arcam avr 600 ex dem £1500

garrynic

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Hi all just last week i bought a arcam avr 600 for £1500 after using a denon avca1d for numerous years but before i bought the arcam i asked the relevant questions one of the main ones was does the amp pass through in standby which the salesman replied yes but after further investigation it does not which is a real bummer to me as with young grandchildren watching dvds etc would need the amp being on which would be a real pain without scaring them to death with the sound i was very impressed with the musical side of things even playing a cd via my sony bdp760 music came to life the retailer has offered me a replacemnt alternitive amp or refund so my question is at this price is there anything to compare to the arcam or does anyone know of a soloution to try in some sort of way to bypass the arcam or anything similar or suggestions of a replacement Regards Garry:lease:
 
There is nothing for that price that will come anywhere near close to the performance of the Acram you have. I would not be giving it up for that price. What sources are you trying to bypass? If it is Sky then put the HDMI direct to the TV since it only sends stereo sound via the HDMI.
Why do you think using the Arcam will scare the grandkids? My sons have only ever listened to the TV using my acram amp since the TV does not even have any speakers. My kids love it and are not at all scared (one is 6yo and the other 2yo). The volume does not need to be at max apart from sounding so much better than the Tv speakers it does not sound any scarier.
Has it had the 1.4HDMI upgrade?
 
hdmi switching boxes one input to 2 outputs exist,
 
Thanks PSM1 and bow79 the other reason passthrough was so important is the wife moaning about having to switch the amp on to watch her own dvds and for some reason is happier doing it this way (less hassle i suppose) if you mean the 3d upgrade refering to 1.4HDMI then no i dont think so the shop mentioned a switching box but for a good one with leads they were talking about aprox £300 which i am not prepared to pay or they did offer me an ex dem onkyo 5009 for £2000 which adds £500 on top of the arcam i have until tuesday to decide (decisions decisions ) Regards Garry
 
my experience with HDMI has been using 3 in to 1 out various cheap and I mean cheap boxes e.g. three pounds from Sainsbury's or the markets. And similarly cheap leads that just happened to be lying about probably came with various pieces of equipment. To a projector so this was picture quality only nothing to do with sound and I could not see any difference between various different pieces of equipment and doing it direct.

There are switching boxes that go to 2 out on eBay I think for about £30-£40 possibly less I have not checked recently.

However I have another idea what about using a different output from your source directly to the TV if you are wanting to bypass the amp obviously if this is not HDMI the picture quality would not be as good but if this is for non-critical viewing and listening it may suffice.

Option two what about getting a cheap DVD player or blue ray player with HDMI output and connecting that directly to the TV. again if it's the non-critical viewing it may suffice. that way you could still use HDIMI direct to the TV.
I assume the need to connect. hdmI to the amp is to get the higher level sound formats out. So if you got an HDmI switching box one in to 2 out you could take the output from the DVD and then have one input to the amp and then one output from the amp to the TV. Whilst the other output from the switching box went directly to the TV. This assumes you have more than one HDMI input on your TV if not you would need another 2 or more inputs to 1 output there.
so back to the plot. If you try switching box with two outputs from your DVD player you could try it with a cheap box and cheap leads from Argos or Sainsbury's or wherever even one pound for HDMI lead in pound shop.
So hopefully you could try an experiment for less than £20 before Tuesday.
 
further to my last post I don't know that you actually said you do have blue Ray which as far as I know means that any direct sound from an output at source other than HDMI would still be of the best quality so it would not seem essential that the HDMi did go into the amp.
 
sorry post before last half of it totally wrong just got out of bed! You could not take one output from the DVD and switch it to either the TV or the amp without one of the more expensive boxes e.g. eBay. What I was trying to say is you could experiment with a cheap switching box and leads and if you could not see or hear the difference then if you then bought one of these boxes from eBay hopefully you will be able to see or hear the difference either and would therefore Know the approximate cost you could achieve this for and hopefully it would be in the tens not the hundreds.
 
I think Bow79's idea of getting a cheap second DVD/Bluray player and using this for the wife/grandkids is a good one. Another option would be to get a Logitech Harmony remote. This will switch all items on with the press of one button and is no harder to use than a normal TV remote. This would mean the wife would know no difference between using the amp and not using the amp.
 
I think Bow79's idea of getting a cheap second DVD/Bluray player and using this for the wife/grandkids is a good one.

Maybe build them a granny flat and bundle them off in there? Remember to lock the door though. You don't want them wondering back in and touching your amp!
 
Thanks for the replies all dante01 yours unfortunately is not an option im afraid as for adding a dvd player into the equasion i have a denon 3910 spare but unfortunately no room to put it in the room just another thought would a bluray player with 2 x hdmi work by runnng one lead to the tv and one to the amp or am i just complicating matters Regards Garry
 
I suppose it could work as you could have the 1.4HDMI direct to the TV and the 1.3 HDMI to the receiver. What you would need to check is that it sends audio and video via the 1.4 HDMI output. This is because they are designed to be used with an old 1.3 HDMI but allow 3D picture to a TV so they may not send audio via the 1.4HDMI output because of that so would need to check.
You should also check if the 1.4HMDI upgrade gives passthrough or not as this could solve your problems.
 
sorry been out all day. Some DVD players are really quite small just have a look at the cheap ones in Currys and Asda . there are also small ones with a built-in screens. At one point RCA (i think) did a portable blue ray player built-in screen but also an HDMI output. I have seen this for as cheap as £100 but it is normally more like £200. If you can get a normal blue ray player with two HDMI I can see no problem with that. some earlier blue ray players had HDMI output and component output if your TV as that input so that will be two ways to get high def out of it.
 
Is i just me or not just dont seem to notice a significant difference between DTS master audio on the arcam and DTS core on my old denon avca1d with music yes granted there is a tremendous difference or am i missing something ?
 
There is not a huge difference between HD and non HD surround sound. It is a more subtle immersive sound. Your old denon was a great amp and would have made the most out of the non HD sound as well. So the difference between the 2 may not be streets apart.
 
Thanks for all of the advice guys decided to keep the arcam especially after a few more days of happy listening had a play around with a few more things today and now sounding better than ever in surround modes just one last question did you set yours up with auto set up or manually at the moment i did mine manually using a spl meter any benefits this way or should i try auto as well there is only one place in a corner i can site my sub (monolith) thanks again
 
Auto setup should have some room correction as well which may or may not sound better to you. Make a note of your current settings and then run the auto setup. If it sounds better then keep it otherwise revert back to your manual settings instead.
 
Thanks PSM1 did you do yours manually or with auto setup just curious of your findings thanks again for the previous advice and realising what a great amp this is Regards Garry
 
I have the 350 which does not have auto setup so had to do it manually. I have heard the 600 quite a few times in my local specialist and been very impressed with it so a little jealous you got one for £1.5k!!!!
 
I actually sold my AVR600 and bought an Anthem MRX300 which obviously costs a great deal less but I actually prefer it as after EQ it sounds very good if not better and works brilliantly. Certainly worth a look/listen preferably at home in your setup so that the EQ can then really show what it can do.
 
Canti1982 why did you sell the arcam? was it due to problems or were you just not happy with the sound ? will continue with the arcam for now could allways sell it on later if i want and should get back what i paid for it Thanks Garry
 
It's no secret that the EQ on those Anthem's will knock the stuffing out of the Arcam implementation, but I would have never given up the AVR600 for that. Each to their own of course. :)
 

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