrong if they sell some of their stuff without the same quality of the reference line at BB, to move more product, so they can profit more, and perhaps invest that into R&D and design better speakers for the reference lines? ---------------- I understand your opinion. In fact, I personally have no issue with Best Buy selling Synergies, and my ego does not suffer from it. I only suggested that idea since i keep reading these complaints about the deteriorating effect of BestBuy here in this forum. So after yet another thread on this topic, i thouight of a solution to this and came up with this basic marketing trick.

I also think that the degree of "brightness" depends a lot on the listening room size and conditions. MY Klipsch Refenrece based HT is in a big family room, which is in fact a worst possible scenario for having a Home Theater, since this room is "open to above", has irregular shape and lots of openings to other rooms and kitchen area. Denon AVR3803 is driving my Klipsches and the resulting sound is in fact quite warm. A few months ago, when Tweater still carried Klipsch speakers, I walked onto one of their smaller demo rooms and was very displeased with a very bright sound coming from ...Klipsch RB-5s driven also by Denon AVR3802. The sound was very aggressive. But the very same RB-5s serving as my surround speakers sound very neutral to warm in my house. The only logical conclusion i was able to make was that the room acoustics were the key factor there: that demo room was rather small, with low ceilings and untreated walls that reflected the sound very actively.

----------------------------------------------------------- I can't vouch for the break-in status of the speaks in question, but they were definitely playing from an equivalent source player and an almost identical HT receiver (again, a 3803 to my 3802... Neither of which offer any bass or treble adjustment when using the "ext. in" jacks, if I am not too much mistaken)... ----------------------------------------------------------- Not that it matters too much now that you already finalized your choice, but in fact Denon 3803 does have the ability to boost SW signal by +5, +10 or +15 dB on the Ext IN analog 5.1. Congratulations with the purchase. I also have a Klipsch only 7.1 setup, but have to admit that too was blown away recently by a set of Axiom speakers powered by Outlaw amplifiers. Especially, I was impressed with their Center channel. But hey, i love my Klipsch and for now i am sticking with them

I think one of the ways out of this would be to actually create a budget brand. Take the name of the Synergy line, make it a brand. So that when you look at the speaker you see the Synergy logo, perhaps with a fine print below "made by Klipsch". Just a thought.

A word of caution: I tried many of the universal players that were mentioned above and so far decided to wait since all of them have issues of their own. Sonically I preferred Denon DVD2900 to Pioneer units. Video wise, again Denon seemed to do a much better job, but be warned - if your TV has a 4:3 ratio Denon will display jagged edges on many high contrast objects in case you will set it up to work in 4:3 PS or 4:3 LB. The Silicon Image deinterlacer does not do a decent job scaling the 16:9 images. In my case after a few weeks of trying this player I still had to return it mainly because of this issue. My concerns were confirmed by the guys from HometheaterHiFi site. I have never seen the Yamaha unit, but I noticed that there are almost no complaints about it on the forums like HometheaterSpot or AVS Forum. There are a few new universal players coming to the market this fall, many of them will have DVI out (for video). So it might be worthwhile to wait a bit. But if none of this is important to you, why don't you just get a couple of Pioneer DV563A universal players from Best Buy $171.99@unit. Reportedly they have a decent video picture but at this price range they had to make a few compromises in the audio department.

In my old HT set up I also had Quintets as surrounds. After upgrading my center to RC-3 I moved the old center Infinity C1 to serve as my rear center. Beginning with the looks, they are very similar. Sonically, while they have different sensitivity, they work together quite well. I did not check and perhaps they are still available. They should be quite cheap. But of course, for the purity of the system you can always get another quintet, or a pair of quintets to have two rear centers if your equipment allows that.

I would like to second Michaelstano on Outlaw Audio amps. Very musical, very heavy, very good build quality, many units are of identical construction as Sherbourne (I believe same OEM). Aside from multichannel amps, they also have monoblocks. Check them out before making your choice (www.outlawaudio.com).

BB guys seem to promote other brand speakers more than Klipsch. The two BB stores in my area placed Klipsch speakers in the the fartherst corner of the section and immediately in front of that shelf they placed the boxes with KLH speakers. No visible Klipsch logos, nothing, and if you do not pay specific attention you may not even notice the Klipsch speakers hidden behind Bose and KLH.

Thors, that is why I recommeded AVR2803. :-) BTW, I said nothing in my posts about 3802. In my opinion, though AVR2803 is "ranked" lower than 3802 you were referring to, it is a more modern unit with better DACs and offers more value for the money. Also, keep in mind that Denon receivers unlike many other receivers offer up to 10 dB boost of the subwoofer channel, which comes really handy when you upgrade to a universal player with SACD/DVD-A playback.

OK, since Denon's AVR3803 is out of your budget I would also recommend you to at least consider AVR2803 which is much more affordable but still retains many of the advantages of the more expensive systems. Very nice DACs, two programmable component inputs, one component out.

Keeping in mind this was just marksdad's personal opinion, I would like to share my humble opinion as well which happens to be exact opposite of marks': I prefer both Denon and Harmon Kardon to Onkyo. I auditioned a few Onkyo and Integras and while they were good performers, I eventually gave preference to the warmth and richness of sound of Denon and HK line. Also, I do not quite understand why Mark accused Denon of putting too many bells and whistles in their product??? I would say Denon has traditionally been quite conservative. Look at Pioneer product line for example - that's where you will find b&w. Denon keeps just the necessary features onboard, and even OSD to much of my dismay does not show any nice logos and bright muslti-colored submenus. It is very basic but functional. Bottom line: I am happy that I eventually chose Denon's AVR3803 which in combination with Klipsch reference speakers creates a very rich detailed sound stage.

Damon, you can also check out Outlaw Audio website. They have decent separates. They were recently reviewed by Secrets of Home Theater.

Hey gyus, I do not know much about the quality benchmark on plazma screens from different manufacxturers, but I saw a 42" plazma by AKAI at Costco for under 3K. With Costco you are better off than with any manufacturing warranty - they take their stuff back even after extended use. No risk. As far as picture quality, from all the plazmas I saw I preferred Fujitsu and Pioneer.

I had Pioneer Elite VSX-43TX for a few weeks at home and I found the sound quite neutral, not bright at all. My speakers are RF-3/RC-3/RB-5 Overall impression is quite positive: very good build quality, neat look, nice OSD and features. I never listened to the 45TX though but there is a good chance they sound very similar.

I auditioned a few Yammies in Tweeter a couple of years ago while was shopping for a receiver. Thir sound seemed to me a bit over-processed, actually quite similar to the sound of Sony receivers (DA5ES for example). I went for Denon AVR3803 for its natural warm audio. Now speaking about a completely ignored brand ... what about JVC receivers? Just curious. Never owned and never auditioned myself. But I owned quite a few nice JVC products before and am just curious how their receivers stack up to the competition.

Following are some facts mixed with a good deal of my humble opinion. I made A/B comparison of Denon DVD2900 and Pioneer DV47Ai at home rather than in a show room. Both players were connected through the same set of Outlaw silver core coax component cables, coax for digital out (for movies, dts, dd) and a set of six Outlaw pure copper twisted pair interconnects for SACD/DVD-A. Other equipment: Hitachi 43FDX01B RPTV, Denon AVR3803, Klipsch Reference line speakers (RF3s, RC-3, RB-5s). In both Video and particularly Audio Denon beat Pioneer hands down. The difference was not slight but very apparent. Having said that, in terms of video performance I was frustrated with less than perfect PQ on both players jagged edges, combing, CUE (Chroma Upsampling Error) - all these artifacts were very apparent particularly on DVD2900. At least in my case. My older JVC in the same setup and playing the very same disks did not show any signs of these artifacts. Audio i.Link (FireWire) output on Pioneer - definitely a step forward in technology. However, it only works currently with Pioneer VSX-49TXi receiver. I am not aware of any other receiver to date that accepts i.Link audio signal. Also, keep in mind that because of the Digital Rights limitations, the audio signal that is directed through i.Link interface is downsampled to 44Khz, not 192 as when you use analog cables. I might have erred a bit in numbers but the essence is correct - you get high sampled signal from DVD-A/SACD through analog connection only. This was done to prevent copying of the hi rez material. Sony is rumoured to come out with the digital connection for SACD that is not downmixed, but I do not have confirmation of that. So, at this point, until a global standard for digital interface for DVD-A and SACD are accepted widely, i.Link output is a mixed blessing. DVI on Marantz DV8400 (video only) - another goodie that has currently limitations - the unit ships with DVI interface disabled until "future upgrades" are made available. DVI provides better video than any analog video interface, even components, because it eliminates unnecessary D/A conversion and keeps the video signal in digital domain. Also, many of the DVD players available today can "upscale" the original 480i DVD video to 720p, 1080i and other combinations. That's very nice, because you basically get a picture that might rival HD in clarity. But I got a feeling that DVI makes sense only when you have a TV/monitor that is truly digital, like plazma, DLP, LCD. All CRT based TVs are converting the digital video signal back to analog due to the analog nature of CRTs. Marantz DV8300 was based on the Pioneer DV47Ai chassis and inherited most of the Pioneers electronic circuitry. I would guess that DV8400 is also from the same family. So in turms of the video and audio performance when using similar output interfaces both units should be quote comparable, perhaps with the slight edge toward Marantz since it is a newr generation of universal players and was reported to go through "major re-design" compared to DV8300. My 2c.

Where do you guys get these D-VHS pre-recorded tapes. I know only a couple of places like JVC D-Theater site and if I remeber correctlu "smitech" web site that carried a few of those movies. The selection there is almost non-existent, and a handful of movies available there are crap in terms of content, IMHO. You mentioned Metallica concerts, and I heard elsewhere about other pre-recorded tapes but cannot find decent places to buy them from. And they prices are .... ouch .... typically around $35. Man this hurts.

Jalen, Your concern is a legitimate one, but I would like to clarify that on Denon AVR3803 the volume range is from -80 to +20dB, not 0 as you implied. So, -10 was not a max volume output. Also keep in mind that it could be affected by low channel level settings in that particular receiver. My AVR3803 easily fills a somewhat bigger room that you described with 25' high ceilings staying at about -20 - 15 (I have RF-3x2, RB-5x2, RC-3 + a sub). I just wanted to make sure you do not unfairly portray AVR3803 as a whimpy receiver. It's a powerhouse IMHO.

There is a certain confusion about the Denon AVR3803 "video up-conversion" feature: it does not improve the source picture, it is not a line doubler, but a very convenient interface switch. Logic will tell us that any extra contact will only degrade the signal quality, and it might well be the case with video up-conversion. Yet, I tried connecting DVD player/cable box either way and did not see any significant picture degradation when the signal was switched through the receiver. Also there was no improvement to the picture. This feature is a convenience feature, and it works great for me. I only run one set of component cables to the RPTV, all other video cables terminate in the receiver.