RE: Re: AVR300

["Tony Butler" <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Demo of AVR300 booked for 2pm at Audio-T in Chandlers Ford...

Let me know how you get on.  Are you comparing it to anything (eg the
Denon)?

I had my demo this morning.
Took along that old classic T2...but the frikkin DVD player was NOT
multiregion, so had to settle for master + comander, plus a selection of
music - rock, piano, live concert etc I brought with me.

I expected/hoped to really like the Arcam since my bro in law has one of
their stereo amps and that's real nice.....
But I *think* I preferred the Denon!

Tricky - the arcam sounded slightly better (or at least, slightly
different)
in ac-3 mode, but the area I expected it to shine in, stereo, it did not.
It seemed to be lacking somewhat in the mid range - nice clear treble,
decent bass, not too muddy, but it sounded a little harsh and as I say,
seemed to completely lack something in the middle.
Could be the sub/sat combo, but then I have a sub/sat setup myself, so it
was the better way to test it for me.
The denon had a slightly warmer sound and did seem to fill in the gap that
the arcam was lacking....

Is a tough call since the arcam has lots of nice features (eg turning the
component inputs into rgb ones means no need for rgb->component
converters
from JS, upgradable firmware etc) I would like - but equally, the denon has
more inputs, is a piece of p*ss to setup, has this denonlink thingy, and is
a couple of hundred quid cheaper.

Not decided yet, but likely to be the denon - need to do some more
comparisons on the feature count and decide what is more important to me.
Main use will be films, and there seemed to be nothing in it between the
two
really...

While I'm here, on the component/rgb front - what would happen if I just
fed
in RGB and hooked the output up to the RGB in on the telly?
Since the signals are related, would I get away with this (though maybe the
OSD would be the wrong colour?)

Cheers,

Tony