Amp upgrade - circa £500 budget to go Full HD

Atchi123

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I have a very good Denon 1906 at the moment but would like to upgrade this for two reasons a) to take advantage of the HD sound formats and b) to get an amp with greater power (120w/channel+) to better drive my full size speaker set.
Apparently the only range of amps to buy that fulfil this are the Onkyo range. Should I invest in this range and which one? Or will there be a host of new amps coming on the market at my budget level that will beat or be a realistic alternative to the Onkyo range?
 
If you're happy with the Denon sound, then something like the Denon 2307 might suit your needs well.
It accepts up to 8 channel (7.1) PCM over HDMI, so will accept decoded HD audio such as DD+ and Dolby TrueHD.
Has a good power output as well as the possibility of Bi-amping the fronts.
And also will look nice next to your Denon 1920.

There are also more Denon models on the horizon, such as the Denon 3808 which features on-board HD audio decoding etc.

Addition; In fact the Denon 2308 might also be a good contender for you and bang on budget!
 
Thanks, I will definitely consider the 2308 as long as its future-proofed on the HD sound side of things...its not exactly straight-forward on what amp will decode what format these days:suicide:
Any other suggestions as I'd like a shortlist of 3 to demo if possible?
 
I see that you mention the 2308 rather than the 2307 model the previous post talked about. Are you aware that you don't need an amp that processes HD formats to play HD sound. As long as the amp takes PCM over HDMI then you will get the full HD sound, this means any of the current Denon amps from 2307 upwards will give you HD sound from your PS3.
 
If you don't fancy one of the new onkyo's the soon to be discontinued denon 2307 doesn't look a bad bet.
 
I see that you mention the 2308 rather than the 2307 model the previous post talked about. Are you aware that you don't need an amp that processes HD formats to play HD sound. As long as the amp takes PCM over HDMI then you will get the full HD sound, this means any of the current Denon amps from 2307 upwards will give you HD sound from your PS3.

Interesting point that I didn't know. tks. My only thought is whether that is fully future-proofed though? If I get a stand-alone blu-ray player I couldn't access the DTS-Master Audio track...however I have read that PCM is better? :confused::confused:
 
All you have to do is make sure that the player has the relevant decoders.
All HD DVD players have to have Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS (Core).
Most BluRay players have these also, although I believe the most affordable player, the Sony BDP-S300, doesn't have the Dolby TrueHD decoder.

DTS:MA is not particularly relevant yet, but as long as you get a player in the future which has the DTS:MA decoder, then again an AV Receiver which accepts LPCM over HDMI is perfectly fine.

The main reason in the previous generation, i.e. Dolby Digital and DTS, that you needed to make sure that the AV Receiver had the decoders is that optical and co-axial cannot transmit 5.1 PCM, only stereo PCM. Therefore it needed to be sent as bitstream, leading to the need of the decoders in the AV Receiver.
 
I have a very good Denon 1906 at the moment but would like to upgrade this for two reasons a) to take advantage of the HD sound formats and b) to get an amp with greater power (120w/channel+) to better drive my full size speaker set.
Apparently the only range of amps to buy that fulfil this are the Onkyo range. Should I invest in this range and which one? Or will there be a host of new amps coming on the market at my budget level that will beat or be a realistic alternative to the Onkyo range?

As an Onkyo owner and if you look at the posts on this site and magazine reviews, I would have to say the Onkyos are the best out there at the moment. All the others are playing catch up at the moment.
 

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