Worth it to get 'True HD' reciever if I only plan on a 5.1 speaker set up?

Lossless MC audio isn't just about the ability for 7.1. If you plan on having a player that decodes OR has the ability to bitstream the advanced audio codecs, at their current price point it wouldn't make much sense to aviod a capable AVR.

However, if the player you have can internally decode (such as the PS3), you can get a last gen AVR to save a few bucks..

Yes. Worth it.

Some say lossless audio is only somewhat better than lossy. Some are amazed at the difference. I am in the camp of people who feel there's not a big difference.

Yes.

A good deal of truehd if not most is in 5.1 anyway. definitely worth it.

As I sit here with my new onkyo 876 just listening to what it's doing with simple high bit rate mp3's, the answer is a god yes. I have also listened to Pirates of the Carr 2 dead mans chest on blu ray in lossless and again the answer is HELL YES.

Face it for the prices that some of the newer recievers are going for it's criminal at this point not to upgrade, it really is as simple as that if you ask me.

I too am only using 5.1 but my B&W N804's are underpowered with a much older 5.1 amp. I am upgrading tp 7.1 with a AVR that supports bi-amp map for unused surround (Yamaha RX z7, Integra 9.9 are a couple under consideration) to take advantage of two extra amps in the 7.1 plus the HDMI and video enhancements that are substantial from the last 5 years.

Any suggestions for receivers for us 5.1 users who due to room configuration will never go to 7.1?

Onkyo 805/ 806, Denon 2808/ 3808, Pioneer Elite 92/94

There's a huge difference. Maybe it depends on the gear for playback so that's a factor but, YES! It's worth it.

As Micheal posted, there is some who think there is a huge difference..you are one of those people. Its more about you then the gear you have too... I have some pretty damn good stuff and I have to say that Dolby digital is still very, very good. Audiophiles love to exagerrate that last 2-5% improvement as if it was so important. That does not mean its not important to you it just means your opinion does not hold more weight just because it is important to you.

A good dolby digital soundtrack will sound awesome in a room. A good HD audio soundtrack will sound awesome on a room.....and in the end MAJORITY of poeple do not have a great system to hear either of them



All new receivers are 100% great for 5.1



So true, I was shocked to keep finding out pretty well all the great new action movies are 5.1 HD...very few are 7.1 so we are ALL simulatining 7.1 and some audiophiles believe that creates artifacts (see thread in audio theory).

I am not an audiophile and IMO its a lot more than 2 TO 5% improvement. I understand the diminishing returns concept. I agree that Dolby Digital also sounds terrific in the right room. The question was is it worth it? Yes!

Let's create a scale from 1 to 10. Where 10 is the most obvious of sonic differences and 1 is the least obvious with 0 being no difference. I will rate them based on my personal observation. Let's call 8 to 10 a huge difference.

AM vs FM radio I would rate at 8 out of 10 or maybe 9 out 10. I would call that a huge difference.

CD vs FM radio I would rate at 6 out of 10 maybe. Depends on the source as highly dynamic sources are flattened out quite a bit when broadcast. So maybe 7 out of 10 if you could recognize flattened dynamics. I could not say a huge difference because many people probably don't notice the difference as much as audiophile types would.

Transistor AM radio vs decent stereo - 9 or 10 out 10. Huge difference IMHO. Anyone with hearing should be able to tell which is which.

64 kbs vs 128 kbs MP3 - 5 out of 10. An obvious loss in fidelity, but some people may not be attuned to it.

128 kbs vs. master - 1 out of 10

Dolby Digital vs TrueHD - 1 out of 10 (Definitely not huge. I would bet money few people could reliably pick out the difference in AB testing.)

Wow. 1 out of 10 for you? I am a bit perplexed by that but I'm glad my experience is very different. I guess we will just agree to disagree.

Have you aver been involved with blind tests on this stuff? The reason some of us tone down all this exaggeration is that we have experienced the tests. I personally run comparisons all the time and over the past 20 years I have tried removed any placebo effects from my life completely (Yeah, right!! )



Conclusion about all this is that its not as clean cut and obvious as your posts would suggestion.

Heck, I run movies Standard DVD or I run BluRay HD movies to my HT setup sometimes to find out if friends will notice the difference. They seldom do, they honestly believe they still were watching the HD movie with HD audio but truely they are just watching a scaled standard DVD with Dolby Digital.....conclusion is that the differences are not exactly that big and that people will ALWAYS exaggerate what they think they experienced.

It depends on the viewer and/or listener. What you have said is right, after watching a good number of BDs I can instantly tell a BD from a nicely scaled DVD being playing via Oppo (or comparable players). Same with the sound, I can tell Uncompressed PCM or Dolby THD from regular Dolby Digital 5.1 (on a 5.1 setup). Most of my friends who dont own a BD player can't.

Ok penngray. You enjoy your tests. I need to get back to my DTS HD. But now I have to ask, besides your ears, what kind of gear are you using to come to these conclusions?

Ok I think I misunderstood the original question. I took it as is it worth the difference to go uncompressed or HD audio vs regular old Dolby. Hence my HUGE answer, yes.

No, you understood correctly. That was the original question.

Well then I stand by my original answer. Carry on.

Crappiest gear off ebay

LOL. Well I am using White Van Speakers so I win.

My stuff all comes in a Brown truck

LMFAO...

I was anxiously awaiting your response to "pwn" him. This works too.

I'm in the "small difference" group. Making your room more accoustically suitable will have more gain than getting lossless audio. I decided I wasn't going to put the time in to research room accoustics yet, so I went with a receiver that had room correction processing bult in, Audyssey. Audyssey made a much bigger improvement in my room than getting lossless audio. Same for my buddies setup, he's loves what Audyssey did.

Here's what happen when I set my buddies up:

(Going from a Denon 1508, no Audyssey and no lossless audio, to a 1908 with Audyssey MultEQ and PCM)

So I run Audyssey and play a BD for him. The Descent. I turn it to the scene where the tunnel collapses (we demo'd this scene pre receiver swap). His response was "holy ****, that sounds awesome!" Then I realize it's still on DD 5.1. lol I switch to PCM on the fly... nothing from him. Honestly, in his setup, if I did a blind a/b, I don't think I could tell, maybe on 1 or 2 movies, but certainly not everytime or most of the time. TO be fair, his speakers are the weak link, but his setup still sounds very good, his room is much better than mine from the start but my setup is alot better.

Bottom line, how much can you control your mind? How much is that little extra worth? I needed it, I always want the best I can afford.

Don't get me wrong, I spent $1500 on a receiver so I can bit stream the lossless audio to the receiver. Damn, my PS3 can't bitstream! I had to send PCM. Oh damn, you know the receiver would do a better job decoding the PCM than the PS3. And then there's jitter.

Freakin stupid purchase, I guess

It does have Rhapsody!



All in fun! I will rarely tell someone they are wrong. All I can do is state my own experience.

Someone asked about equipment -

Yamaha RX-V3900
PS3
Audio Concepts 25th Anniv. Sapphires (main), Polk (center and surrounds), and Klipsch speakers (rear surrounds)
$10 to $50 interconnects (No I don't know what's hooked up with what price of cable )
Standard IEC cables
Whatever cord I had lying around for speaker wiring
Monster banana connectors (They are nice, actually)

Blacklac, cool experience.....

I think you hit it on the head though.....Room, EQing, Speakers matter so much more then arguing about DD or HD Audio stuff.

Now once you get the room and everything setup properly there is no reason not to go HD audio. Yes, I do use linear PCM on PS3 and its awesome....next arguement PCM vs Bitstream

Where can I learn about Jitter, I'm curious. Seen it referenced a few times and know about Pioneer's new anti-Jitter tech in their Blu players and higher end AVR's, so I'm curious. Bet my wallet wishes I'd ignore that though!