Afternoon All
Great to see some interesting debate, and hey, no flames!
Nice to find a forum with some folks who are well informed and present interesting, helpful and informative points in a very knowledgeable and pleasant manner.
Some folks who have spent large amounts on processors of the high-end variety would argue the benefits, and to a degree when it comes to multi-channel music surround, I would tend to agree perhaps.
However, it all depends to some degree as to how you assess 'the best'.
As an example, say, lets look at perhaps the new Meridian G series, Arcam AV8, and the new Sony DA9000ES.
The Sony is a receiver, however as it uses digital amplification, the concept of needing a pre-processor, and separate power amplifier is somewhat negated with regards to noise and interference etc, hence the integrated design.
With respect to the quality of the materials used as regards the bits one can see and assess, such as chassis, covers, front fascia plates, knobs, join lines, screws, quality of the materials themselves and the finish applied, I'd place that ES Sony on a par with the Meridian, and both comfortably bettering the Arcam IMHO.
As regards the quality or otherwise of the internal components/electronics, the quality testing applied re their selection and quality control, one can only guess unless one is an electronic expert, or, go by the advertising blurb which as usual is long on rhetoric and short on facts. I would have doubts as to whether there would be much, if any difference. They all state that they use 'audiophile grade' components etc.
Naim years ago boasted that they used to individually spec test each and every component that went into one of their products, a policy I am unsure of as to whether it is still maintained, but one assumes so. Most other manufacturers merely batch test, usually one in several hundred or thousand etc.
Either way, just as a car manufacturer doesn't tell you the tensile strength of the steel they use, the number of spot welds per inch in assembly, the torsional rigidity of the body etc of the products they make, neither is the HiFi industry going to be likely to reveal such things as the quality of the components etc for comparative purposes. Far easier to convince one by marketing and brand name association that they use 'the best'.
With regards to the signal processing, I would think that with their expertise in two channel, Arcam and Meridian may have an edge over the Sony re the circuit layout, power supplies, and analogue output stages re fine tuning of the 'sound', especially with regards to music, whether the processor is being used in two channel mode, or multi-channel surround mode for music.
I say may, because I'm not an electronics engineer, and again, one can only go by what one perceives re brand 'heritage' with respect to two channel, past experiences, and mostly the advertising claims of these 'established' 'high-end' players in the 2 channel arena, muscling in on the multi-channel surround sound scene.
Given the scarcity of SACD/DVD-A players, whilst I've heard multi-channel SACD in a home, and in-store, I've not been able to do a careful AB between processors on this medium as yet, so it is very much conjecture as to which would provide a 'better' music surround experience.
The other side of the performance equation for a 'high-end' AV processor, and the most useful one for me at the moment, is AV in the context of home cinema.
Here, on specs at least, the gap between the Sony and the Meridian narrows even further. Both use proprietary in-house DSP to augment the surround sound movie experience.
I am under the understanding with the AV8, unlike the AVR100, 200 receivers etc, which were actually made in China to Arcams specs, sharing many features with a NAD design, the AV8 has been developed more in-house, with regards it's DSP, as against just buying off the shelf components and software.
The Sony uses a number of chips that are exclusive to, and made in-house by Sony themselves, along with their proprietary software.
On specs, and regarding in-house development, i.e. that 'specialist high end touch' I can see little difference between all three.
As regards listening, which is really the bottom line, I've not been able to hear the Meridian, AV8 or perhaps even better still a Lexicon unfortunately.
However, I have been able to do a direct listening comparo between a Naim AV2, (another high-end processor that uses OEM boards/chipsets, with careful attention paid to the design re in-house power supplies, circuit layout etc) and Denon, Rotel, and Arcam receivers.
The Naim delivered somewhat as expected on music, easily outclassing the others, re detail, dynamics, rhythm, transparency, all the usual 2 channel strengths, BUT on movies, there was very little in it. The strengths so apparent for music, seemed to matter little for movies, where surround sound 'wrap' or immersive involvement perhaps, was no better than the much cheaper units. Consequently, it added little IMHO to the overall movie watching/involvement experience.
Indeed, if the coherence, integration, and seamless panning of effects around a 360 degree sound-field is of primary performance in the sense of involvement and immersion re a movie experience, then no, I don't see the Arcam AV8 having an edge over the Meridian or the Sony I have mentioned. My thoughts would be that the Sony and Meridian, with their proprietary DSP would be more likely to be similar to each other re movies, and have the edge over the Arcam IMHO in movie sound.
The fact that the Sony supports 9.1, has an RS232 port for upgrades, has proprietary chipsets and software for surround sound, is one of the few affordable mass produced digital amplifiers available, with high power, and little heat output - surely a technology that is cutting edge and likely to be developed by 'specialist' manufacturers in the future, and has a build quality to match (IMHO) the Meridian and exceeds that of the Arcam, and yet comes in at well under half the price makes it quite an outstanding product IMHO, and easily the equal of the others in most, if not all respects that I can see, with the possible exception perhaps of music reproduction.
Of course, usually one does get what one pays for in many ways; the exclusivity of the TAGS, Meridians, AV8 & Naims etc of this world will always have that indefinable 'something' that the likes of Sony, Denon, Yamaha etc do not have.
But then of course, speaking as a Naim owner, I'd be inclined to say that!
However on performance grounds, I'm of the opinion (not a closed one I might point out) that the differences between the so called high-end processors developed by previously two channel specialist manufacturers, and more 'pedestrian' mainstream processors are more tied up with notions of prestige and assumed engineering excellence based upon past 2 channel experience/heritage.
When the source is a movie soundtrack with dialogue, sound effects and some music, delivered by a lossy compression system, and where the 'mainstream' use similar if not identical chipsets to the specialist manufacturer, and in some cases such as Sony and Yamaha, use in-house proprietary DSP to augment the surround experience, as do specialists such as Meridian, Lexicon etc, the differences in movie performance are relatively small, whilst the price difference is huge.
So it would seem to me for the moment, that by most reasonable methods one can use to compare so called 'high-end' processors v's something with say, a less prestigious name tag, the differences are very minor at best for movies, with the exception of the humble matter of price.
Anyway, just some further rambling thoughts from me on a contentious subject.
Cheers
John...
