Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater recommendations for a good Audio Video Processor

Sorry, forgot the cute little smiley face next to that Levinson. Come on, $35K should not stop a man from getting the sound he needs! Actually, the Levinson and the NAD bring me to my real point, IMHO, it is not a good time to buy a prepro in your price range. To be clear, this is only my opinion. The HDMI 1.3, Dolby HT, and video processing swing has put many of the trusted mfg a step behind. I get the impression they are holding back waiting to see if demand requires that they pay for licenses and development of all these new products, every year.

Your best bets, to me, are the pre-pros from the mass market guys, like Denon, Onkyo, Integra, etc., that have the economies of scale to add all the toys, but still make a reliable product. My problem with those products is the price seems way out of whack in comparison to the their AVRs. That is why so many people are waiting for the Emotiva and Outlaw prepros. Otherwise, Denons and Integra, etc, my suggestion.

The Cary Audio 11a and 11v together, you are looking $6-7000. I know in the last two or three years, Cary has lost at least three retailers that I know of, just around Southern Ontario alone and those that do still "say" they carry the line, only do so on a special order basis. Trouble with that is you can't do any in-store demos. An acquaintance of mine that manages one of these "former" dealers said that the Cary home theater equipment just wasn't a particularly good value/performance product compared to his other lines so they decided to drop it. Not enough call for it.

It is interesting to note the processing chips in the Cary Audio 11a are EXACTLY the same ones that are in the upcoming Emotiva UMC-1 pre-pro which is going to sell for $699US. That should tell you something.

Call AVS for pricing on Cary. You'll find them to be much less than MSRP.

I would also check out the AVS Cary threads before buying. The AVS'ers usually flush out bugs. I stopped following the threads months ago, so I have no idea how well they are / are not performing.

Cary does have a strong following. They tend to be compared to much higher end gear, simular to Axiom.

my two cents stick with a good pre-pro you don't need the lossless audio. A good per-pro will deliver all the goods. It is just hype, my per-pro in dts-xs with the blue-ray, is the wow. Rigth know you could get a killer deal on a Anthem-30 for a steal and be happy with it for a long time.

With BR players capable of doing the decoding for the audio formats and output over analog, the need for the latest and greatest on a Pre/Pro was not very high. This could be why the high end manufacturers were not in a hurry to adapt the new technology into recent models.