The continuing saga of Audio Geekery...
Well, after months of passive-aggressive cajoling, and by that I mean pointedly browsing certain websites constantly, my beloved _ariadne_ kindly consented to my request for purchasing a new amp. The receiver in question is the Yamaha RX-V3900, and its purchase was completely inspired by plusthreesigma's decision to pick up the very excellent RX-V3800, which only recently got replaced by the RX-V3900.
For several months, we've been trying to get our Home Theatre PC (HTPC) to play Blu Ray discs and HD-DVDs, with varying amounts of success. The Blu Ray/HD-DVD drive that we use, an LG model, has been pretty good, but the motherboard of the PC that we built for the purpose has been pretty flaky. Occasionally, the PC would splutter playback of Blu Rays, and then just shut itself down completely. After some helpful advice from plusthreesigma, it was quickly established that the offending part was the Northbridge heat sink, which, to say the least, was poorly installed by the gnomes at Gigabyte. "No problem," we thought. "We'll just replace it."
Ahem, well, that didn't go to plan either. The replacement heat sink that we got didn't fit the holes drilled into the motherboard, so we had to put back the old one. Now there's a ton of thermal paste on the Northbridge chip and the old heat sink. Anyhoot, at some point, we'll get around to installing a heat sink that fits, I promise.
Nevertheless, although we'd being playing Blu Rays through the HTPC, this wasn't necessarily the most ideal way to get the best out of the high-definition discs. Because the new format uses high-falutin', super-duper high-resolution digital audio (Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, DTS-HD Master Audio, Uncompressed multi-channel PCM), the only way to actually get access to it was through the analogue sound card built into the motherboard. SPDIF opitcal doesn't have the throughput, so it's not possible to use that interface for the high-resolution audio. Instead, the PC has to convert the high-res audio to output through it's analogue outputs, which, as with most PCs, are 3.5mm jacks - not the most ideal thing for extracting all that audio information since you're dealing with the DACs (Digital-to-Analogue Converters) on an onboard sound card from a $250 motherboard.
Ideally, you want to be able to get that digital information off the discs and get it decoded by a proper amp with good DACs. However, the only digital way to do that is via a HDMI interface. Now, while several graphics cards do sport HDMI interfaces, none of them support transporting high-definition audio, though quite a few do support the audio formats that can be transported over a standard SPDIF interface (i.e., DTS, Dolby Digital, stereo PCM). To my knowledge, the only sound card that supports HDMI output of high-resolution audio is the Asus Xonar HDAV1.3 sound card. However, at a price of nearly $400, that's the price of a standalone Blu Ray player. Sure, a standalone player isn't multi-region and it doesn't play HD-DVDs, but it does eliminate several problems.
The biggest problem that it eliminates is the playing of certain Blu Rays. eatliketheninja has been keeping me supplied with review Blu Rays for several months, but some of them have been refusing to play on the HTPC. Well, after further cajoling of my poor wife, we are now the proud owners of a brand-new Panasonic DMP-BD35, which we managed to nab for about $400. Needless to say, it plays all the problematic discs just fine, thank you very much. More importantly, this particular Blu Ray player seems to be one of the easiest players to mod for multi-region playback, thanks to the guys at this website. Not surprisingly, it voids your warranty - who knew? - and it's not exactly cheap, but it would be very neat. Soon, soon...
So, new Blu Ray player and new amp. The results are quite fantastic, to be honest. There's room for improvement - there always is - but that's gonna cost a lot more money, and I think our need for a holiday sometime in March is far more pressing at this stage.
So, what improvements could be made, Phil? Well, as Deane from The Curiosity Show used to say, I'm glad you asked. First of all, there are the main speakers. I'll be honest, my Aaron ATS-4 speakers are acquitting themselves quite well, but having heard plusthreesigma's ATS-5 speakers with her new amp, the temptation to upgrade is very strong. More pressing, though, are the centre, surround and sub-woofer. These are all hold-overs from my first real surround setup, so they're getting on to be about eight or nine years old. They've served me well, but the new amp has a lot of headroom, so some more up-to-date (and bigger) speakers are definitely in order at some stage.
Ideally, the centre for the job would be CC-240. plusthreesigma has picked one up for herself already, and she's also picking up a pair of SS-200 surround speakers, which also look ideal for the job.
As for the sub, well, that's a tricky one. My old sub, from Richter (same brand as my current centre and surrounds) is alright, but it lacks a bit of power for the fine control required of modern soundtracks. One of the great ironies of trying to get a decent sub is that you do really need a lot of power, but not so you can blow up your house. The extra power means that it will offer more fine control at lower volumes, giving you a better integrated sound field. Currently, my sub is pretty much non-existent at lower volumes and it's not until you raise the volume that you get any response, and then it ends up being too boomy and undefined. Once again, I think Aaron Hi-Fi will show the way and I'll end up picking up one of their subs, probably the SW-400, but I'll have to give these a bit more of a listen at a later stage first.
Of course, as I said, these are very long-term goals. There's a lot of money involved in doing that, and, more importantly, our purpose-designed AV wall barely fits the speakers we have at the moment. An upgrade to larger speakers will involve cutting larger holes into the wall to permit their integration, and that's a whole world of hurt I don't want to get into right now.
I think the most reasonable initial upgrade will be to get some new speaker cables. Most of the cables I have now date back to my original setup, and they're getting a bit ratty these days. Also, I wanna end up using lockable banana plugs so I don't have to futz around with poorly soldered bits of crappy wire every time I wanna check the connections.
Well, if you made it this far, I admire tenacity. I really do. :-)