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.

Slightly biased, but I'd vote for the Sunfire as well. I've owned Adcom, Krell, Monster (Marsh Labs design), and a few others in the past and Sunfirehas been my favorite.

At $15k for the pair I think I'll pass on this one. Should be pretty sweet though.

I would not recomend it, you'll really mess up your soundstage and imaging. In addition, you'll only gain about 3db. It would be more "wicked" to sell the RF35s and pick up a pair of RF7s or RF83s. Either would be louder than 4 RF35s and sound better as well.

Other than the fact that the 1708 IS NOT BUILT BY DENON!! They OEM all their lower end recievers. You don't get a real denon until the 2800 series. Same goes for DVD players. The 2930 and above are built by denon, the 1940 and below are rebadged Panasonic players with a denon remote and gui. Get the Onkyo. I'm not hating on Denon, I'm a huge fan of their stuff, but in the low end they are a terrible value. The 605 is a great piece of gear and can be found on Amazon or about $100 less then crutchfield. Also, if you ever plan on adding an outboard amp, you may want to look at the 705, as the 605 has no preouts.

One other neat thing about this pre-amp is that it lets you assign the surround back channels to bi-amp the front channels. When I had the Sunfire TGIV I ran an RCA to my Cinema Grand amp and out of the front channels to the next to bi-amp. With the Integra, I can bi-amp with XLRs.

I loved the TGIV as well, but as I added components it started to show it's age. So far I am very happy with the Integra. The sound is great and the Audyssey processing actually works very well. With the TGIV, I had the same issue with the THX subs that you did, but I went the route of replacing the processor instead of adding an SMS-1. So far the sound for 2 channel seems to be the same as I had with the TGIV, but surround in noticaliby improved. The DTC-9.8 also has a big advantage in connections as well. HDMI in and out, HMDI upconvert, Reon HQV video processor, and a big plus for me is assignable inputs. It also can decode all the new HD audio formats. So far my only complaint is that it looks like a $1k reciever rather than a high end piece of audio gear like the TGIV did, but I can live with that. The remote also leaves something to be desired, but I use a Harmony anyway. I just boxed it up, as I am moving to Fort Wayne in about a week and a half. I think that's about an hour and a half from you, I'd be happy to swing down south with it sometime, mostly because I want to see what the Ultra-IIs do with the SMS-1 vs with the Audyssey. -Joe

Internally this reciever is the same as the DTC-9.8 preamp. My advice would be to pick up the preamp ($1699) and add an out board amp ($1000 for sunfire cinema grand 200x5 on audiogon, or perhaps outlaw??) and spend about the same and come out with seperates.

Not sure where you read that, but I love mine so far. It just replaced my Sunfire Theater Grand IV and I couldn't be happier.

Go to the AVS forum and under the audio area, do a search for the Integra DTC-9.8. At an MSRP of $1699 it is the best bang for the buck preamp out there. It has all the bells and whistles of the DTR-8.8 ($2500 reciever), but trading the built in amps for balanced outputs. Audyssey room correction, 4 HDMI 1.3 inputs, HDMI upconversion, the HQV Reon video processor, and support for all the new HD audio decoding including DTS-MA. This thing is a winner and built like a tank. Pair it with a sunfire cinema grand (200w x5 = $1000 on audiogon) and you have one heck of a seperates stack for under $3k. http://www.integrahometheater.com/model.cfm?class=Separates&m=DTC-9.8&p=i I took this unit for a test drive and after getting it in my house, I sold my Sunfire Theater Grand IV.