Agreed, If my receiver is already receiving the direct 1080p and the pure HD audio tracks via digital HDMI, what else can more expensive components do to improve it. Even with ripped CDs or CDs themselves, it stays as digital data until it hits my receiver. It's either 100% accurate digital data or it's broken.

I would agree that care in component choosing becomes very important for heat, noise, compatibility etc. This takes time and research and it sounds like you are doing a good job and being very meticulous. Great work.

Also, if you are designing in analog outputs, well that is whole other discussion and I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment.

I'm very happy with ambient sound levels on my unit. The Antec Fusion case seemed very smartly designed for air flow and it's fans were very quiet on low to medium. I've tested heat levels at low speed to be surprisingly good with my new MB and chip coolers but I keep the fans at medium, just cause I can, without any additional noise. I considered upgrading the fans to MB controlled units but after several months of usage now, I don't see the need.

The Bell Expresvue HD receiver/PVR is the only annoyingly loud item on my AV shelves. Works fine but very poorly designed for heat and noise. The engineers probably had a budget, but I'm sure they could have done better.

Last edited by Murph; 04/18/12 02:06 PM.

With great power comes Awesome irresponsibility.