List of Digital Home Theater Receivers - Page 52

Oops, yes, I got them the wrong way round. But there is no 701S listed on the JVC web site so I questions its existence, at least in the US.

there is pic of it on the page linked in my post - but there are lots of stuff Japanese companies make not released to the US market doesn't mean they don't exist.

the converse is also true - especially nowadays a lot of companies are taking advantage of the internet to sell stuff worldwide without having local presence - SVS, Orb Audio, AV123, Acoustic Reality to name a few.

Thanks for updating the first page, Grayson. But why did you remove Kenwood's digital receivers? For example, their VRS-7100 and VRS-8100 models?

Oh, I thought Siriusly's input was for new additions as opposed to being an up-to-date complete list.

oops, yes that was what I intended

Good thing for Google cache. Here was Grayson's original post.

Cool ... thanks.

I dont know if this is covered anywhere in the thread, I did search but was unsuccessful, anyways I was wondering if my Sony STR-DE685 is classified as a digital reciever, I think it is but I wanted more opinions.
I have had it for several years.
It says 64bit processing and it does DTS and Pro Logic II movie and music
It has the Sony sound stage cinimatic effects for their three soundstages
It has 2 Component video in
1 digital Coax, 3 Toslink in, 1 out
it is 5.1 100w x5
If you need more info I will be around.

That model does not sound like one of a digi-amp'ed receiver. In general, these digital receivers are much smaller and lighter than a traditional receiver. So if your receiver looks as big as a traditional receiver, most likely it's an analog-amplified one. If it looks small, like the Panasonic model we've talk about here (quite a bit), it's probably digitally amplified.

Hi All!

Any news regarding this upcoming receiver? Looks really nice...

Does anyone have the DPR2005 firmware update? I need to update my receiver. Thank you!

It doesn't use their digital amps/powerDACs called 'S-Master Pro'. It uses analog amps.

The confusing part for many people though is that all recs have lots of 'digital' stuff going on in them and companies often call solid state/analog amp recs 'digita recievers'.
And it's perfectly fine/true for them to do that unlike many other things they do to lie to us.


If you don't know, please don't guess an answer for someone. The fact is that all of Sony's S-Master digital amp/powerDAC recs are the SAME size factor as their solid state recs.
Only their all-in-one 'dream systems' are tiny like the Pannys.

Another fact is that these Pannys are not optimal size for their design. They get too hot esp with the taking out of the fans vs. earlier models and could use a bigger box with real heat sinking.

This is mainly for the power supply not so much the digital amps/powerDACs themselves.

Just because a company can put something into a tiny box doesn't mean they should. It's largely cost cutting and mass-market 'form factor' that they do.

You also need a larger box if you use a conventional power supply rather that tiny switching power supply in these designs- and there's plenty of debate that using a conventional PS is higher quality for some or all of these digital amp designs.

Specifically to Sony their top model S-Master recs use both.

Sony dumped most of it's S-Master line though. I think they really don't make them anymore. They didn't make a 9100 model to replace their years old 9000 model and they're closing out the 7100 model in the electronics store I was recently in and no word anywhere I've seen that Sony plans on making any new ES S-Master recs.
Sad.

I wish Panny would just make one model that really optimizes the equibit chips.. but clearly they're not going to.

No word on it yet, but I suspect it's pretty much the XR57 just with new face to match their new BR player.

Lots of people assume it'll have HDMI 1.3 (or if they call it 2.0) but the main thing to look at is if it has this latest HDMI connection... what will it even do?

They're every reason to assume it WON'T do SACD 'cuz Panny had never supported it so there's one thing the connection 'could pass' but won't work in this Rec anyway.

Video-wise the future HDMI 1.3 would be better than current HDMI versions but you have to have a display that takes advantage of that. You probably don't have one.
I don't know if there are any even? Something for the display forum though not here.

All the Rec would do it pass that video through -unless for some reason it doesn't.

Most think HDMI 1.3 in the XR700 would mean the rec with be able to decode lossless DD/DTS codecs, but why would it?

If it has those chips in the Rec, then so would the Panny BR player. It'd be redundant to have it in both.

Better to have it in the costly BR player. The only place you need it to be. Decode to multi-chan PCM and send it to the Rec.
HDMI 1.3 will do that, but so can 1.1 and 1.2.

The BR player is going to cost a lot. To NOT put the lossless DD/DTS decoding in the player forces people to buy their rec to get that lossless audio then?

Doesn't make sense. I don't see that happening.

Looking at how small the XR700 is still, I suspect it's just an XR57-ish with new looks.
They might have 'just' made it to sell as a package deal with their costly player.

A dirt cheap rec and costly BR player's total package price would probably look a LOT better to many Joe Six Packs out there than seeing that ~80% of that price is the player alone.
JSP will also be fooled that the Rec is the 'perfect' thing to mate to this cool new BR player 'cuz it looks the same.

To me the XR700 just looks like a smart marketing move.

I suspect it'll come out when the BR player does and will have no features that you can't get in the XR57 now 'cept HDMI 1.3 which may not do anything new or useful for you.

Would have to disagree with you there. My xr55 has never gotten more than slightly warm no matter how hard I push it.


Not sure if a beefy conventional PS would make a huge difference, but generally I'd be happy to pay an extra $100-300 for it if necessary, and for really high quality internals like better capacitors, etc. Unfortunately even the cheapest mods available for these Pannys cost a good bit more than that.

Then something is wrong w/ Sony's design if they're digi-amp'ed receivers need to be the same size as their traditional receivers. Many people here own various Panasonic digi-amp'ed receivers, and I don't think they've had overheating problems. I bought my parents the Kenwood VRS-7100 digi-amp'ed receiver, which also has a Panasonic-like small form factor. And it doesn't get hotter than lukewarm to the touch.

Just because your Panny works fine (so does my XR25 and XR45's) doesn't mean you should be sure the components aren't packed into a sub'optimal' package.

And I'm not trying to say 'it's less than perfection'. I'm saying it's really just a little too corner-cutting.

Your XR55 doesn't have a fan like the XR25 and 45's. There was a reason they had a fan. It was the reason I stated.
That reason is still in your XR55 but they added a small amount of venting and slightly taller box to get a bit more air flow. You might not know how hot it actually is inside and I assume you don't check how hot it gets often so it just visually looks fine and audibly plays fine -till something overheats and dies.

It's 'ok' but not good enough for all.

Part of how and when your Panny would heat up is based on how you use it and factors like where you put it in relation to other gear and how cool your room is in.
You probably have these factors covered.

For my Pannys I unscrew the unvented lids and tilt open the back. It actually locks in place like this on the case and vents the whole back with about a 1" slot above the back panel.

The fan is designed to kick on with high current which means louder sounds so the fan sound is 99% of the time covered up. But the PS heats up the most when the unit is playing low levels where the fan never kicks on.

Again... not the same design as your XR55 but it's very similar and it can get very hot in there.
The JVC recs are even more known for this too.


I got my XR45 modded and price to perfomance ratio it was a rip-off, but understandable 'cuz it was hand-done work.

There was an improvement though and you'd have to pay quite a bit more to buy something else to get similar I believe so in that it wasn't a rip-off.

I wrote back when I did the mod that I really wish Panny would do some of these things on a mass production basis so like you said, it wouldn't cost more than a few hundred more to get a really tricked out design.

The newer Pannys like yours got rid of a retarded 2 cent 'snap clip' speaker outputs but the connectors are still dirt cheap.

They got rid of the fan needed to cool a 'too small' box, but like I said... it was still a dirt cheap fix and not a good enough one.

From all I've read from people cracking open the latest Pannys they still have a tiny power supply too. The XR45 still seems to have had the beefiest design.

BTW- switching from a Pio DVD player as my CD transport to my modded XR45 to sending it ripped CD from my PC's hard drive for all my music seems like about as big an improvement as the 45's mod.

First please don't repost my whole post. You didn't need to quote any of it to post your reply because you weren't directly replying to any of it like this...


As I already said a conventional power supply needs a larger box. Many, most actually, class D amps use conventional power supplies.

Also 'highly effi digital amp' doesn't mean no heat sinking is needed. They still need some but it's actually (like I said the switching power supply in the Pannys) that need the heat sinking.

Plus there's other stuff inside the Sony recs than digital amps. Making more space for diff PCBs is better than packing them all as tightly as you can.

But I didn't say the Sonys 'needed' to be 'that' big.

I only said the Pannys are too small/short. The Sony's are much larger. A good deal of that size is simply to look like it's as beefy/powerful as other solid state recs that DO need to be that big.

Also bigger looks like it's more worth the greater price -which they charged. Those two things are both marketing not engineering of course.

Plus... something WAS wrong with the Sony's heheh... most of the first ES models were recalled. I owned one and returned it for bad noise and other issues before the recall.

It looked nice -facewise though. I'd like to see Panny do something inbetween the rip-off mid level stuff they did in their 'high end' ES recs and the mid level stuff Panny packs into low end packaging.

Say a $600 model that's a little taller, nicer connections, and much nicer power supply and internal wiring.
Too bad it seems it'll never happen.


You can't say 'no one' though. It's a cheap design that certainly can overheat on people and has. Common problem? No, I'm sure it's not. A quality design would improve the cooling of it though.


The Kenwood is pretty much the same rec/design. It doesn't help make your point. Only repeats it.
Look up the JVC digital amp recs for an actual other design that's slim, effi, AND has had lots and lots of heating issues. It helps to know where the heat comes from. The switching power supply mostly not the amps themselves.

Here's a good power supply example... my Dish network 6000 Rec had a slot to plug in an over the air tuner card. This card came encased in a frame with a tiny fan that ran loudly and all the time- even when the rec was OFF!?

This was B.S. to me so I unplugged the fan and to help counter the cooling damage I did I removed the metal frame that the frame was attached to (which would have only helped trap heat in).

Then I tipped the whole Rec on it's side like a PS2 so it gets a lot more airflow all around it (it's totally vented underneath it but that hardly helps tipped down flat).

This also puts the main power supply (by FAR the thing that heats up the most in the whole rec) at the top so it's heat goes straight up n' out and away from the whole rest of the circuit board.

Point being... they designed it with that fan for good cooling and it worked but audiophile-wise it sucked.
The way I have it now is 'sub optimal cooling' BUT has worked for years now. Sometimes it has glitched up and it may or may not be from slight overheating.

Like the Panny, I wish they would have instead of a cheap-ass cooling solution, had put in some real heat sinking that better cools the parts without fan noise.

Note -where is the switching power supply on your PC and does it have a big ass fan on it? And is that fan much bigger than any fan on your PC borad or plug-in cards?
And is your PC case a tower or does it lay flat 'old style'.

If your house was cool or cold and you disconnected the fan on your power supply your PC might not have any problems.
Even if it doesn't you didn't prove that it doesn't need to have the fan in the first place. Just that you personally managed to get by without it... or maybe it burns out down the road. Maybe it dies much faster for someone else.

I'd like a Panny less designed to be fairly disposable.

Any opinions on a Denon 2807?

yeah, it's not a digital receiver.

Just a side note, but anyone reading this should not remove or unplug the fan to your computer's power supply. As temperature goes up, available wattage in a power supply goes down. No fan equals rapid temperature increase in computer power supply, and possibly leading to thermal shutdown protection.

When it's really cold (and say the room temp. is under 60 deg.), I noticed that my CPU fan doesn't spin. After a few minutes, it starts spinning, slowly at first, and then to normal speed. I get the warning/error by my PC's fan/temp. utility app., but I learned that it's OK.

But you're right that in general, you want the CPU fan to be powered on and spinning, esp. when it's hot or the CPU is doing something intensive.

Do they make a true Home Theater receiver? By that I mean one without a radio tuner and cassette and cd connections. I would like to see one with just some video input/outputs, Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic and DTS. Keep it simple

They call these crazy things amplifiers.

Look into "separates".

by definition, a receiver is a box that contains a tuner, pre-amplifier and amplifier.

Which of new digital receivers have pure digital conversion/amplification, without any analog stages? Which ones would be the top three in terms of sound quality only?

All the receivers listed on the first post should qualify as purely digitally amplified receivers.

As for the top 3 of that group? Hmm, that's a tough one. Many will say Panasonic ranks up there. My parents have the Kenwood VRS-7100, which they like. I'm sure H/K's ranks up there.