Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions 7 Channel Amps

The upconversion on the Pioneer is a great feature.

Why would one want to upconvert in a receiver?

From what I have read, you would want to do it at the DVD or TV. Some say do it at the DVD, others at the TV. I think that it really depends on the quality of your electronics at either the DVD or TV.

<<Perhaps most exciting of all at these price points, they also include not only component video switching, but also 2-in, 1-out HDMI switching and conversion of all analog video inputs (composite, S-video, and component video) to HDMI.>>

Sorry. I mean conversion as to composite all the way to HDMI. You can plug different video sources into your receiver and only have one ouput to your tv.

Sorry, my bad!

I thought that you were talking about video format conversion. I have been reading a lot about that lately and had it on my mind. Here is a pretty good article on HDMI.

HDMI

I'd like to be able to use HDMI but my plasma is component only.

Well, I'm not sure that you would actually see any difference. Some of the component connections are super.

When I had Voom, you could see a huge difference in the picture quality of 1080 over 480. It practically jumps off the screen. Too bad about Voom.

My bad again, I was talking about the cables, not the picture quality. No doubt going from 480 to 1080 would be a GREAT difference in picture quality. I've seen the two, and, boy, what a difference.

But, a "good" component output to input connection compared to a HDMI connection, I believe, would be difficult to discern, at least from what I have read.

The rating of 1 Hz to 500 kHz is the rated power bandwidth. In all amplifiers there is phase distortion present within its rated bandwidth. That distortion is audible. When an amplifier is designed with a larger bandwidth the phase distortion is shifted to a higher frequency. The larger the power bandwidth, the further the phase distortion is shifted from the audioble range. Therefore, from the standpoint of phase distortion, the larger the bandwidth, the better. One of my former amplifiers (Adcom GFA-535II) had a bandwidth of up to 150 kHz.

Bruce, the audibility and significance of phase distortion is a highly contentious subject, and current research downlplays its importance. See Daisuke Koya's conclusion to his master's thesis titled "Aural Phase Distortion Detection."