CES News: Panasonic SA-XR57 (7.1 ch)

Bingo!!!

Just a guess - it's a XR-55 with added HDMI and HDAVI. Cool!

Now, where's the 200W/channel model! I can dream.

Bah, $400!

Retail on the XR-55 is $300, street price under $250. Street price on the XR-57 likely to settle around $320 at the low end.

It doesn't say how many hdmi inputs there are.

Just got XR55, 1 more week to end of 30 day return but very happy with it. Besides HDMI, is there anything else new about XR57? Release in June '06 is too far for me, so I think I will keep the XR55.

Wireless rear surrounds with an additional kit.
It could also have a better onboard display.

Nothing new on the audio side which isn't surprising. Video's driving the market and Panny's going after the money. They're even saying the remote is a feature. That should be interesting. As much as I like the receiver, the remote is definitely not a "feature" on the 55.

David

Ok, I just came back from a brief browse at CES (didn't have much time today) and got a few pix of the nextgens. This is also posted on other threads.

Here ya go folks:


XR57



The back side with 2 HDMI:




As usual the guys doing the demo don't know much info... like what version HDMI it is and etc. I had to talk him in to showing the back side of it. But I promise I'll get more info tomorrow. He did mention that it may be available as early as March.


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Is his hand hiding something we're not suppose to see

Also is there any sign of HDMI 1.2 at the show?

thx

dc

GED, also if there is a Panasonic exec please tell him/her to send some to Singapore - we can't forever be importing stuff from US

It seems that this press release is saying that the dual amp feature now works with all speakers, not just biwired speakers but with single wired speakers as well.

Am I reading that wrong?

bdbaba,

dual amp on XR55 works on single-wired speakers



its the triple-amp that needs biwired speakers

Thanks SC,

That cleared things up!

Does the new Panny include this formats? I suspect they should be entering the market by about June (or whenever Blu-Ray comes out)

Jason

Does this receiver xr57 offer any kind of headphone surround option for late night listening? I don't understand why panasonic continues to leave out this option? Thanks

This is basically the same blurb as the top one on this thread, but I thought I would paste it again because it does say that the unit will be available in June. Not sure how reliable this is of course.

http://gadgets.fosfor.se/panasonic-sa-xr57

DC: No he wasn't covering up anything. Just supporting the unit.

bdbaba: They said it may be available as early as March/April.

One feature that I forgot to mention that they demoed the first day was the one touch operation between the TV, XR57 and the DVD player when using HDMI. I didn't pay much attention but I think what he was demoing "auto power" of both the xr57 and DVD player by pressing the power on the TV.

I couldn't verify if it has optical out, Sorry.

Here are some pix of the Japanese remotes. I don't know which one's which.




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Ok, I was able to get a Panasonic Press Release kit and lo-n-behold I found a pix of the XR57 in that CD.

Here it is:




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looks a bit better than the XR55. i think

any mention of a OSD and EQ/auto setup?

Thanks GED,

March/April would be nice. Any mention on when the mystery machine XR7? might be released? I assume they are waiting for HDMI 1.3 and all that Hi Res stuff to settle up some.

will this do any upconversion/upscaling?

This will undoubtedly support passthrough of 1080p. I believe all HDMI receivers simply pass through the video, whatever is coming in, so they should all pass through 1080p. Correct me if i'm wrong.


I have a hunch the wireless rear surround kit will work with any receiver. it's probably simply something that takes speaker level inputs and then transmits it to an amplifier dedicated to the rear surrounds.

If it has an onboard (onscreen?) display at all, it'll be better than the XR55 which has none (OSD that is).

Looks cool. I wonder if the new ones have a new generation of amp chips. The XR-55's solution of using two 6-channel chips to drive seven channels is cool from an audiophile overkill POV, but probably not the most efficient answer.

It also looks like they didn't include the two features that would make me upgrade my XR55 (being attached to a computer running OSX and/or serious room correction software) so I'll happily sit this generation out.

- Does it have only one input and 1 HDMI outpout like the SA-XR70 or we will be able to make numerical video switching (2 or more input and an outpout) ?

- Upscaling of the other input with HDMI ?

- Function of auto-adjustment ?

- Dolby headphone ?

It is hard to say. The person who showed me the backside was such in a hurry (he was about to do a HDAVI presentation) that I couldn't see much of the backside. I was lucky to get a pic of it. He didn't know much about it either. Time will tell I guess but it would be nice if it has ALL that we are looking for.


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If this time around they pair the TAS5518 with TAS5182 then for sure we would get some cool upgrades such as:

* Enhanced Bass Management
* Parametric EQ
* Seven cascaded second order bi-quad per channel
* Electronic Cross Over

To name a few. Output will still remain @ 100wpc. Let's just hope that they also beef-up the PS quite a bit.


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I really hope it has Dolby Headphone!

I'm not holding my breath for all those features on the XR57, even if it uses the new TI chips. They'd most likely be bragging about all those features already if they were in there. It seems to be a much more incremental upgrade focused on addding HDMI support. Hopefully it's actual HDMI switching. I could see them adding stuff like that to the next-gen XR7x to make it a more upscale model and justify the cost over an XR57.