DTS true HD sound. Worth it or hype?

Bill Hicks

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Hi.

I'm thinking about upgrading my AV amp from a Marantz SR4300 to a HDMI new fangled one. But before I go out and spend at least £500 I want to know is there a real difference in sound quality with these new HD sound options, or is it just slightly better than normal 5.1 DD/DTS?

If the overwhelming feedback is it's the best thing aurally since sliced bread then can someone recommend me a amp for around the 500 quid mark that sound amazing on DVD,BD films as well as TV and stereo music.

I'm using a LG BD370 as my DVD/BD disc player and a Cambridge audio CD connected via audio leads as my CD player.

And does this mean that I will have to go and purchase a new centre rear speaker as well?

Many thanks. :thumbsup:
 
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Personally I wouldn't say the difference is like night & day but with the purchase of a BR player I conceded that HD sound is here to stay and finally succumbed to upgrading my Receiver.

I am sure it is partly hype but the theory suggests it should sound better.

If you already have a centre speaker, I am not sure why it would need changing. If you haven't got one its down to personal preference as to whether you need one - Some don't, I do.
 
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If you already have a centre speaker, I am not sure why it would need changing. If you haven't got one its down to personal preference as to whether you need one - Some don't, I do.

Yeah I have a centre speaker but do I not need a new rear centre speaker for true HD sound? Isn't it supposed to be 7.1 surround?
 
Yeah I have a centre speaker but do I not need a new rear centre speaker for true HD sound? Isn't it supposed to be 7.1 surround?

Perhaps one day but all mainstream BR's are currently only 5.1. Apologies I missed the "rear" but saw "centre".
 
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:dd: & :dts: is compressed on DVD.
:dd: True HD & :dts: MA are lossless quality.
It all depends on the released movies you are watching whether you will benefit from this..
I have not done the u/g myself yet, but having set up a clients system, Pioneer LX 50, the system was great, and it was better than the standard :dd: & :dts: formats.
You need good speaker to take advantage of this, and other posters will tell you they would noit be with out this..
Remember doing the old :dd:/:dts: comparison on DVD??
There is a distinct difference, well basically, the HD formats are a clear winner over the older formats..
Some might disagree, but if you want the best, and don't mind paying a little extra, I say go for it..

:thumbsup:
 
For me upgrading also led to other tangible benefits. I previously only had 2 HDMI inputs, that were only passthru so no sound from HDMI.

I now have four and a single HDMI lead from each source is sufficient for connection.
 
:dd: & :dts: is compressed on DVD.
:dd: True HD & :dts: MA are lossless quality.
It all depends on the released movies you are watching whether you will benefit from this..
I have not done the u/g myself yet, but having set up a clients system, Pioneer LX 50, the system was great, and it was better than the standard :dd: & :dts: formats.
You need good speaker to take advantage of this, and other posters will tell you they would noit be with out this..
Remember doing the old :dd:/:dts: comparison on DVD??
There is a distinct difference, well basically, the HD formats are a clear winner over the older formats..
Some might disagree, but if you want the best, and don't mind paying a little extra, I say go for it..

:thumbsup:

I'm using AE Ageis Evo3 centre and floorstanding speakers and a pair of Eltax bipolar as rears at the moment.
Are these good enough for Ture HD sound?
 
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They are excellent speakers they will love the newer format..

:thumbsup:
 
I would hazard a guess that if your current speakers do a good job with DD then they will continue to do so with HD sound.

AFAIK its not a different HD frequency range and your receivers crossover setting will dictate what is sent to each speaker as with DD5.1.
 
My twopence worth......The better the kit, the more you'll notice the difference. For me, it's a bit like SACD or DVD-A vs CD. I know that's sometimes difficult to compare because SACDs are usualy multi channel. I guess the only way you'll know is to get a demo, preferably with the speakers you have now. I suspect you'd want to upgrade the speakers so it could end up being expensive. Just my thoughts....
 
I'm using AE Ageis Evo3 centre and floorstanding speakers and a pair of Eltax bipolar as rears at the moment.
Are these good enough for Ture HD sound?

There will be a perceived difference in fidelity regardless of your speakers. Better speakers would improve any system regardless of the audio formats or your amps decoding capabilities. You do not need expensive or new speakers to benefit from HD audio.

Believe it or not, the same type of arguments were thrown up when AC3 was first introduced. Some people said that AC3 would never supersede ProLogic for home cinema use. What made AC3 the norm was DVD and it will be the same story for the HD formats and their dependance on Blu-ray. The general public wont really even know that HD audio exists until the majority of homes have a BD and not a DVD player. Even then, not every household is actually interested in home cinema sound and most will simply use their TV speakers and not a AV theatre system.
 
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That is a great AVR for the money...
Has gotten very good reviews and is a basic performer with some great extras, PLIIz, gives you height for the front..
Just that extra immersion.
When I can afford 1, I will get 1..
There are other amps, but I am biased to this little beauty..

:thumbsup:
 
The Denon 1910 as stated above is a great amp. It will also do music fairly well too which is something you are after too.
 
Can't beat the ..10 lineups from Denon.:clap:

DTS-HD is well worth it.
Again hearing is subjective, like the 1080p thing, and depends on speaker package.

HD audio is the real immersive experience.
 
What I tend to find with the hd sound format is the extra clarity and sheer impact that the uncompressed sound delivers.

It is possible that I wind the sound up a bit extra as it sounds so much better to my ears.:D

I am not sure that on low end set up's the difference would be so pronounced though.
 
It is possible that I wind the sound up a bit extra as it sounds so much better to my ears.:D

.

As does almost everyone, the better HD sound with no compression also means that the low volume bits are even quieter now and then BAMMM all of a sudden.:rotfl:
Brown trouser stream....
 
I've always likened it to MP3 and CD comparisons. DD/DTS are compressed formats so will use pyscho acoustics and other little tricks to perform that compression the HD codecs are much closer in bandwidth per channel to CD. Personally the higher rate MP3s don't sound worse or different to lossless FLACs to me unless I try and look for it. Eg in normal listening I don't notice. I use analogue connections from a HTPC into my AVR 7.1 MCH to get HD audio and it is very very good and I'm very glad to have it even then I believe due to DRM worries it gets sampled to 16bits at 48Khz, but seeing as the CD standard sampling rate is 16bits at 44.1Khz I'm not worried.

But a good DD/DTS sound track eg Master & Commander still sounds amazing. So its probably a little bit of both hype and being better than DD/DTS for a given recording, I suspect a really dynamic soundtrack with a lot going on will sound better with a HD codec.
 
from pro logic to 5.1 was night and day for me.from 5.1 to true hd etc is nothing spectacular imho.it would be interesting to see if the lcd display on a n amp was blacked out how many could tell the difference between true hd and 5.1:confused:
 
I think to a large degree it depends on your system,and the quality of the DVD.

I watched Bladerunner TruHD, it was awesome,the sound quality.

Then again,all on Bluray, I watched Deliverence, an early 70's film. Not really a good sound,but it was an early film.

Im just wondering,whats around the corner....superTu etc.
 
Right without sounding like a complete noob here im going to ask the question.

I have a HK AVR255 and a WDTV Live. I have blu-ray rips on a network hdd and when playing them it says dts on my amp.

Is this standard dts or dts-hd ?

Have i missed the whole point and asked a daft question ? Probably :rotfl:
 
I am in the same boat and been reccomended the Yamaha RXV 1065 > over the Denon 1910. The reason being that the Yamaha is now about 500 quid where it used to be 700 and was considered on par with the Denon 2310 which is a model above the Denon 1910
 

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