[henry1234]

These are a mixture of ones I've heard and ones I can afford.

Please rate in order best to worst purely on Dolby Digital/DTS performance I am not interested in music performance.

They will be used with M&K K17's and K4's.

Denon 3805/3806 (used a a processor)
Denon 4306 (used as a ptrocessor)
Lexicon DC-1
LExicon DC-2
Lexicon MC-1
Meridian 565
NAD T163 (used as a processor)
Rotel RSP 1068
Rotel RSP 1066
Tag AV32R (the cheaper version)
Tag AV32R (the expensive version)

[Pop up Dragon]

Thats a big list of gear there,the Denon's just wont cut it with the rest,then they shouldnt as they are lower costing amps.Of the rest i've owned both Lexicon and Meridian.The lexicon is ,to me , the best at placing you in the picture.The Meridian for music might just of beaten the Lexicon for music,but it would be close.I have friends who own TAG and love it,great build quality and good feature sets,for me good in stereo and some surroud modes for music but not close to the Lexicon for movies.
The others i'm sorry to say i can give no opinion on as i've not listened to them.
Others will say that the Meridian is better,some the TAG but at the end of the day its you who will choose,as you have to live with it.
The only good thing is that with most of what you have listed if you buy on now and selli it in one,two three months time you should not take a big hit.
Hope my 5 pence worth helps.

[alexs2]

I think that what's been said above makes good sense...the Denon's originally designed as receivers,will not be on a par with the stand-alone processors.

Of the others,you would really need to decide for yourself which provides the best sound to your ears(both on AV and stereo,as the sound differences can be quite marked),but to make a generalisation,the Lexicons,meridians and TAGs are all excellent processors,even if some are getting a bit long in the tooth now.

[henry1234]

I found a Rotel forum in Australia, they often place the Rotel RSP-1068 close or better than the Lexicon.

I've not heard either and won't be able too. Both come up regularly s/h so I would be interested in comments.

My initial thought from other posts and home cinema hobbie is that the 8 yr old Lexicon would still outperform the 2yr old Rotel.

The fact that there is no 8channel input is not good, and around £200 to send it off to America for a mod makes it an expensive total price .

[alexs2]

V difficult.....I would be surprised if the Rotel couldnt get close to the older of the Lexicons,but it may well still have the edge.

The problem with older used gear is always going to be that of getting a demo,but in general the TAG has quite a clinical sound,not hard,but certainly not the warmest,although mine is used with an unforgiving amp/speaker combination and is very easy to listen to.

Once more,the issues of personal preferences are a problem,but again as a generalisation,I would think that all of the dedicated processors would produce good imaging and separation of the sounds,certainly better than a receiver used as processor.

[Pop up Dragon]

With regards to what Alex said above,the older DC1 from Lexicon is a strange fish.The ealier units had 18 or 20 bit DAC's the last ones had 24 bit.There are units out there that are AC3/DD only or even the olser base model with no digital audio decoding.You would be lucky to be able to upgrade any of these as the DTS and AC cards are no longer made.Also be careful that you dont go for a V2 unit as the DC1's with V3 and V4 software sounded better.The DC2 and MC1 came out at the same time ,i've had both and can say that a late DC1,V3 or 4 is very close to DC2,the MC1 is better.Again for me,better enough that as a ex DC1 and 2 owner i woudlgo for the MC1 any day.

[Apone]

Depending on your budget I would go for an Audyssey room equalizer and a good quality 2nd hand processor or use what you have as a processor for the time being.

Mahmood

[gizlaroc]

Denon 3805/3806 (used a a processor) Don't bother, alright processing and steering but a rough sounding pre amp.
Denon 4306 (used as a ptrocessor) Same as above.
Lexicon DC-1 A bit bright.
LExicon DC-2 With 24 bit dacs it sounds good still.
Lexicon MC-1 Awesome still, if you don't need video switching it is still one of the nicest sounding processors and handles music better than most.
Meridian 565 Nah, seen better days, get a 568 as a minimum, 568 as good as the MC1 and the 568.2 beats this lot by a long, long way.
NAD T163 (used as a processor) Never heard of it.
Rotel RSP 1068 I didn't like it very much, sounded hard to me.
Rotel RSP 1066 Never heard it apart from in a shop and you can't really tell.
Tag AV32R (the cheaper version) Hate it with a passion, very bright, very hard sounding and terrible with music, one for the Tag fanboys only.
Tag AV32R (the expensive version) Thought it was just more of the same.

[bobdixon]

Gizlaroc is right. The 568.2 is a cracker but....SP1.7 better musically (to my ears anyway) and similar cost No video switching but of course you can feed all your TV stuff direct.

[z5461313]

Get a Meridian 568.2 - you won't feel the urge to upgrade again

Its got everything you could want - it does what it says on the tin - its a cinema surround sound processor

Since I got mine, no need to upgrade now, in fact I would be mad to contemplate it

[gizlaroc]

I have owned the 568.2 twice now, and currently have the MC1, although the MC1 is good the Meridian is better. Awesome, awesome processor for home cinema and even better with music. I bought a Lexicon MC8 and sold my first 568.2 and really regretted it, for films the Meridian just had such a room filling sound it made the Lexicon seem very processed in comparison.

How much do they go for now?

[mikeaitch]

Originally Posted by z5461313

Get a Meridian 568.2 - you won't feel the urge to upgrade again

Its got everything you could want - it does what it says on the tin - its a cinema surround sound processor

Since I got mine, no need to upgrade now, in fact I would be mad to contemplate it

Can you use True HD from a BR or HDDVD?

[dpstjp]

Originally Posted by mikeaitch

Can you use True HD from a BR or HDDVD?

According to Wikipedia:

"An HDMI 1.3 link is required for transport of the (raw) coded bitstream[1], although in practice, the lossless nature of TrueHD eliminates any potential difference between an HDMI 1.3 and HDMI 1.1 audio link. SPDIF/toslink cannot carry TrueHD at all, due to insufficient bitrate-capacity. Thus far, most HDMI-equipped players internally decode TrueHD to LPCM, and output the LPCM over HDMI.[2]. Fewer support analog-audio output or HDMI 1.3 output. All HD DVD players can transcode the TrueHD bitstream into a different format (such as DTS), providing a legacy AV receiver a high-quality approximation of the original TrueHD audio over the familiar SPDIF/toslink cable."

So the answer would appear to be "Only if the player has first decoded it to DTS, allowing the 568.2 to then take the signal via a SPDIF/toslink connection".

dpstjp

[henry1234]

Does anyone think that the basic dolby digital or DTS decoding from a quality unit such as the Lexicon or Meridian would outperform any of the higher bitrate formats decoded from a budget HD or BR DVD player and output from the 5.1 or 7.1 analogue outputs.

Source is very important I suppose and may outweigh quality issues within the new HD DVD player/decoder. Has anyone compared a new HD audio format with an old fashioned high end processor running plan old dd or dts?

[Henry]

Originally Posted by henry1234

Does anyone think that the basic dolby digital or DTS decoding from a quality unit such as the Lexicon or Meridian would outperform any of the higher bitrate formats decoded from a budget HD or BR DVD player and output from the 5.1 or 7.1 analogue outputs.

Source is very important I suppose and may outweigh quality issues within the new HD DVD player/decoder. Has anyone compared a new HD audio format with an old fashioned high end processor running plan old dd or dts?

I've got a Naim AV2, DVD5 and an HD-A1. I've listened to DD+ & TrueHD through the AV2. The DD+ is a step up but not enormous. TrueHD though is impressive, creating a much larger sense of space and 3D.

The question still arises though what would you output it too? I've no doubt that whilst the HD-A1 decodes the format, there would be some influence on the sound quality from the processor. Even if only through something like build and component quality.

[crobo]

Originally Posted by henry1234

Does anyone think that the basic dolby digital or DTS decoding from a quality unit such as the Lexicon or Meridian would outperform any of the higher bitrate formats decoded from a budget HD or BR DVD player and output from the 5.1 or 7.1 analogue outputs.

Source is very important I suppose and may outweigh quality issues within the new HD DVD player/decoder. Has anyone compared a new HD audio format with an old fashioned high end processor running plan old dd or dts?

I have a Toshiba HD-A1 running HD-DVD, and an Arcam DV27 running SD, through a Parasound C2 processor. The quality of the HD audio is remarkable, whether it is sent by coax or analogue 5.1. With the coax input I believe the signal from the A1 (DD+ or TrueHD) is decoded to 1.5 Mbps DTS and this is extremely impressive. In fact it is as good, to my ears, as DD+ through the 5.1 inputs at presumably higher bitrates (I think the C2 does a very good job of decoding). SD sources with standard Dolby Dig sound flat in comparison.

On another note, I just picked up a Lexicon MC-1, purely because it was bundled with the power amp I wanted. I have to agree with some of the comments above - this is still an awesome processor. It must wipe the floor with mid-range (and probably high-end) integrated AV amps. If the Meridian 568.2 is even better, this must be truly superb. However, the last 568.2s I saw went for a lot more than MC-1s, which seem to be bargains nowadays.

[henry1234]

I picked up a DC-2 v4 in the end.

Very pleased

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With the coax input I believe the signal from the A1 (DD+ or TrueHD) is decoded to 1.5 Mbps DTS and this is extremely impressive 


Woould the DC-2 be able to decode the 1.5 Mbps?