jzoz01

Update: Updated my 9.8 to FW 1.08. Went flawlessly, took about 20 mins or so. Not really sure what differences are all included, but did notice that HDMI sources lock on quicker with the new FW vs. 1.04.

I don't know that I'd say blown away, I'd say I'm fairly happy at this point. There are quite a few quirks that get a little annoying. It takes longer than I'd like to lock onto an HDMI signal and I get a pop sound over HDMI occasionally from my cable box. I'm running FW 1.4 and need to upgrade to 1.8, but need to order a USB to RS232 cable to accomplish this, hoping that solves issues. As far as surround sound and general convienience I am very pleased compared to my old Sunfire. I'm also really pleased with the Reon upconverting and connectivity. Audsey is also pretty slick. One thing to note though is that all of my audio connections are digital, I'm not using any analog currently. I wouldn't doubt that the Sunfire might excel in that area ahead of the Integra, but I don't really much care as it doesn't apply to me. The sunfire had some "issues" as well. My volume knob on the front of the unit never worked right, it would skip around so I pretty much always had to use the remote. From what I've seen this is very common in the TGs and ultimate recievers. Also since inputs were not assignable, it made many of them kinda useless to me.Other than that I really loved the look and sound of the TGIV, but it definately showed it's age feature set wise.

The 9.9 and 9.8 are identical, only difference is Dynamic Volume aand a higher MSRP on the 9.9. I have a 9.8 and am fairly pleased with it compared to the Sunfire Theater Grand IV it replaced. How does the 9.9 compare with the C2 in 2 CH. mode for just music? What speakers are you using and what is driving them?

Most will, but some, such as the Sony BDP-S1 does not play CDs. Actually come to think of it, that might be the only player I know of that doesn't play CDs.

If you look in the archives. We had this same disscussion about 4-5 years ago when BB anounced it was carrying Klipsch. there were nay sayers claiming that it would put Klipsch down the tubes. In fact it did the opposite, we now have a wider selection of options than ever before. The Ref line used to be the RF-7, RF-5, and RF-3, anything below was Synergy. Since the move to BB the Synergy line has grown and moved up the food chain and the Ref line has extended itself down to more entry level models. I for one don't see this as a bad thing. I think the problem that most people have is that they feel their speakers lose some prestige if they are sold in big box retailers, as prior to best buy, they were available only in specality shops. Get over it.

Budget? If you're looking for bang for the buck I'd look at used. Sunfire is a great choice and you can pick up a 200w x5 Cinema Grand for about $1k on audiogon. They work great with Klipsch. The RF-7 may be efficient, but it'll dip down to well below 3 ohm in certain frequencies. The Sunfires handle low impedience like a champ. I ran Sunfire on my RF-7s and on my Logans and couldn't have been happier. Edit: You can pick up used Rotel fairly cheap as well, but personally I've never been too impressed with them. I realise they are very popular, but to me they've always kinda sounded like every other Japanese amp. Cheap power, but kinda bland. YMMV though.

Since no one seems to have answered the OP's question. The Ref line uses titanium tweeters instead of aluminum on the Synergy. Aluminum has a tendency of ringing at certain frequencies, it bothers some people, most don't notice it. The Ref series uses Cerametalic woofers (ceramic coated aluminum) and Synergy uses polypropolene woofers. Also the cabinet bracing is slightly better on the ref. Aside from those points and the astetic differences the basic design is pretty similar.

Bluray won out because of studio support (due to more copy protection and region coding) and CE support (due to migher margins on players). It had nothing to do with the higher storage capacity.

Bummer. I have owned both and absolutely love HD-DVD and had nothing but frustration with Blu. Really too bad things worked out the way they did.

I guess I can't really say anything negative now that I think about it. Sunfire's "tracking down converter" is bascily the same thing as a class D.

Looks pretty interesting. I have a friend with a Denon 5803, and I have to say it sounds incredible, but I always wonder why not go seperates at that point? $4-5k will buy a great preamp and $2-3k will buy an amp that I would think would be as good as the class d they are putting in this reciever. Anthem AVM50 and an Outlaw or B&K amp seems like a better deal for the money.

Yeah I need to update my profile I guess. I sold the RF-7s the day before I moved from MN. I tried putting the Logans in the living room, but the arangement didn't meet WAF. Oddly enough she was fine with me setting up shop in the bedroom, but not the living room. Oh well, HT in the bedroom. The THX subs are currently sitting in their respective boxes in my entryway as is my RC-7 (someone please buy it so I can justify picking up a ML center). Hopefully this is a temp situation as we are already scouting out houses. Will be 6 months out or so, but gotta start dreaming sometime. Roger I'll shoot you a PM.

Just to clarify, the low end Denon DVD players are Panasonic rebadge, the revievers are made by someone else (Not Denon). Denon makes great stuff, but you don't get a Denon reciever unless you buy a 2308 or above. The 1xxx stuff is all OEM'd and made in China.

The 4800 will have a better amp section and most likely better DACs, but the 3805 will have more bells and whistles that were not available on the 4800. Are you running video through the reciever? The 4800 has only 2 component video inputs and I'm not sure that they are wideband. Edit: Also, MSRP on the 4800 was $1999, not $2500. Realistically I'd do the 3805 as it's 5 years newer and a very solid reciever.

Another thought..... what's your Rotel amp not doing for you that any of the listed amps will acomplish? While all of these amps you listed are great amps, the Rotel is no slouch either. You may get more bang for your buck keeping the amp you have and instead spending that money on a new processor or some other toy. Take a look at the new Integra DTC-9.8 (again slight bias), mateing that with your existing amp would get you Audyssey Multi EQ, Reon HQV video processing, HDMI upconversion, and all the new surround processing codecs such as DTS-MA. I don't see a HDM player on your component list, but the Integra ($1700) + a Blu-Ray player would cost less than a new amp and bring a greater overall system improvement. Just my 2 cents though.