Receivers
| Onkyo TX-SR607 7.1 A/V Receiver |
| Written by Tyler Stripko |
| Thursday, 24 September 2009 00:00 |
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Page 5 of 5
Conclusions During the course of this review, I had to continually remind myself that this was only a $599 receiver. The core performance of the 607 on 2-channel audio and movie soundtracks is simply excellent and should satisfy all but the most discerning “audiophile.” The inclusion of Audyssey Dynamic EQ and Dynamic Volume (for those of you not allowed to “crank up” your systems) are welcome additions, as are the six HDMI connections. My few criticisms of the 607 are minor and most likely will not be of concern to the intended buyer. As for Pro Logic IIz, I personally wouldn’t upgrade a relatively new receiver or pre-processor just to get the height channels, though they do help add extra ambiance on movie soundtracks. The bottom line is this: you need to pay quite a bit more money to dramatically improve upon the performance of the TX-SR607. That is high praise indeed and if $600 is within your receiver budget the Onkyo TX-SR607 is tough to beat. Comments (9)
Lack of multichannel analog input
written by Gérard , September 25, 2009 Hi, I'm a newbie in HT, and I'm looking for my first A/V receiver. I have 3 questions about this passage in your review, regarding the lack of multichannel analog input: "Granted, HDMI bit-streaming... degrading the signal in some way": 1- can't you have the player to decode the audio when it's connected to the receiver through digital input? If not, why? 2- why would there be some potential effects on the quality of secondary audio and menu sounds? 3- is it generally better to have the player to decode the sound (when possible) instead of the receiver? Regards, -- Gérard, Paris
Gerard
written by Tyler Stripko , September 26, 2009 1) You can have the blu-ray player pass the audio directly to the receiver. This is known as "bit-streaming." The only negative to this is that you will not be able to hear any secondary audio tracks (like director's commentaries) or the built-in menu sounds of a blu-ray disc. However, if all you care about is hearing the movie soundtrack in the native Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master, this is the best way to go (and what I do). 2) If you decide to decode the audio in the blu-ray player and pass it digitally to your receiver (via either HDMI or optical/coaxial digital), there must be a conversion from DTS-HD or TrueHD to another format. Depending upon your player, it may take a lossless movie soundtrack and "down rez" it to something like a traditional Dolby Digital or DTS in order to mix in the secondary audio soundtrack. My Samsung player does this. This would result in a negative impact on the quality of the actual movie soundtrack, but not the secondary audio (which is rarely lossless anyway). 3) Personally, I think that it is usually better to have the receiver decode the sound, unless your BD player has superior digital to analog conversion chips (DACS), which is rarely the case. You will lose out on the secondary audio, but you will get the highest quality from the actual film soundtrack, which is the most important thing in my book. Frankly, this is a major flaw with the blu-ray spec in general, and it looks like it will never be solved.
Player vs Receiver Decoding
written by Chris Heinonen , September 26, 2009 I'm going to add a couple of comments to what Tyler said to help clarify some things. 1) You should check the manual (or online discussions) of any receiver to see what restrictions they might have with room correction and audio bitstreams. Since decoding that bitstream takes some processing power, many receivers (including one I just reviewed that should be available shortly) can apply room correction to PCM audio, but not to bitstreamed audio, due to this overhead. In this case, you would want to feed your receiver PCM audio to have this option. 2) Having your player pass PCM audio over HDMI (as many players can decode the formats internally) will give you the same audio quality as passing the bitstream to the receiver. It will still use the DAC's inside of the receiver, as the PCM audio is still in the digital domain. However, if you send it over analog outputs, then it would use the DAC's in the player which may or may not be as good as those in your receiver. So, if you can pass PCM audio over HDMI instead of the bitstream, you will get the same quality as if you passed the bitstream audio (it will just be decompressed before it gets to the receiver instead of after), you will have access to the secondary audio tracks and menu audio effects, and your receiver may be able to perform room correction and other operations on that audio that it couldn't if it was still a bitstream.
Upconversion
written by Marc Sedaka , October 04, 2009 Hello, Right now I own a Denon 1905 and just ordered this unit (need those HDMIs), but worry about its upconversion ability as compared to the Denon. A couple of newbie questions if you don't mind: 1) Does upscaling mostly come into play with standard DVDs (as you tested) or is it also important for the 480i broadcast TV that I watch through my Tivo unit? Likewise the VHS and Beta (yes I said Beta) tapes that I occasionally watch? 2) I own a Sony DVD mega changer with upconversion. Would that take the place of the receiver's upconversion for DVDs? Thanks Very Much
Marc
written by Tyler Stripko , October 05, 2009 Marc, You are correct, the upscaling features of the 607 would be used on standard definition material like TV broadcasts, regular DVDs, and VHS/Beta. Is your Sony changer equipped with an HDMI output? If so, you might want to use that for the upscaling (if it is better) and then just let the 607 passthrough the HDMI signal. The 607 does not apply any processing/scaling to HDMI based signals. The 607 is not a bad scaler, so it might actually perform better than your current Denon. Give it a try and see what your eyes prefer.
connecting front high speakers
written by Titus , October 07, 2009 There seems to be a contradiction between the product manager's email stating that you CAN have back surround AND front high speakers connected simultaneously with Powered Zone 2 set to "Not Active" (and then use either one of them by selecting PLIIx or PLIIz), and the subsequent paragraph saying that one must decide which speakers to connect to the "back surround" binding posts, set Powered Zone 2 to "active", and then select "front high". Can you please clarify this?
Titus
written by Tyler , October 09, 2009 Hook up the back surrounds to the binding posts labelled "back surround/front high" and the height channels to the spring-clip terminals. Then make sure that you change the "Powered Zone 2" to "Not Active." As per Onkyo, this should allow you switch between back surrounds and height channels based upon the processing mode. Please note that I was not able to test this methodology as I had already sent the unit back. Write comment
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