Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Is this a good Av?

audioholics.com has a very good learning section.

Or read through all of Alan Loft's Learning Center articles . Just start at one end and read through to the other. He puts things in VERY understandable terms and I've learned a lot by browsing through his numerous articles.

I have just speant the last few hours reading through Alan's articles, they are very well written.

Fred I will pay a visit to Audioholics and have a look around.

Thanks

You could also stop by AVSForums lots of info there as well but some it you need to take with a grain of salt or sometimes a pound of it.

Graeme, as has already been said, simplicity of operation and a full-featured HT receiver don't go together very well. Specifically referring to Denon, you're find that although the receivers are excellent, the manuals are widely regarded as among the hardest to understand, and few find that the Yamahas are more complicated to operate.

As to HDMI 1.3 compared to 1.2 which you have, players and receivers having that capability can output and input the new audio formats present in Blu-ray discs in their native "bitstream" form rather than having the decoding to PCM take place in the player. The receiver then would decode it to PCM, do further processing such as bass management and convert it with the usual DAC to analog for amplifying. This isn't of any particular advantage, as the decoding in well-designed players is as good as that done in receivers.

If the on-screen display with HDMI and other superior 3808 features(e.g., Audyssey MultEQ XT)are important to you, go with it, but expect a period of required learning and experimentation.

The Yamaha manual sucks, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, the 3808 manual sucks even more. You’re screwed on that account……. The only manuals that I’ve found useful are HK’s. But HK’s suck in general any more, so that’s a mute point.

The 661 is very limited to user set up. The 3808 set up options are nearly limitless. The 3808 will drive you nuts at first. It could even take a trip out the window if you drink espresso while trying to figure it out. But, after you figure it out (possibly never fully figure it out), you will soon realize just how nice it is to have very little restrictions to how you want to set up everything.

HDMI 1.2a verses 1.3 is an old and tiring debate. The only ‘real’ advantage of 1.3 over the previous version is as John said…… HD codec decoding in the AVR verses the source. Whether one is better than the other is a ridiculous debate as far as I’m concerned. It also supports deep color, but I seriously doubt I’ll ever see a disk or source with deep color in my lifetime. The different power output of the two is significant. However, it’s doubtful you will ever need more than what the 661 can output. If you do, you should probably have your hearing evaluated. The 3808 just works. I’ve had no problems with it at all. The only thing it will not support is 48 hz video. This should not be an issue for the majority of users and only for those of us who use an external video processor that convert 24fps to 48.


And by the way, I don't "break things". I just demand that they work the way they are supposed to work. I'm also unlucky. Murphy likes me for some reason or other. It may be that he has no friends and has decided to stick to my side because I have grown used to him being around and tolerate the bastard.

Only a very mild hijacking follows....

Does ANYONE have a good manual? I'd like to think that smaller companies like Outlaw or Emotiva spend some time on a good manual with reasonable English grammar... Anyone?

Well to be honest I was expecting it to be hard, as you know from the recent posts I am having trouble understanding and I did not expect a new AV to be any different.

The idea of having OSD appeals to me, the reason is, I feel I would be able to understand a little better if I can see the options etc listed.

As for being lucky....

"if it wasn't for bad luck I wouldn't have any luck"

I have decided to wait on the AV, I will see what is being released early next year. In the meantime I am going to try and learn as much as I can so that when the time comes I can at least get it out of the box

Dude, didn't you say you were a brain surgeon?

Have a look at the recent post

http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=225931#Post225931