New setup not right advice needed please

[peter]

have a new hitachi dvd hd recorder paired with a denon 1906 av amp and ms 904 speakers. not as pleased as i had hoped sound seems strained.
is it worth getting a seperate cd player just for music?
lowering the output from the dvd player from 96 to 48 khz made the sound less harsh but i am shure something is as not right. any ideas would be great.
peter

 

[Goatboy]

Hard to know without hearing it but you shouldn't expect too much from a dvd recorder and an av amp.

With the dvd recorder the cd playback quality will have been rock bottom of the priority list.

 

[Oops Dead Again]

Hard to know without hearing it but you shouldn't expect too much from a dvd recorder and an av amp.

With the dvd recorder the cd playback quality will have been rock bottom of the priority list.

Agreed, if you listen to a lot of cd's I would get a seperate cd player

 

[tom_nieto]

See if you can borrow a stereo amp and CD player from somewhere and plug them straight into your front speakers and see if this makes any difference. I'd also look at the positioning of your speakers too. As has been said above, I wouldn't expect a massively great musical experience from an AV amp and a DVD recorder.

 

[peter]

thanks for the replys will look for a cd player

recommendations?

 

[peter]

brought a nad 520

old but makes the sound a lot less harsh just got to get rid of some of the base reverb, speaker position i guess.

 

[FrankJH]

I really dont know why people are so harsh against AV amps - I have never noticed any problems playing CD's through numerous different models

Of course you will have to spend a lot more to get a comparative experience, ie an £800 av amp should sound like a £400 - £500 hi-fi amp, or to put it another way a current £800 av amp should sound like a £700-800 hi-fi amp from a couple of years ago

This is just from my experience over 15 years or so using many different brands of amp and speakers

 

[Corasik]

Peter,

Cant you set the output on the DVD Recorder to 44.1Khz? CD is recorded as a 44.1Khz 16bit format, so if your DVD Recorder is shifting it to 48khz it could well be degrading the sound quality. How many digital inputs does your denon have, If it has digital in for a CD transport that might be worth trying, alternativly you could use an analog input and use something like a Marantz CD63, a real classic player with loads of modding potential, which even in its lowest form will likely far outperform your DVD recorder's ability to play CD. It even has a digital output so you can choose to use its DAC's or keep in the digital domain and allow the processors dacs to do the dirty work. (try both and let your ears decide)


While im sure that a cheap (£200ish) AV amp can probably be outperformed in stereo by even the most budget 2 channel amp, there does seem to be a lot of hate for AV gear in general.

But its just not true, I used to have an Audiolab 8000Q preamp, and 8000DAC/8000CDM combo, with 8000M Monoblocks, made lovely music from my CD collection, but I wanted to move into the AV scene properly (All Black UK built versions not IAG silver chineese ones).

So I bought a Tag AV32R, and used that instead of the 8000Q/DAC. So im just using the 8000CDM, and the 8000M's.

Anyway to be totally frank, the musical performance of the AV32R is just astonishing, far better than the 8000Q/DAC . Now I asmit that I dont have the analog bypass, so the Tape/Aux/VCR inputs are all run into a ADC and transfered to the digital domain, but A) I dont actually have any analog sources anymore, and B even when I did have a Cassette deck attached the AV32R still sounded on a par with the 8000Q on the analog side.

Now im pure digital (DVD/Sky+/PC/CD/DVDR) I dont even care about the analog inputs.

But its not just the high end gear that can sound fantastic, my brother has a Yamaha DSP cant remember the exact model, but its Dolby Digital+DTS, with built in amps for surround and centre speaker, but uses an external poweramp for the front L/R speakers. Combined with an Arcam Alpha 9p it makes a quite acceptable Pre-Amp. Sure not as good as the Tag/Audiolab setup I have, but its certainly foot tappingly good.

 

[peter]

thanks for the infomation

tried the old nad cd player last night connected with audio leads as no digital output much nicer sound more mellow. will fill the bases of the ms 904's with sand tonight to see if that makes a differance,will also try not bi amping as well. the denon is very impressive in movies and has a huge number of setting for audio only that i am just going through them to find the best for my setup.

 

[tom_nieto]

A TAG AV32R is a totally different beast to bottom of the pile integrated AV amps!

I switched from a Denon 3802 to a Cyrus 3 and the difference is massive really. The AV amp is very capable with movies, but music is very much lacking in stereo mode. Sure, the Denon wasn't bad, but the cyrus is better in every respect, except for flashing lights and gizmos.

The "hate" of AV amps on here probably stems from people buying them to use in a 2 channel setup from a computer for mostly music with no consideration for stereo amps. Digital outputs are all fine and good, but in actual fact a good amp coupled to a good soundcard will totally negate any advantage.