Technical reviews of AV receivers

I think you need to stop thinking about theory and start listening: just because a product is 'digitalized' doesn't mean it must sound the same as every other digitalized product.

Which is why you won't find the audio section of the magazine saying 'they all sound the same' any day soon, and spending all its efforts discussing buttons, connections and displays.

bhg makes some valid comments but I cannot comment on digital streamers as I have no experience of them. Although one is reviewed in Gramophone each month I am at something of a loss as to what they actually do and why I need one. For serious listening I want to play LPs, CDs and listen to Radio 3, preferably on FM. The 320 kbps via a computer can be very good on chamber and instrumental music but yields to FM for more complex orchestral scores (Yes Vic I know you disagree!). I have bought a few CDs as downloads but only if they are uncompressed at full CD rate. I have no interest in purchasing or listening to mp3 or highly compressed sound from internet radio stations or other sources and I have no interest in I pods or other Apple devices and I think this trend of going backwards in audio quality is quite pointless; rather like going back to am radio from fm.

When it comes to playing CDs however I was astonished at how good a £32 supermarket DVD player sounded. If I were subjected to blind listening between this player, one much praised by Gramophone at almost ten times the price and another older player I possess, I doubt I would be able to identify them. The one player I have which does sound different, a bit brighter and sharper, is a Sony Blu Ray player on which I thought I might try SACDs (though I haven't got any yet). Of course the more expensive player is much more solidly built but sound-wise there's nothing in it. The fact is of course that most dedicated CD players will use the same proprietary digital/analogue converter chips from Wolfson or Burr Brown irrespective of the ultimate price of the player. The sound can of course be changed by the following analogue output stages to suit the designer's taste.

As bhg rightly says this is not the case with vinyl and I would not expect an autochanger with a 10 in pressed steel turntable and crystal pickup to sound like my Lenco with its 12 1/2 inch diecast and machined platter weighing  in at almost 9 lb, individually balanced by a skilled operative, and a tone arm fitted with a magnetic cartridge giving a response flat within 2dB from 20Hz to 20 kHz and "exemplary performance" (Stanley Kelly's test report in Gramophone on the cartridge I still use with this turntable).

Equally bhg is correct in identifying 'speakers as being the least perfect component and the weakest link in the chain  which is presumably why there is more choice here than with any other items. Anyone can of course relatively easily set up to make mdf boxes, designed by computer programme,  and purchase of the shelf drive units to put in them; many loudspeaker manufacturers do not make their own. Choice them comes down to personal preferences, size, how it will fit in one's listening room and if one is willing to pay the extra costs for a hand veneered quality piece of furniture. The last pair of 'speakers I bought cost me £380 which seemed a reasonable cut-off point for use with my computer audio system. Their frequency response is as good as anything else of similar size, flatter than some more expensive designs and the manufacturer's figures are confirmed in a test report from a reputable source. I have no doubt they will sound different from the similarly sized 'speakers at £1275 reviewed in the current Gramophone. Different or better, without having heard both in one's own system who can tell?  

Andrew's comment about forgetting theory and starting listening is of course correct. If I stuck with theory I wouldn't use valve amplification with around  0.1 % distortion; I go for transistors with 0.000....%.

>What is their secret?<

Linn, apart from on the Sneaky IIRC, use their own signal processing to increase bit-depth and sample rate of the digital stream before sending into the DAC. That's why their DS units can be "improved" by a s/w update.

On the S/PDIF outputs (where fitted) you can choose the 'raw' stream as it comes from the server or Linn's upsampled version.

Anyhow, the OP was talking about AV Receiver which aren't really contenders for hi-fi. Most of them can't even manage gapless playback of streamed music.

Or then again one could just listen...

Yes.  The music is stored on a Ripnas unit, which as its name implies, rips and stores CDs, but also stores downloaded music from my computer (via FLAC).  Music could be stored on any hard drive, but then capacity becomes an issue.   I have one download from Chandos and ten from Linn at 24bit and a few at 16bit like CDs.  The Linn Majik DS unit replaced my CD player (Linn Karik and Numerik DAC) with a small but significant improvement in sound quality.  This was my prime motive for changing but I also love the convenience of selecting and cueing music from my listening position on an iPad. 

Hope this helps.  It's the full extent of my technical knowledge.  It was all installed and connected by the dealer who supplied the DS player as part of the service. I am very pleased with it!

Vic.

Yes, just so.  The Ripnas has two 500Gb discs, one mirrored for security, although we back up elsewhere too.  I believe there is a Ripnas version with twice this capacity for those with far more music than I have.  The computer is no longer involved once the download has been transferred to the Ripnas.  And  the Ripnas is located away from the listening room (with wired connection) but runs silently except when ripping CDs.  I know some feed the DS directly from a laptop, but as you say, capacity would then be an issue pretty quickly, I would think.

Vic.

I recently purchased a Sony
BDP-S380 Blu Ray Player but it only has stereo analog outputs so cannot
easily play surround SACDs. The instruction manual states that it can be
set to output DSD signals on the HDMI outputs. As Andrew indicated in
his review of the Sony STR-DH820 (which also suggested using the
BDP-S380 with it), Sony do not have a receiver that can process DSD
signals so once again they seem to have decided to torpedo SACD (having
only ever issued ridiculously expensive single-layer SACDs on their own
labels which record retailers refused to double inventory).

I see
that Andrew states that "just about every universal player offers the
ability to convert DSD to multi-channel Linear PCM and send it over
HDMI" but I'm not sure if this applies to the BDP-S380? It's not
mentioned in the manual which simply states "Outputs PCM signals from
the HDMI jack" and Sony's customer service people in Australia didn't
offer this as an alternative when I queried the lack of DSD inputs on
their receivers.

I agree that playback of CDs on the BDP-S380 is
surprisingly good but I am not sure about the USB input. It seems OK
with 320k MP3 files but doesn't play flac files and, needless to say,
doesn't have gapless playback. Presumably this is also true for the USB
input on the STR-DH820?

Prospective purchsers of the BDP-S380 who
have older HD TVs without HDMI inputs might also like to know that its
component video output is hobbled to
low definition with HD only available on HDMI outputs.