Sherwood R-972 User Thread - Page 28

I reviewed the 972 for Widescreen Review. I found it to perform well, but it's annoying at the same time. One of the big annoyances is that there are on on-screen displays for the functions you use all the time... volume level, source select, surround mode, etc. The remote can operate as IR or RF, but what's the point of the RF function if there are no on-screen displays? RF's advantage is that if the AVR is tucked away out of sight, you can still control it. But if you can't see the front panel of the AVR because it is behind the video display or in an equipment closet, but there are no on-screen displays, what's the point of the RF control? To know what the AVR is doing, you have to be able to see the front panel display - and that may mean that not only does it have to be in your line of sight, it has to be close enough that you can read the display.

The 972 also lacks features that are in other AVRs in the same price range - primarily media/network related features.

If you don't have a seating position off to one side that would be nice to be able to rotate the soundstage while you are reading a book or magazine, you won't even have a need for one of the main Trinnov features. If you are able to connect the left surround speaker to the left surround terminals (and all the other channels to the appropriate binding posts), you won't have a need for another Trinnov feature (figuring out which speaker to send each channel to even if speakers are not connected correctly). So there are 2 Trinnov features you may have absolutely no need for. That leaves the trick of raising the center channel (or lowering it if it is placed above the video display) so it seems to come from the panel itself instead of from above or below it. I thought it was a pretty cool thing -- but after the review was done and I moved on to other processors that don't "move" the center channel (up in my case), it, frankly, wasn't particularly missed.

Trinnov will probably, eventually, be useful and packaged into a AVR with on-screen displays and network/media/internet functions with fewer omissions and bugs than the 972 has. In the end, I find myself conflicted about the 972 - I wanted it to be better, especially after all the development time. After the review was submitted, some people here were mentioning that the 3 Trinnov memories seemed to sound different even if you hadn't moved the microphone. I tried that here and I agree - you do seem to get different results for each memory and I'm not sure what that means. The differences I got weren't huge, but they were different enough to detect in my room. Does it mean If you use a single Trinnov memory and measure 3 times you get 3 different results or does it mean there is some unique processing applied to each of the 3 memories? I don't know for sure, but I suspect that if you were to take 3 measurements for Position 1 that they would all sound a little different (in other words, I doubt there is different processing applied to each memory selection). I suspect this may be related to the shorter mics being so close to the center mic... seems to me if there was more separation of the measurement positions, you could get a more consistent/reliable measurement result - but that's just a guess, obviously. And spreading the microphones out would make a much more cumbersome measurement device - so there's probably not an easy solution to making measurements consistent. It would be nice if there was some aiming assistance for the microphone array that's more precise than trying to guess if the pip on the front of the microphone array is aimed at the center of the video display or not.

As for having your Integra repaired... MAN, that sounds like total incompetence. If everything works but TrueHD (and maybe DTS-HD MA), CLEARLY the HDMI boards wouldn't have anything to do with it. The problem would be in whatever board has the decoding logic for the lossless codecs (DSP board possibly?) or in the Firmware. But if the problem was in the Firmware, none of those processors would decode the lossless codecs, it wouldn't be a problem unique to yours. If the terms of your warranty say "repair or replace" it may be time to start pushing Integra to replace your unit with one that works right and let them sort out your bad one on their time rather than on your time.

Kal/Doug -- thanks for your comments. Kal, I understood your review to suggest that the preamp within the R-972 is cleaner and more transparent than the DTC-9.8. I guess you found the operational performance otherwise to be lacking along the lines of Doug's comments -- so much so that you didn't keep the R-972 and continue to use your DTC-9.8. To me, that is the true comparison I was seeking.

Doug, I should be more precise. The repair center is on the third DSP board. Agreed, it's not the firmware. Kal and others find the DTC-9.8 to work just fine. I've even seen and heard it work correctly in all formats, with my own Oppo BDP-83SE, at the home of another local forum participant who has a nicely functioning DTC-9.8.

As I separately noted in the DTC-9.8 thread, Integra says they will replace my unit only after it has been back and forth to the repair center three times. Apparently, the repair center didn't have a player to check TrueHD and DTS Master Audio before they sent it back the first time. They would have found out it wasn't working then. So, we are now on time number 2, and I think that the repair center really doesn't want to send it back non-functioning.

Bottom line: sounds like I should patiently continue to await the return of a fully functioning DTC-9.8. Thanks. JCR

jrobbins50 >>> Am i to understant that your brand new DTC-9.8 started malfunctioning within less than one month after its purchase ? Why didn't you request (demand, in fact!) another brand-new unit from the dealer ?
In my opinion, considering this major failure, how soon it appeared after purchase, the amount of money you spent for what is, arguably, state-of-the-art electronic equipment, and the fact that the unit was sent in for repairs three times (?!?), i would have requested (again,demanded!) a brand new unit from the dealer or from Onkyo, and if i did not get any satisfaction there, i would have contacted my credit card company, or whatever means you used for payment, and demanded a full credit refund.
If the matter was still not resolved satisfactory, i would threaten to contact the local General Attorney's office or whatever other local authority, just to let them know how outraged and upset i was.
If anything, you've been extremely patient with this matter but it gets to a point where patience might have to be substituted to warnings and threats...Just my two cents worth...
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Marcos

My display is mounted so that I look somewhat upwards; maybe 20 up from horizon. Should I also angle the microphone assembly upwards?

I've been getting nice results using mic level to horizon, but this is something I just thought of a few minutes after midnight here...

another excellent review of the 972 in hometheatermag yesterday

seems like if you get one of these units working right, the sound quality is there

Agreed, I should have post a couple weeks ago for groups benifit, but I down graded firmware to 1.33 . Volume spike problem is gone, I've been inspired to invest in new speakers - and everything sounds awesome.

Is anyone besides me disturbed by the seeming demise of the RMS power ratings system for these AV receivers? This was one of the few really effective methods for keeping audio manufacturers honest about power ratings. It seems to be used less and less frequently.

For example, the Home Theater Mag's review of the Sherwood Newcastle R-972 reveals the following.

Advertised power: 130 watts per channel
Measured power per channel @ 0.1% THD with 5 channels driven continuously: 66 watts
Measured power per channel @ 0.1% THD with 7 channels driven continuously: 40 watts

Its RMS power is less than 1/3 of the advertised power. You'd have to go back to the 1960s to see power ratings so drastically exaggerated. This is a very disappointing trend.

After a couple months of experimenting I have determined that 3d remap has some issues and is not a good fit for my home theater. I noticed (and have been able to duplicate on several occasions) that the center channel is turned down or off in 3d remap mode. I am assuming that in order to "reposition" the speaker in the vertical plane, the L and R are used for the phantom image. When I turn on DLY + LVL everything sounds better and the sound field opens up more. Has anyone experienced this problem?

Tom,

I've also noticed a trend with many manufacturers skimping on the amps and analog components to keep the price down. For instance I'm not sure if HT Mag's measurement techniques have changed but with .1% distortion the R-965 was 109.6W/ch with all channels driven and 128.3 with 5 channels four years ago.

IMHO, amps and analog sections of receivers are just as important as features and DACs for sound quality. But, good analog components haven't got less expensive like processors and DACs.

None of my comments are aimed at Sherwood specifically just a trend in the industry that seems to be happening with many manufacturers.

Bob

Dennis Murphy who posts at AVS and is crossover designer for most of Salk's speakers also works at the FTC. He was involved in the old standard for rating amps and I would suggest you email or PM him. I know at one time they were reviewing that standard to see if it needed changing.

The SN website says this:


http://www.sherwoodusa.com/prod_r972_feature.html

That leads me to believe it is 130W if only one channel is being driven. Now, you will only do this while watching very old movies (some of which are still quite fantastic)...but if that is their claim then busting on them for not driving 7 channels to that level is an invalid complaint.

I've noticed the new entry Denon avrs are advertising their watt power into 6 ohms instead of the standard 8 ohms. Is it great that they can handle a broader range of speakers... Sure,
but I bet the real reason is to smoke customers at best buy who ate just looking at the box specs...

It just leads to another one. This is essentially a meaningless specification. If the rated power is only for 1 channel driven at 1kHz, then what is the actual real-world power output?

From the advertised spec it is impossible to tell. Old mono movies wouldn't even count because even they have output considerably above and below 1kHz. You need to read a third party review to get this information. Rating power output the way it has been rated for more than thirty years and the way Newcastle used to rate their own power, it is 40 watts per channel.

It seems possible that 1 channel being driven COULD produce 130 watts at 0.1% THD. The issue is really how the amp(s) deal with more than 1 channel driven. That said... how often do we get all 5 channels driven with anything remotely like pink noise? And how do the amplifiers respond if there's a lot of bass in 2 channels, dialog in the center channel, and an explosion in the front 2 channels? "Continuously driven" specs don't tell us that either. What about instantaneous transient capabilities? If we listen to, say 5 to 10 watts from any amp channel at any time and an explosion happens with a powerful peak and a fairly fast decay... how do the amps handle it? Can they deliver the peak without getting distorted or clip? Or will you get clipping (terrible for tweeters)?

80-85 dB dialog isn't going to require a TON of power from the center channel... so there's more oomph available for the other channels right there. The surrounds rarely get as loud as the main channels, so there's more reserve there.

I ran my main (6-ohm with 2 or 3 dips to 4 ohms) main speakers from a single channel of the 972 and they did sound a bit power-limited, but no moreso than they have sounded with less than 70 watts per channel from standalone amps in the past. Bi-amping those speakers ended up sounding fairly good and there was no sense that I was lacking power.

There's only so much you can do with a transformer that weighs maybe 20 pounds vs. the 55 (or so) pound weight of the entire AVR. All the standalone amps I have here have at least 20 pounds of transformer for EACH CHANNEL. Some of them have 30 pounds of transformer for each channel. There are other specs I'd like to see for AVRs also... like Damping Factor. It's not the whole story re. how well an amplifier can control a woofer(s) in a speaker, but it's part of the story. When we are talking about analog amps, the weight of the amp is going to be directly proportional to the current/power capabilities. You can't expect a 50 pound AVR with 7 amp channels to provide a TON of power to every channel at the same time - though I doubt most consumers understand that. Digital amplifiers are changing that "weight-to-power" correlation though - I'd have thought AVRs would have almost universally switched to digital amps by now, but that transformer in there is the only thing adding any significant mass to the product - and that mass may be providing some sense of value to customers. Make the AVR too light and the customers will think they are paying for an empty box.

Kal's article is now online...

Anybody heard of any new firmware upgrades? I think one was expected about this time...

I hope they fix the bass issue. I have played with unit and the bass is just to thin.

hometheaterhifi just gave a great review the to 972

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/recei...-trinnov-.html

You need the +3dB or +6dB EQ curves.

I feel the bass sounds much thinner even with the +6dB file than it does without Trinnov engaged. Then again I have a line array of four 18" subs with an infinite baffle and was using an 11dB house curve.

You may be demanding more than they plan to deliver.

Your definition of "a great review" leaves a bit to be desired, when you take into account at the end where he mentions the bugs and issues it has.

You may be on to something . But seriously, I'm going to try to come up with a useful solution. I'll be sure to post results.

So... I've tried loading the various bass files and thought I'd take some measurements and post them. Before showing them, it's probably best to give context.

First off, my HT is in a second floor loft, open to the first floor. The open room volume is probably somewhere in the vicinity of 10,000-15,000 sqft. It's very difficult to measure due to the odd angles. Needless to say the room is large. I have some passive acoustic broadband 1st point absorbers (behind each of the front speakers as well as on the left wall, right wall and ceiling). I also have bass traps in the corners where possible. In terms of equipment, I have a JVC RS1 PJ controlled by a Lumagen VisionHDP video processor. For sources I have a HD-A3 HD-DVD player and a PS3. I only have 5.1 speakers... MB Quarts for the 5 main speakers and big infinite baffle sub (four 18" drivers). Here are some photos.

Front view:



Front Left:



Front Right:



Since the subwoofer is powered by a prosound amp, I've always gone with the idea that the volume on the amp (the gain) should be turned fully clockwise since it is only an attenuator (thus the amp gets the full signal strength). After running Trinnov, like most of you I found the bass lacking. I tried the +3dB and +6dB files and found they helped, but it was still lacking. Then I thought I'd try what Jeff recommended... turn down the gain, run Trinnov, then turn the gain on the sub back up. When Trinnov was run, it alway showed the sub at -0dB, whereas the mains were all around -17dB... suggesting the sub is about 17dB louder than the mains when not level adjusted! So, I turned the dial counterclockwise to -10dB. I re-ran Trinnov and sure enough the sub was -10dB (so the numbers on the gain dial were accurate!). I then turned gain back to fully clockwise. This made the sub 10dB hot. I put in The Dark Knight... holy crap! The bass was back. The full fury of Trinnov with solid low end output.

To verify the results, I then ran Room EQ Wizard to plot the in-room response at the seated position. I took multiple measurements (DLY and LVL and 2D Remap with the +0dB, +3dB, +6dB). I'll take more measurements later but here are a few plots I thought you might be intersted in...

2D remapping with the +0dB (blue), +3dB (pink) and +6dB files (yellow):



You can see that for the most part, in this case, the 3dB adn 6dB files add 3 and 6dB as advertised. They also seem to extend the low frequency output... quite nice.

Unfortunately I have a nasty room node at 29Hz and 58Hz... but at least the one at 29Hz isn't as deep. My next project is building new mains (identical LCR towers with two of the Exodus Audio Anarchy drivers) which will be tuned to 27Hz. So... I expect Trinnov to cross them over at 40Hz to deal with the 58Hz dip. In the meantime, I decided I like the +3dB response the most. I've also modeled my subs and I know with 700 watts I can safely add a 4dB one ocatave filter at 20Hz with my parametric EQ without causing the subs to bottom out. This is going under the assumption that the +3dB file actually makes the target response flat (as mentioned previously in this thread by others). I also added a filter at 40Hz to tame the peak. The last plot compares the +3dB response to the +3dB file with the two mentioned parametric filters.

+3dB file (purple) vs +3dB file with 2 parametric EQ filters:



We watched Star Trek on BD tonight and it sounded pretty damn good. The tweaking never ends but this was a solid step forward. Again, I'll try to take more measurements in the coming week, but I thought you might be intersted.

"XJR15, you seem to have a really bad experience with the Sherwood."

On the contrary, I love my R-972 and would recommend it but for bad experiences others have had with it. It has taken out speakers with loud noise bursts; I got a private email from a user on avs some months ago who had that happen. In my experience with the 1.34 fw, on some CDs, when listening in Stereo mode, in the transition between tracks, just for a fraction of a second the next track will start VERY LOUD but it self-corrects almost immediately, and if I restart the track manually, I don't get the high level. Since it's very brief, no harm is done, but it can be disconcerting.

But the Trinnov really shows how critical speaker placement( including speaker direction with respect to the listening position, not only horizontal and vertical angle ) is in surround setups if you want to hear the sound field as intended by the artists/engineers/producers. Probably very few surround music setups are correct; Audyssey doesn't cut it, and with manual setup you can't control all of the variables. The Trinnov remapping does work in its R-972 implementation and the difference it makes can be big. Many people think that the Pet Sounds DVD-Audio( and later Dolby special issue ) has a lot of vocal imaging in the surrounds; not so with the Trinnov; there is some side/rear vocal imaging, and a lot on at least one of the a capella extras, but the surround use is subtle on most tracks. Another example is Dark Side, which has plenty of side and rear imaging with Trinnov engaged. People don't like Guthrie's mix and I had a similar reaction until I heard it with Trinnov. I would say that if you haven't heard it through a Trinnov Optimizer, you probably haven't heard it.

"Is anyone besides me disturbed by the seeming demise of the RMS power ratings system for these AV receivers?"

The values for power output with 5 and 7 channels driven are steady state, which cause the current limiters to kick in, so the measurements don't mean much; in real world use, very short duration high current demands would probably not activate the limiters, so the lower measured values don't represent available power. In normal use, the power amp section of almost all receivers has no effect on the sound quality. If you doubt it, do a level-matched, double-blind test with two or more units that you think sound different and be convinced. It's a non-issue.

"I reviewed the 972 for Widescreen Review."

Do you know if they will publish your review( which WR issue? )

Strange.
I remember reading, that the most significant differences where achieved when changing the power amp section, because this is the place most of the time, where "analogue" criteria come into play,

Will somebody please confirm the +3dB file actually targets a flat response? Also, judging by my measurements, it looks like the auto EQ cuts peaks but doesn't try to boost nulls. Have any of you anything to the contrary?

I don't keep close tabs on when reviews I submit get printed. I just looked at the issues that were on the coffee table and it's not in any of those - it shouldn't be long before it appears.