Re: AVR300

["rectorydp" <dpullen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Good to see the reviews from Phil and Tony. As always seems to be the
case, it is never that clear cut!

I would not be particuarly surprised to hear that the Arcam is warm
sounding and polite. It seems to be their "house" sound. However,
it
will be interesting to see if your (Phil's) impression improves with
listening.

The last time I auditioned any Arcam amps was against Audiolab (shows
how long ago that must have been!). The Audiolab was much more
transparent in my view although the Arcam was by no means bad.

I would be interested to see how the Arcam sounds if you divert 2 of
the 7 channels to bi-amp the front speakers.

It is still some time before I will get round to setting up the home
cinema but I was hoping that the Arcam might be the solution. Sadly
there don't seem to be loads of good options around that price and the
Arcam did have some good features for HA.

I'll just have to keep that short list going!!

I for one would certainly be interested to hear more updates on
progress Phil.

BR
David

> I'm revising my opinion a bit ...
>
> It *ISN'T* in the AX10 mould (if you hadn't worked it out that's my
fave AV
> amp that is in any way affordable) - the AX10 will take a movie
soundtrack,
> pick you up and stuff you inside it, give you a good hard shaking
and spit
> you out. It has balls the size of Godzillas and will pretty much
pile out as
> much current as your speakers need to spank them into submission
whilst at
> the same time being able to play music without sounding the amplifier
> equivalent of an English schoolkid trying to speak French.
>
> What it *IS* is a damn good decoder hooked up to a perfectly
acceptable set
> of amplifiers - the roller coaster sounds of the door hall in
Monsters Inc.
> certainly separate out from the general background "noise"
better
than they
> do with the DSP-A1 - similarly the start of Armageddon, where the
meteors
> first start showering down, is really well controlled with the meteors
> taking a real "position" in space rather than being a noise
whose
location
> is pinned down because you can see where they are on the screen. Of
course
> it does hit its limits earlier than the big iron of the Pioneer AX10
- when
> I had the AX10 on loan I don't think I ever got it to break sweat
(although
> it runs very hot - too toasty even for our cat to sleep on) but I've
> definitely heard the Arcam start to sound a tad raggy this afternoon
> although it was pretty bloody loud (and hectic) at the time.
>
> So not completely convinced if it will go back in a fornight now ...
Depends
> on how much the Z9 rocks my socks (or whether I can find a way to get
an
> AX10 a bit cheaper).
>
> > You have such a way with words phil....so evocative of the
> > image behind them
> > :)
>
> Strangely enough you aren't the first person to mention that...
>
> Phil