[RSMarco]

Hi there,
I have recently purchased a Panasonic Th-42PZ800 Plasma and a PS3 for use on gaming and Blueray.

What I want to understand is the best way to connect these together as I plan to either go with an AIO 5.1 or dedicated AV receiver..?

I hope to have in total the PS3, SKY+ or maybe SKY HD and I want to get the best visually and from the sound.

My question is cables and which ones etc. I have read on here that cheap cables are just as good as the expencive ones and TBH I am use to QED speaker cables and interconnects from my Audio set up.

There is a guy on here ( Mark Grant) who supplies HDMi etc, are these kind of cables a good inbetween option and has anyone any experience of them..?

Much appreciated

Marco

[davepuma]

I use Mark Grant HDMI cables myself. What you have read is correct, for digital cables, there is no need to spend a fortune. For example, I recently got an optical cable for £5 from audiovisualonline for my freesat box and it works, no break ups, jitter or any other faults. Spend what you are comfortable with mate, it's your money!!

PS. Don't bother with an AIO unless you're looking for those *cough* stylish tallboy speakers that no one makes other than for AIO units (other than Pioneer for some strange reason). You soon realise that an AIO unit is a waste of time when you add to your system and quickly realise there are no sockets to connect to and you end up having to buy ugly splitters or switches, extra cables and have to fiddle around everytime you want to use something. Buy an AV Receiver (Yamaha 861 is a good buy at Peter Tyson right now for £270. Do a search in the AV Receivers forum for LPCM or similar to bring up literally hundreds of threads on the PS3 which seems to be what most threads are based around) and some separate speakers.

[RSMarco]

Cheers mate,
What is LPCM and how does it effect things..?

[davepuma]

Basically the PS3 can decode the audio formats internally. These can be the old vanilla formats such as Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS and the newer High Definition Audio formats such as DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby True HD. It has to send the decoded audio to an amplifier (AV Receiver) using LPCM (Linear Pulse Code Modulation) which is basically lossless multi-channel audio. Other Bluray players (and HDDVD) can output the raw untouched audio as something known as bitstream to be decoded in the AV Receiver. The PS3 can bitstream DD5.1 and DTS but not HD Audio. That is why you will see some amplifiers with various audio format logos on the front. Just because the amplifier doesn't have them on the front (or display) doesn't mean you aren't hearing them. The decoding is done elsewhere, in your case, the PS3 and sent out as LPCM. Therefore ideally if you want to hear the new HD audio formats and if you're buying a new AV Receiver you might as well, you will need an AV Receiver that can accept these. The trouble is, amp manufacturer's don't seem to want us to know their amps can do it so you often have to study manuals to find the information. LPCM can be sent out as multi-channel analogue using 6 coax cables (for 5.1) and 8 coax cables (for 7.1) or in the case of the PS3 via HDMI. The PS3 doesn't have multi-channel analogue connections. The older digitial audio connections known as optical (toslink) and digi-coax (orange phono connection) do not have sufficient bandwidth to carry the new formats but can carry DD5.1 and DTS.

Have a look at the definitions of these audio codecs at the likes of wikipedia, avland.co.uk, dolby.com, dts.com and hidef digest

As you have a PS3 buying a Receiver with the HD audio decoders on board will be wasted, for now. Okay, in the future, if you buy another bluray player that can output bitstream then they might be useful to you but as the PS3 is a very capable machine, why would you upgrade? It's the only profile 2.0 machine and works perfectly well. The cheapest AV Receiver with HD audio on board was the Onkyo 605 (RRP £400) but now this is filtering down to other manufacturer's budget receivers. For example Sony are about to release the 820 model at around £230. However, if you're after audio quality over features, I would stick to the likes of Denon, Yamaha, Marantz and Pioneer. Okay, there are others but these are most popular for a reason.

Get out there, visit some dealers and armed with some research ask questions and demo!!

[RSMarco]

WOW, what can I say apart from thank you very much

I now have to look at what receivers fall into this area.

What do people use / recommend as a pointer. If anything I would pay upto the cost of the 606 or lower.

[davepuma]

This should give you some pointers:

LINK

[RSMarco]

Hello again, hope your still around..?

Ok, I have been into Sound and Vision (again..lol) and had a demo on a Yamaha RXV1800 and RXV3800 through the Kef 3005SE kit. Movies sounded very good but I was unsure about music from a CD. If I compare it to the Arcam and B+W's but I never expected them to.

Anyway, from what I want to achieve (Audio over HDMI et) I like the look of:

Denon AVR 2802
Denon AVR 3808
Denon AVR 4808
Yamaha RXV1800
Yamaha RXV3800

So from these Receivers, what would you recommend as a good unit that possibly could replace the Arcam Amp. If the cheapest of the bunch could offer me the features and connectivity then this would be good..!

Hope you can help..?

Marco

[davepuma]

What exactly are you replacing? If it's an Arcam hifi amp, why don't you keep it and get an AV receiver with front pre-out connections? Yamaha are usually about the cheapest to offer this feature (new Sonys might as well). Basically you will then use the AV Receiver as a decoder/processor and amplifer for the centre, rear and subwoofer channels and your hifi amp will continue to drive the fronts. I use such a setup so I can get the best audio from music and movies and it works very well indeed. If you must go for a one box solution, the only 'musical' manufacturer to offer LPCM HDMI audio AND a degree of musical ability is Marantz. I haven't heard them myself as they're not in stock at any of my local haunts but there is a lengthy owners thread on the SR7002/8002 over in the AV Receivers forum. The SR4002 is the cheapest in their range to offer LPCM over HDMI. Other musical amps would be Cambridge Audio and Arcam but neither offer HDMI audio. If you read the Arcam owners thread, I would imagine the general consensus would be they don't care as the sound quality is better than the Japanese offerings regardless! A guy in the AV Receivers forum recently replaced a faulty Arcam AVR350 (widely regarded as the best AV Receiver for music) with a Cambridge Audio 640r. If these have pricked your ears up, I would suggest you demo. The Arcam AVR280 is down to around £600 at a number of dealers. I think the 640R is £400 and is only available at Richer Sounds.

If you go down the AV Receiver/Integrated HiFi amp route, as I said Yamaha offer it on the likes of the 761, 861 and newer 763 models if I remember rightly. I think the Denon 2308 is the cheapest Denon to offer front pre-outs but that might change with their new 09 receivers in July/August. I've only seen US photographs and the features are often different between US and Euro models.

To achieve it, all you do is hook up one of the inputs (Video?) on the Arcam hifi amp to the front pre-outs on AVR. Set the volume level on the Arcam to a memorable position (I use 12 o'clock), ideally it should be at 0db and then run the speaker calibration on the AVR around that. The only thing you have to rember is to adjust the volume when listening to music as it will be at a loud level.

The AV Receiver/Integrated HiFi combo would be my choice.

[RSMarco]

Hi mate,
Again, thanks for your advice. It all sounds good but I am just confusing myself as I don't yet have the AV receiver.

On my current set up I connect the Arcam CD player to the Arcam amp through QED phono leads. Is this still how things would be set up but with the addition of two phono leads from the AV receiver aswell..?

Sorry if I sound thick..?

[davepuma]

No problems, it isn't complicated. Yes, you simply connect a pair of phono interconnects from the front pre-outs on the receiver to an input on the Arcam. That's it! Then as I said set the volume at 12 o'clock (experiment) and calibrate the amp. Voila'. Better movie and music performance.

[RSMarco]

Originally Posted by davepuma

No problems, it isn't complicated. Yes, you simply connect a pair of phono interconnects from the front pre-outs on the receiver to an input on the Arcam. That's it! Then as I said set the volume at 12 o'clock (experiment) and calibrate the amp. Voila'. Better movie and music performance.

Ok, cheers.

So I assume you have to have both units on to either listen to music or watch a film..?

Also, if the interconnect is directional, which direction would the run from..?

[davepuma]

For movies, you would just have your hifi amp on as I'm presuming your CD player, mp3 devices are connected to it and you only use stereo? The front speakers are connected to the hifi amp so you only need it on for music. For movies, you would need both amps to be on, as the other speakers (centre, rear and sub via preout) are connected to the AVR.

As for the interconnects, it would be from AVR to hifi amp.