Received the 809.
Have hooked it up and poked through the menus. Saw the nifty thing that said "firmware update" Went, ok, that sounds like a good idea, cli--oh damn, it says 60 minutes--ick. Rats.
Waiting now...
Hopefully this will finish so I can run at least a quick Audyssey setup before my wife gets home.
Congrats Ken!
Um, where are the pics??
First physical impressions... this puppy is pretty big, but surprisingly light. About the same weight, maybe lighter than, my H/K AVR525. I like the look of it. It's nice and clean, yet big and, well, bulky. I may need to adjust some shelves.
GUI looks good from what I saw of it, need to dig around more to reassign and rename inputs.
No clue how it sounds, other than the fact that it didn't blow up my speakers when I turned it on.
OK, that's not true. Right now it sounds silent.
27% done...
I have a 808, it sounds very good to my ears...
congrats on the new purchased...
Uh oh, we H/K owners are getting far and fewer.
Congrats Ken!
I still haven't updated the firmware on my 709. There have been a few since I got it a couple of months ago. I wonder if it will take as long as the 809. Maybe I will have to start it tomorow when I get home from my work trip and while I am working on my screen wall.
I really like the settings and options on the 709. I am sure that you will really like your 809...
It took about 45 minutes or so. The download was fast, but I have a fast connection.
Got the basics setup, now need to fix the harmony so I'm not watching Toddlers and Tiaras while I set it up. <shudder>
I can run at least a quick Audyssey setup before my wife gets home.
Snicker.
It's not going to take you weeks like it's taking me?
Congrats, Ken. I'm glad that you're likely feeling that "something new and fresh" in your HT as I have been lately.
We have to make Tom buy something.
Nope, just did a quick "by ear and iPhone app" level setup. Didn't bother with Audyssey.
Works decently, no big changes from my last one to report just yet, although I was mainly just trying to get the TiVo working. TiVo sound effects are an issue; I need to hit up Chris about his "always use PCM" thing. Or at least read his older posts closely.
Anyone else have a TiVo Premiere using HDMI? Can you make your sound effects work properly?
I think I'm just going to hook up an optical cable between the TiVo and the receiver for audio. The HDMI audio drops out as soon as you start to fast forward or reverse, so you lose a little bit when you start playing again. And the sound effects don't work properly. Plus, the TiVo doesn't output in more than 5.1, so I don't think I'd be losing anything by not using HDMI audio.
Uh oh, we H/K owners are getting far and fewer.
Congrats Ken!
I still have my HK! (But an Onkyo in our living room
)
Ken, I run into the same problem with my TiVo and my Denon.
I'll be unsure until I test it, but I think my HDMI connection also causes some of the "dropouts" I get when Pandora switches to and from it's "screensaver" mode.
I've always found it very irritating to have music "drop out" at all, or even to suddenly, for example, stop a CD or turn off a receiver when I've been listening at a substantial volume. I always have to turn down the volume before shutting it off suddenly.
That little blip with Pandora's TiVo and/or the Denon was one of the reasons I asked about HDMI handshaking issues recently.
Gnnh. Even with optical and PCM, the sound effects aren't working right. It drops the second "b-doop" when I start fast forwarding, and it doesn't do the effect for play when I stop. Everything else seems to be fine, which makes me think it's not the HDMI handshake that's messing me up. Anyone have any ideas?
Moved onto the Allison Krause SACD. Had to hook up the analog multichannel inputs; apparently my Oppo needs a firmware update to play that stuff over HDMI.
Quite enjoying the SACD. I really should get more of these things. Pity there simply aren't many I'm interested in.
I can tell I don't listen to SACDs often enough because I was slightly surprised at the crowd noise all over my living room when I pressed play.
Ah, so nice to listen to music at home, just sitting on the couch with a glass of wine.
D'oh. Just put 2+2 together and realized that because this Oppo's CD laser/lens doesn't work, it won't read the firmware update CD.
Rats.
Hmm.
ken, you played a SACD, but then you say the laser doesn't work...? For some reason i don't follow... What Oppo do you have?
The DSD layer of a SACD is read with the DVD laser.
Yeah, Alex; as Chris points out, two different lasers are being discussed. One operating at a 780nm wavelength reads CDs, while one operating at 650nm reads DVDs, DVD-As and SACDs. Apparently the CD laser in Ken's player is inoperative and he hasn't had the optical reader assembly replaced.
I'm a bit concerned that I couldn't get the HDMI output from my laptop to work on one of the rear HDMI ports, but it worked on the front one. I'll have to do more troubleshooting, but I'm starting to get nervous about those reports of bad HDMI inputs on Onks. Sigh.
I haven't even got to the fun stuff in the receiver!
Oh, i had not idea that there were actually 2 laser elements, i thought that the dvd/blu ray laser elements were backwards compatible.
BTW Ken, where are the photos?!?!?!?!
Blu-ray players actually have 3 emitters. Some cheap DVD players tried reading CDs with the one laser, it works for some part of the time. It was found out by the people who bought them there was a lot of media that couldn't reliably be read with the shorter wavelength. Pioneer's first batch of BD players didn't include a CD laser, but they didn't try to cheat, they just left CD playback off the feature list (that confused a lot of people).
So I've been playing with it a little more, and I've gotta say, there must be something I'm missing here. Mostly I've been watching some fairly low res (ie 400p) streaming from my laptop through the receiver to the TV. Now the receiver says it has some decent tools for streaming video, but they don't work on the PC input. ?! So I logically changed the HDMI port to be the Game input, but that doesn't seem to change anything. Anyone with an Onk streaming from a PC through it?
OTOH, it was pretty cool that my laptop recognized the Onk as being the output by name in the Sound System Preference pane.
Heh. I just hooked my Mac directly to my TV yesterday to watch Weeds (via iTunes). The HDMI audio output was labeled SAMSUNG.