B&K Reference 70 Owners Thread - Page 5

John,

I'm also a dealer for B&K. I have installed the ref70 and avr707 a few times now. We also have a ref70 on the floor. I have been on the fence about a new preamp and want nothing more then what I told you guys not to be true. But I can only go on what I was told right from B&K themselves. The tech told me the upgrade is to fix for quirks thats currently going on with the ref70/avr707 right now and there is nothing for the internal decoding and room correction. He asked me who told me that they where doing this and I told him I read it online. He chuckled.
We do have a rep but I can't see him knowing more then a tech at B&K. I will get a hold of him asap and get to the bottom of this. Again I want to buy a new preamp fro myself and I like a lot of things about the B&K especially the sound quality. But it is quirky.

Dan

Jason:

I'm glad your two channel performance improved. You had me doubting my own perceptions.

I recently added a JL Audion F113 sub to my system. It sits in the back corner of my room and adds very subtle improvement to my music and very unsubtle improvement to my movie, TV and sports watching experience.

Jim

I'm going to have a music junky friend come over tonight and help me verify the HDMI vs. SPIDIF difference I think I'm hearing...

I think (or at least hope) that we are confusing a very soon to come out firmware upgrade with the actual new daughterboard to provide hidef audio decoding. I don't see how B&K could hope to compete without the hidef audio decoding capability. The direct pass-through (DVD Audio) connection is unsuitable because of the disabling of room correction, speaker levels, etc.

I get my info from the Director of Engineering / co-owner of B&K. It doesn't get any better than that. I need to give him a call for an update. I will let you know what I learn.

Rest assured they will be updating the daughter boards. I know that for a fact.

I am not sure if the B&K guys left for CES or not. If they are around, I will post some updates.

Craigslue:

I haven't noticed any noise when there is no video input - or at any other time.

Jim

I hope you are correct because thats not the info I got from B&K yesterday.

In our showroom, when switching from one source to another, there is noise. Once a source locks in or sync's, there is dead silence.

Dan

Craigslue,

I'll try to see if I can replicate the problem. What inputs are you using?

ck

Jason Turk has said that a free replacement board would be provided.

ck

Don't bother reading any of this post, see my comments later in this thread.

Back on the topic of music performance...

I hate to report it, but...

1. I'm sick and tired of swapping cables, settings, amps, and CDs around for the night
2. I revert to my opinion that 2-channel music quality isn't what I feel it should be (for the price.)

My initial impression with music right after setting up the B&K was "eww... what's this, doesn't sound right at all". I'm not sure if my ears adjusted to the hardware, or if something else changed, but I definately do not find the B&Ks musical quality to be offensive in ANY way now... I've just heard stuff I like better.

First off SPIDIF vs HDMI. Honestly, I'm not sure if there is a difference or not. I spent at least an hour going back and forth between SPIDIF and HDMI with various source material. There was no obvious difference. There is a lip-smacking type sound at the start of track 6 of "Eyes Open" by Snow Patrol. I *think* the sound was more defined and "up front" over SPIDIF, but it was hard to tell how much. Overall, it felt like the SPIDIF connection presented a larger soundstage and filled up the room more... but it could have been placebo. Logically, to me, it shouldn't matter how the digital PCM signal comes in sound quality wise.

B&K Ref. 70 vs... other stuff. Unfortunately I didn't have much in terms of suitable hardware in my hands to compare to. I already know my old Yamaha sounds a bit tinny and harsh; that's not even worth comparing too. My Outlaw 990 is already gone. The best I could do was pull out my Sennheiser HD 650 headphones and HeadRoom Total Bithead USB (Burr-Brown) DAC + amp. I was able to very quickly verify my initial impressions of the B&K. The 2-chan music sound from the B&K is very smoooooth. Listening to Norah Jones, the tone of her voice is very smooth/flat and in my opinion, undramatic. It's difficult to pull out the small variations and imperfections. It's as if an airbrush was applied to the sound to smooth it out and "perfect" it. Switching over to the Total Bithead the sound is more raw. I have the sense that I can feel each vibration from her vocal chords. I can pick up on the dips, flaws, and slight cracles in her voice more. This is also about how I remember the Outlaw 990 sounding when I had it in my possesion.

If I was comparing these to cheese, I'd say that the B&K is like a creamy havarti while the Total Bithead is like a nice quality farmhouse cheddar.

I got 32-bit Vista installed on my laptop and I'm trying to do a flash upgrade, but the B&K has been blinking at me that the flash is in progress for over an hour now. I hope that's normal..

Update: I let it go all night and it's still stuck on the updating firmware, please wait screen...

Update: After a call to B&K and more screwing around, I finally got a flash to 1.04. For some reason the flash utility does not work right via ethernet network, but it worked fine via crossover cable. I'm quite glad that a botched flash upgrade didn't brick the B&K.

As of tonight, I take back EVERYTHING I've said previously about the Ref. 70s 2-channel music quality.

I've been using the PS3 as a CD transport. I know, I know, that's not very audiophile like. But really, how complicated can it be to pull PCM off a disc and pass it over to a reciever/preamp?

Apparently if you're using a PS3, more complicated than it needs to be. I realized that the PS3 has a volume control, and if it has a volume control it must be touching the source PCM somehow. Not good. I wanted a totally transparent source to let the B&K show off it's stuff.

I don't have much laying around in terms of transports, so I pulled out my old Roku M2000 network player which is well known for doing pure un-adultrated pass through of PCM. I then ripped some of my favorite CDs as WAVs and went to town.

This is a completely different experience. This isn't even wishy-washy "I think it might be better" stuff. It's clear that there is an absolutely gigantic difference. The dead giveaways are the over-buttery-smooth sound is gone, and vocalists no longer sound like they are standing behind the band. More subjectively, the soundstage is incredibly huge.

The B&K might actually be the best preamp I've ever heard... how's that for a turnaround?

Good News!

Thanks for continuing to experiment with a differnt source.

Jim

Any word from CES. Is B&K exhibiting?

They are not on the exhibitors list.

What is the best way to take advantage of the video processing capability? I have a 720P capable TV and have set the Ref 70 to output 720P. What should I set my Blu-Ray player and DirecTV box to output to the Ref 70?

If I was you, I'd try the highest setting they can output.

I tried putting my DirecTV receiver into the native mode, but the constant re-syncing of the HDMI signal when I changed channels caused problems. I put it into 1080i mode and it seems to work fine. I set my Blu-ray player at 1080p/24. Now if we could just get that hidef sound upgrade I would be happy.

Anyone heard any updates on the HD upgrade?

Where do you get the firmware updates? The support section of their web site is a little confusing. Thanks.

When you install the flash update software on your PC, it goes off and grabs firmware 1.04 from their server somewhere. It's not actually listed on their website.

Also, some of the issues that I thought were fixed by 1.04 are not. I've still had a few random crashes, especially when switching between 2 and 5 channel. I've also had some HDMI audio input problems - the other night I suddenly couldn't get any sound over HDMI; I tried everything. I turned the unit off (main power), came back in the morning, and everything worked fine.

Unfortunately I had guests over when this happened, and they ended up decrying the B&K.

I'm starting to wonder if the PS3 and B&K have some kind of major HDMI handshaking problems/bugs. I don't have a problem with my PS3 attached to any other devices (TVs), and I don't seem to have any problems (popping, flashing, crashing) when using my Xbox.

Some (accurate) updates.

Yesterday, B&K released the awaited V1.05 software. I have a few processors on order and they would not ship till rev 1.05 was done.

The boys at B&K have been extremely busy working on occasional lock-ups and HDMI issues.

Here is some items that 1.05 fixes:

1.) According to Engineering, 1.05 really works better with all the HDMI issues that keep coming up in the industry. They were able to test and put "work arounds" in most of the known issues they have seen with the various players in their test lab.

2.) Rev 1.05 fixes issues (red color, no color or blu-ish color). These monitors/ TV's had poor HDMI timing from the monitor or Player.

3.) They fixed a few issues that B&K had on the OSD which caused the 70 and 707 to hang under certain key strokes.

4.) They also fixed other spontaneous and unexplained lockups and/or video resets. This was caused by the conversion board ("a computer") talking to another "computer" the mother board. While these happened to me under once a month, it was annoying.

5.) Added 1080P 60/24 monitor output resolution. Set 1080P 60/24 monitor output only for use with a 1080P 24 capable monitor. When they detect 1080P 24Hz video from a Blu-Ray disc and our monitor output resolution is set to use 1080P 60/24, they will pass the 24 Hz else they will default back to 1080P 60Hz.

6.) Added support in 1.05 for Ethernet network time. This will be used in the near future to allow software updates over Ethernet from their B&K Server selected from our OSD Menu rather than running a PC application. Nice!!!

Oppo Owners: They did not finish the SACD input selection in rev 1.05, but another engineer is working on it right now (with his own OPPO player) and hopefully they should see a rev 1.06 shortly. Engineering wanted one of my customer to know that they did not forget them, just that they had more pressing HDMI video operational issues that needed to be fixed and released ASAP. Once they get the SACD user interface ie. how they detect and turn on and off (preferable auto by B&K monitoring the players SACD bit setting) they will release the new rev.

Two Topics:

Room Correction and HD Audio.


HD Audio: They have the EVM (Eval Module) but "no firm hardware so no firm ETA". All of the CODAC's have been blessed off by Dolby and DTS. Allow me to read between the lines: It took them 1.5 months to get out REV1.05. Custom dealers cannot have ANY lock-up issues ANY HDMI issue or they won't support the product. Meaning, a custom dealer will pick an inferior sounding piece with stability over a superior sounding B&K. Their # 1 sales channel?? Custom installers! Needless to say, that has been all of their engineering focus. Hence, 1.05.

So my reading between the lines is the HD audio was not at the forefront. It was being worked in parallel where it could but it was delayed for the above fixes. And at risk of setting a date for something that every dealer and customer desperately wants, they were cryptic on an ETA. I'd assume if 1.05 is successful as predicted, we are a month and change out. My words (from experience) not theirs. If I was in their shoes, I'd have made the same priority. For more technical customers, we would prefer the HDaudio before fixing the HDMI quirks but that isn't where the volume is. Some want to "wait and see" on the HD Audio. I understand that vaporware has been promised in the past (think Integra Research). HD Audio will be real on this B&K. I have given my personal guarantee with my wallet to my customers. I know these guys and B&K and they want it out sooner than later. Of course it affects their sales volume.

The reason for peoples patience is the video and sound quality. The REF 70 is my personal favorite out of every single prepro I have heard in my life. I like clean, clear, airy, and dynamic. The REF 70 fits the bill like no other that I have heard. It's because of its wide bandwidth, DC coupled minimal analog, low jitter approach. I diverge...

Room Correction: Think licensing which includes negotiating. Next, think porting code. That is all I can say on a forum. I suppose I can say that they liked the solution that they Evaled.

Thanks for the info Steve.

Thanks for the update Steve.

As Steve knows, I have by Ref 70 on order and can't wait to get it installed.

I too really want the HD Audio support, but am willing to wait and add it later. I would much rather be working with a company that is here in the US and has open communications with its dealers and customers than buy a mass produced unit that's engineering is done who knows where. My opinion is that large global organizations are much more closed lipped and less responsive to the customer. You call B&K and you get answers, although not always what you want.

I am still lurking here on this thread as I will be waiting in Steve's driveway with my trunk open as soon as the these upgrades are complete and everything is working well...I am sure Steve can't wait to hear from me

Good to hear from you. I need to get up and see your new PJ set-up! We should catch a Wild game!
Steve