Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Receiver Sound Quality?

On the a/v sync issue ... anyone know if having the source and the AVR support HDMI 1.3 is enough, or does the display need to support it too? I plan on upgrading to an AVR anyway, but my 61" DLP only does HDMI 1.2 and I'm wondering if a new optical player and AVR will make any difference in the sync issue that's plagued me.

Like I said, the difference was very, very slight but noticeable (if you looked for it) at high volume. If I were supposed to get 'steered' in one way or another I can't see how creating such a minuscule difference would be advantageous. I don't remember being told directly, but I seem to remember something about a 'direct' setting without using any stereo/dd/dplII/dts/THX processing at all. Again...who knows...

p.s.- as a side note, I did informed him that although I WAS going to buy the Sonus Fabers from him, I was NOT going to buy the receiver from him. I said I was going to buy it off the internet for much less than MSRP, regardless of what conclusion I draw.

I'm not aware of a study regarding DACs but my experience with them over the years is that there is a significant audible difference between a low end and better performing DAC.

The audible quality difference manifests itself in the specs. Better sounding DACs have higher n signal to noise ratios, flatter FR linearity, better clocking, less data rounding and therefore more resolution as well as lower jitter. It continues to be an area of considerable development with price points dropping for older DAC designs. DACs like all audio equipment exhibit diminishing incremental performance as you pay more for smaller improvements.

I recently spent several months auditioning standalone DACs before settling on a Benchmark USB DAC to go with a Squeezebox Duet I recently purchased. The Squeezebox comes with a reasonable Wolfson DAC but it isn't nearly as transparent, detailed and smooth sounding as the Benchmark.

Spendy DAC, but I'd love to hear it.

I don't want to beat this to death, yes this was blind which is good. But it doesn't take in to account whether the receivers were calibrated to be played back at the exact same volume. Most times when there's a slight increase in volume during comparisons the louder one is chosen to be better...

By the look of your write up you were comparing the receivers in depth and did your homework on them. As long as anyone gets the receiver that fits their needs and are happy with it is all that matters.

Regardless of where you fall into this discussion, I agree, happiness is the real key.

Do the research, listen and compare using the best methods that are available to you, then get what makes you feel happy within your budget. Nothing worse than that "what if?" feeling. I usually give into it later on anyways so it ends up costing me twice as much.

If you are ever in these parts let me know and I'll demonstrate how different the Wolfson and Benchmark DACs sound.