Sherwood R-972 User Thread - Page 3

The obvious question for you new owners is how does Trinnov compare with other room EQ-correction schemes.

I'm really looking forward to seeing "hard" comparisons being posted soon

ss9001
Steve

Failed delivery attempt yesterday - the Fedex driver was supposed to call me so I could meet him to sign for it, but didn't.

Likely same will happen today, but they deliver on Saturdays so I should have it tomorrow.

It's here!

Taking it out of the box didn't impress me with it's heft, but I weighed it and it's ~40 lb.

I guess it's because it's so big - 8" tall and 18" deep.

It powers on, but won't be able to install it until tomorrow.

Go noah! I have a HK AVR-660 (thats the European name, 7550hd I guess is the US name) at home for test this weekend. Wonder if your testing of the Sherwood r-972 will make me want to keep or give back the HK...

Thanks, Noah. You'd better inform your "buddy Jeff" that it "shipped".

I await your impressions with great interest...

Isn´t it tomorrow yet?

FYI, I have a woodworking project that I want to get to the point where I can get the finish on and starting to dry, so don't expect to hear anything until later in the day.

So, waiting for information on the 972 really is like waiting for paint to dry?

Yeah, most new owners at least plug it in & take it around the block
I think it's a conspiracy. This AVR must take the prize for the least hands-on information on a new technology of any in recent memory.

Might just be fear of being dissatisfied after waiting so long...
It's like not opening a letter for some time if it might contain bad news...

Still strange and mysterious how little has "leaked" yet about the "apparent" breakthroughs in sound of the supplied Trinnov technology in these units.
Usually users of new technology (and units) are all over the place telling the good news and bragging about how great it sounds...

Things didn't go too well on my project, so I got a late start on the 972 install.

Turns out it's too deep to fit into the allotted slot in my built-in rack - there's a cross brace in the way.

I've got plans for the rest of the evening, so won't be able to do it until tomorrow.

"Might just be fear of being dissatisfied after waiting so long..."

I am feeling some trepidation for that very reason.

Hopefully next week someone will be able to comment on its Trinnov implementation. They must be build to order based on the number of people that have them.

grrrr...

Not going well.

Got it installed after adding a bracket to hold the back up; once I could get it in, the shelf was too short.

Just listening to FM, the treble seems more refined than the Onkyo 705.

This is w/o EQ, I think, I haven't seen any indication of it being on or off.

The manual and the remote both suck.

The manual says to press a button, w/o saying where it is, and the remote has tiny buttons and labels which I have to angle it to barely read.

The monitor out can only be set to HDMI or component not both, which sucks when there's only one HDMO out.

I wanted to use comp on the RPTV for initial setup, but couldn't seem to get any viseo.

So I switched to HDMI, but then I have to lower the screen for the projector, and that blocks the signal for the remote.

I have a URC RF/IR blaster, but that doesn't work either, even with an emitter dangling right in front of the remote sensor.

The OSD didn't seem to work with the pj either, until I hit Setup, then I found it also works for the RPTV.

I was expecting to see it when I changed volume, but maybe it's turned off in the setup menu.

Tomorrow evening I'll set up the Trinnov w/the RPTV.

Not a very good start, hope the Trinnov tests will be positive!

Jeez, wjat were they thinking - the mike cable is too short!

It's only 15', and a couple of those get used up running it behind the receiver. And why the heck would that put the jack on the back?!

Anyway, Trinnov is calculating for the first position now, it says it could take up to 25 min, which I imagine it will because I have a 7.1 setup.

It might not complete though; for the left surround channel it repeated the sound burst 10 times, vs. 3 for all the other speakers.

And when it was done it was missing a lot of the location data.

It must be because I have a pair each of side surrounds, and the lefts are sitting on top of a partial wall with 6' behind the speakers, and on top of that they have Linnaeum dipoles, all of which must make for a phasey mess.

I might have to try moving them down onto the wall or just using one.

OK, done after 15 min.

Hmm, *all* of the surrounds were given a 0 Hz XO freq.

Went into setup and turned on all of the Trinnov functions.

Don't see where to quickly turn it on and off to compare.

But crap, nothing to compare - I can't get any sound out of the DVD/CD player, I can't change surround modes, and only the center channel is working on FM.

Gotta go out and take care of some things, guess I'll relocate the side surrounds just use one each and try again.

Hmm, it turns itself after accepting the Trinnov computations "to memorize the results", but it doesn't say how long that takes. Coupla minutes should've been enough.

Hmmm. Sorry, Noah, it's not going smoothly.
Hope things improve for you....even though many of us are happy with Audyssey, MCACC and other EQ schemes, it'd be nice if this proved to be a worthy alternative.

I've never heard of a receiver or processor company having the mic plug into the rear panel
Definitely not an ideal hookup since it's only supposed to be temporary.....wonder how that one got by the common sense team....

ss9001

Noah, it seems like you are trying to squeeze the receiver set up process into a busy schedule. Maybe you should clear your slate and run it from start to finish and let it take its sweet time (my Onkyo took several minutes to save its settings). Perhaps at least try to make some sense out of the manual. Take your time. Take the phone off the hook...

When I first read that the calibration mic port was on the back of the R-972 I could not understand that at all. It is just not an ideal location as the front would be and with the 972 having a drop down door it would be easy to hide. To think most people do one calibration and that is it do not know that much about the people that will possibly be buying the R-972. Change of speakers, speaker location change or a sub change or sub location change all require another calibration.

I still have nightmares about the Boston Acoustics AVP7's (SN P-965 clone) manual which was a carbon copy of the P-965's manual. To this day one of the worst written and hardest to understand manuals I have ever come across. I hope SN has improved their manuals with their new receivers but from what Noah is saying it does not look like they have.

Bill

Has everybody else signed an NDA or why is only a single user reporting back here his experiences.... (sorry, it has been two by now).
Confused.

This shows a lack of availability of the product more than anything else.

Also, it shows that the receiver is neither a piece of junk nor a game changer (as of right now). If it was junk, we would hear the gripes fast enough. If it was a game changer, we would hear people singing its virtues.

hi Noah,

I'd simplify your speaker arrangement initially.. . sounds like you have another channel (Linnaeum dipoles?) in the same location as the side channels? I'm not saying the SN shouldn't be able to handle that, but perhaps that's confusing it?

Also- just as a note if you are taking requests
I'm particualry interested in the video upscaling functionality. #1: I want, unlike the r-872, to make sure it can to take a native 1080P B-ray signal. #2: your opinion on how well it upscales 480 stuff (like BBC America's time warner feed) to 1080P.

Thanks mate,
Scott

Noah, thus far, is the only one I know of who has attempted to buy one. Axiom has sent an email out saying they have a limited supply of them. There aren't posts of "I tried and can't get one". So, I think people might be jumping to conclusions.

Lots of reasons I can project for why we haven't seen a lot of posts yet:

Economy - how many people are buying $1800 receivers.

I just think there is a lot of interest, but not a lot of people willing to spend the $$ yet on an unreviewed product.

There are also a lot of people waiting for the Outlaw version (because I have a separate amp).

Sherwood doesn't have the brand base like a Denon and doesn't anticipate shipping the numbers that Denon, Onkyo, Pioneer or whoever does. If they only anticipate shipping 20% of volume of one of the other manufacture's, I would expect to see 20% of the posts. You have to keep things in perspective.

It will take a while to get the snowball rolling. I don't think we'll be able to judge the success of this (or any new product) until after Christmas.

----> Edit: I probably shouldn't have responded to encourage this off topic discussion. Lets not derail this thread with availability discussion. The other thread can be adequately used for all Sherwood bashing.<--

Noah,
So far I'm not impressed by your impressions. It sounds like a lot of minor issues, and some not uncommon among other receivers. I'm hoping it gets better from here. I guess we'll see.

"Noah, thus far, is the only one I know of who has attempted to buy one."

What about deegggo, and the other two?

Assuming the large shipment that was claimed to ship did, the issue might be that every one has to have the f/w manually updated.

Still, there should be dozens available by now. Maybe there are, in the hands of non AVSers.

At MSRP I would have waited on the sidelines to make sure the coast is clear, but for the price I got I decided to gamble.

But that's not what you came to hear

Turns out HDMI Audio = On which I came across while going through menus turns off all of the speakers (according to the manual, dunno why the center still worked) and sens PCM over HDMI to a TV.

I did get a Trinnov setup and *thought* I was comparing on vs. off, but it turns out you have to go into setup and turn it on for each input.

I tried Super Speedway and it sounded great w/o help.

W/Trinnov I was anxious to see the narrators' voices magically rise from my below-screen center speaker, but they moved to the floor under the left speaker.

Time to rearrange those speakers.

I'm playing hooky from work so hope to report back in an hour or two.

But first more gripes.

I'm going to have to read the manual to learn how to switch inputs w/the remote; pushing the CD button changes the remote's LCD to say CD, but nothing happens at the receiver and volume control is lost.

And there's got to be something wrong w/the remote sensor. The manual says the remote needs to be pointed within 30 deg, but I have to point it a lot closer than that.

The 972 is not responsive. Using the OSD and "Quick adj/config", it takes 30 sec minimum to switch Trinnov in or out.

Using the front panel display, it's 10 s min; it takes a full 5 sec after exiting the menu for the sound to come back.

Even changing surround modes w/the multifunction knob mutes the sound for 3 sec.

I guess the volume control isn't meant to be turned manually; it's very tight.

Stay tuned.

Noah,

I hate to say it but the 'ole SN manual blues look like they have not changed. Good luck and hopefully your boss does not visit AVS.

Bill

I thought our friends here had proven them to work for Sherwood, so I thought best to leave them out of the conversation.

-Joke-

Not impressed yet by your comments. I guess I should wait a few more hours.

I do really like the fact that you can set Trinnov on a per-input basis. I would imagine that this extends to all settings??? I like to run my speakers full range for TV and music, but small for movies (mainly to save me the effort of getting up and turning on the sub amp). With my current Pioneer, I have to wade deep in the menus to change this. Same with my ancient Denon - not sure if current models let you. I'm guessing I'll probably want to use Trinnov and such differently for music and movies also, so this will be great.

Is your Super Speedway the regular DVD version or a BluRay/HD-DVD? I got the DVD version, haven't listened to it for a while. Now, I'm going to have to get it out and see where the narrator's voice is. For most programming, I don't notice the center channel being below screen - though I am likely to be highly suggestible by the movie pictures.

Well it's turned into a bit of a rebuild of the surround speakers, and I've go to go do some work.

They're going to be much more visible in their new locations and need to be rotated to be vertical, requiring remounting the Linnaea, whose covers I'm going to put back, which then need to be painted white on and painted white to match the NHT SuperZero's.

The Super Speedway is DVD. I didn't know there were HD versions; they must be awesome.

Most any dialogue comes from the center; Super Speedway was just the first DVD I tried.

I wanted to see what Trinnov would do with the amazing rear/front and front/rear pans.

"Not impressed yet by your comments."

Me neither, but can't judge yet.

The overall SQ does seem to be a good notch above the Onkyo 705 (which I got for lossless audio and to tide me over until the 972) which didn't sound as good as the HK 635 before it.

However the HK warmth was at least partially freq resp related, as the warmth caused dialogue intelligibility to suffer, including FM announcers.

The 972 has the vocal clarity w/o the toppish sound of the Onkyo, and the refined treble that I mentioned before.

I am a little confused why would you have to move the speakers ? Wasn't the whole idea that it would optimize what you have ?

Daniel.

"I am a little confused why would you have to move the speakers ? "

Maybe I don't, but w/o the 2nd pair I want to give them a more direct line of sight to the listening area (and the mike) and I've been wanting to lower them some too.

Noah,
Sucks to be first (or 3rd??? ). We're all going to be way more demanding of you than we have a right to be. But, you're going to have to start over with your review. You need to tell us what speakers you're using. Provide diagrams of your room layout. Tell us what other equipment you're using and how it is hooked up. Provide photos of the unit and room layout. Photos of the OSD would be good. Also, you need to find the hidden menu and tell us what firmware is on the unit. ... I'm sure there are some other requirements of an acceptable AVS review.

Thanks for the update. I'm lost in a tide going back and forth on my impressions of this unit.


BTW:
Super Speedway BluRay: http://www.amazon.com/Super-Speedway...5464604&sr=8-1
Super Speedway WMVHD:http://www.amazon.com/Super-Speedway...5464604&sr=8-4

I saw it in IMax at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry when it first came out.