Iain Young

My Denon does this

My Denon does that as well

Putting a composite input into the amp, letting it upscale the image, then pumping it into the plasma via the component input definitely results in a better image than simply going from the scart output on the sky box to the scart input on the tv. At least with my equipment it does anyway

paulr

The thing with hi-fi is its very hard to actually compare them in a listening test which is all that really matters so everyone saying this is better than that,how many people have done a proper comparison.Not many i doubt because lets face it who really want to spend hours in a hi-fi shop.

paulr

On the subject of AV amps,can anyone recommend an old av amp for my spare room/entertainment room.I want something cheapish but would like one of the old really heavy Pioneer or Denons that cost a fortune new but can now be found dead cheap.Its for tv,not music.

cheers
Paul.

Iain Young

My old Sony 930 is a very good amp, (although I never routed the video through it like I do with the Denon). It has 5.1 surround, DD / DTS / Pro logic etc, optical, co-axial, and phono inputs, excellent sound quality, and I expect you could pick one up 2nd hand relatively cheaply now...

Given mine to the parents now I've upgraded to the 7.1 Denon, and they're really pleased with it

christyper

[QUOTE=Iain Young]My Denon does this

I think you may have misunderstood what I, and I think Luminous, were talking about. As far as I know only one Denon amp will scale an image and that is a 9.1 amp (you said yours was 7.1 so I asume not the amp which scales?) although I stand to be corrected.

To answer the question Luminous raised - Yes amps can improve picture from standard definition (480i/567i) up to 720p or 1080i hih def images. This is totally different from converting a composite image to a component image of the same resolution.

hades

As regards the "Sony is no good" "Don't believe What hi-fi reviews" etc debate, I can only seriously recommend that you try out the kit, and try it with speakers like yours. I have heard perfectly decent amps that just don't get on with certain speakers but sound great with others. You also find that the sound some people like isn't the same as what others like.

For example, I remember years ago hearing the Pioneer A-400 hi-fi amp that both the magazines and several dealers and owners raved about. Personally, with two different speakers we tried it with (one set were the Missions I owned at the time, I forget the others) I hated it and much preferred several other alternatives (several of which were cheaper). My point? At the end of the day, you'll be the one who has to live with whatever you buy - so buy what sounds best to you, rather than spending your money on something because someone else likes it!

Personally, I'm quite happy with the Yamaha 5.1 amp I've got, but my AV is (a) a bolt on to the hi-fi set-up and so very much music oriented and (b) very much helped by using the fairly serious hi-fi amp and speakers for the front L & R, with the old hi-fi power amp bi-amping the matched centre speaker, etc.

Iain Young

I stand corrected. Just rechecked the specs, and it actually has "High-grade Up Conversion for transcoding to component signals". Still looks a lot better than just running the composite / scart lead straight to the tv though, so I'm happy