sound upgrade

hal2009 · 26 Dec 2011 at 22:11

hi all, merry christmas

,

i have a denon 3801, is it worth upgrading to the newer hd formats? When i got some speakers last year the chap in the shop when i asked the same question said no it wasnt worth it with the amp ive got. Can you notice much difference between sd and hd audio formats?

thanks in advance

lucid · 26 Dec 2011 at 23:47

I've owned a 3801. Despite glowing reviews I found it only okay for movies and blummin awful for music.

A better AV amp will do wonders for regular DD and DTS. Its then a toss up between a much better seccond-hand vanilla AV amp or a new HD capable AV amp. That's a personal choice though depending on your priorities, your budget, the speakers you have and what's available at the time you decide to buy.

Second-hand there have been some monster amps selling for peanuts. I have seen £1000-£1500 behemoths selling for 10% of their original price simply because the don't have HDMI decoding goodies. Even recent-ish HD amps without 3D support are finding their way to the used markets.

So, what are your priorities?

hal2009 · 27 Dec 2011 at 18:43

I must admit i thought my pro logic yamaha amp i had before it sounded better with music. But i do think the 3801's a good amp, think i need to hear something in dd hd and dts hd and see if i can notice any difference from dd & dts before deciding what to do.

Raymond Lin · 27 Dec 2011 at 19:04

I must admit that my new Pioneer amp is damn good with music. I also have the Musical Fidelity X-A2 and it is quite close in performance when the pioneer is put through Pure Direct Mode.

9designs2 · 27 Dec 2011 at 22:45

lucid said:
I've owned a 3801. Despite glowing reviews I found it only okay for movies and blummin awful for music.

A better AV amp will do wonders for regular DD and DTS. Its then a toss up between a much better seccond-hand vanilla AV amp or a new HD capable AV amp. That's a personal choice though depending on your priorities, your budget, the speakers you have and what's available at the time you decide to buy.

Second-hand there have been some monster amps selling for peanuts. I have seen £1000-£1500 behemoths selling for 10% of their original price simply because the don't have HDMI decoding goodies. Even recent-ish HD amps without 3D support are finding their way to the used markets.

So, what are your priorities?

Could you name a few choice models as I'm still sitting on the fence as what to do about AV after selling off the Linn AV kit.... Will also get a new BD player so that could do the decoding over analogue.