Hi all
Right I'm not a 100% what i maybe on at here so please bare with me
I'm looking at the AVR350 to replace my 7 year old amp (not telling what it is lol ) but a few question to you experts out there.
1. Is the AVR350 the one to go for?
2. Is it gonna do the job for another 7 years?
3. Heard a lot about HDMi audio/video will that be the way to go or just keep things the way i have it now video down one cable and audio down another
4. Do i wait for Arcam to introduce a Amp with video up scaling/conversion and do i really need this??
5. Should i wait for the BR/HD DVD war to finish
6. What format is the standard now is it for HDMi 1080 I or P?
Hi Jay,
1. The 350 is definitely worth consideration, but it lacks the ability to recieve hi res audio from Blu-ray or HD DVD via HDMI. If you are only planning on having
one hi def player in the future then you could use the analogue phono inputs on the 350 (if the player has 5.1 analogue outputs). However, this becomes a problem if you like things like SACD, since surround SACD absoloutely requires you to use the 5.1 analogue inputs on the 350, and there is only one set of inputs... You could buy a Zektor switcher that will take multiple 5.1 analogue audio inputs and spit it's single analogue 5.1 output to the 350. This box costs around £200 and don't forget that getting decent cables for 5.1 analogue is not cheap; if you had two sources you would need 3 sets of 6 cables (2 sets in and 1 set out to 350), which will cost you at least around £200 if you want good quality ones. And don't forget it's not easy to make that amount of cabling look tidy.
2. Personally I would wait for Arcam to bring out a reciever which can handle surround audio from HDMI. I know they are not fond of HDMI audio because of the jitter issues, but IMO it's getting harder to justify omitting this from their processors/recievers now that we are starting to get a reasonable choice of HD players. So in answer to your question you may find it lacking even in two years time, depending on your needs in relation to the above.
3. If you are looking to get into HD, then HDMI is very important, and all players, bar a couple, will only send upscaled via it's HDMI connection.
4. Personally I like recievers/av amps to just handle the audio, but that's just me. The more video stuff you put in an av amp the more compromises you get with audio since video signals interfer with audio ones. Basically if you have a good player chances are it will do good upscaling, and HD players either don't need scaling or do a very good job of downscaling to 720p
5. It could be a long wait for the format war to end. Dual format players are on the horizon, or you can buy a PS3 and a Toshiba player. Both now play straight DVD very well also.
6. The main HD format is 1080p (known as Full HD), but all HD players have the option of outputting 1080i, or 720p. Normal DVD players sometimes output 480/576 i/p, when upscaling is included they will have a minimum of 1080i/720p, but most made now also upscale to 1080p.
Hope this helps,
T.