Recommendations for 5.1 upgrade

[Todd Anderson]

Finding a player that can play SACDs isn't easy these days. That's one reason people scrap for older OPPO Blu-ray and 4K players.

I agree with Mike. The Panasonic 820 is a great player and the onboard tone mapping is a nice feature. It takes a little bit of digging around to get the settings right, but once you do, you'll pretty much have a guaranteed good visual experience with any 4K disc you put in the player.

As for upscaling. I'd assume that any upscalling is done by the earliest component in your chain. As the signal gets passed along, it will appear as 4K, those those components will just pass it through.

 

[milleniumaire]

Thanks for the suggestions of the Panasonic 820, which is one of the players I've been looking at. I'm not sure I want to invest in an old Sony player just to support the SACD disks I have, but maybe in the future I'll change my mind.

It's interesting you both suggest letting the DVD player do the upscaling as Googling suggested using the TV was better, although it depends on the age and performance of the chips in the various devices. One reason for this was that when upscaling is performed earlier in the process, the HDMI cables need to be more capable to ensure the more detailed image is transferred. That shouldn't be an issue for me since I'll be using a new AudioQuest Ultra HDMI cable.

I guess it will be a case of testing the various devices/settings when I have everything connected up. Still a long way to go before I'm in that position.

 

[milleniumaire]

I've been using my new Pioneer VSA-LX805 AV Amplifier for about 6 weeks now with all my other original kit (still not purchased the LG G4 77"). I've noticed the volume is displayed as a positive number, so I usually have it set at 60 for normal viewing. On my previous Pioneer SC-LX82 AV Receiver, the volume level was always displayed as a negative number, which was set at around -22 (from memory).

Why the difference in using positive and negative values for volume?

 

[Mike Schramm]

“Absolute volume” is what you are currently using in your LX805. It give your volume level a positive number, ususally in the 60-70 range for normal listening.
“Relative volume” is what you were using in your LX-82. It gives you a negative number, showing you how far below the calibrated reference volume you are set at. When the system is properly calibrated with 0dB being 75dB, the negative number shows your sound level relative to the reference level. For example, -10dB would be 10dB lower than reference, or 65dB.

 

[milleniumaire]

“Absolute volume” is what you are currently using in your LX805. It give your volume level a positive number, ususally in the 60-70 range for normal listening.
“Relative volume” is what you were using in your LX-82. It gives you a negative number, showing you how far below the calibrated reference volume you are set at. When the system is properly calibrated with 0dB being 75dB, the negative number shows your sound level relative to the reference level. For example, -10dB would be 10dB lower than reference, or 65dB.

Thanks Mike, that makes a lot of sense based on my limited Googling of the question. Does the manufacturer simply make a decision about which method to use for volume control or is this something that can be configured?

 

[milleniumaire]

Ignore my previous post. I went through the system menu options and found Volume Display can be set to Absolute or Relative, so changed it to Relative.

 

[Todd Anderson]

Thanks for the suggestions of the Panasonic 820, which is one of the players I've been looking at. I'm not sure I want to invest in an old Sony player just to support the SACD disks I have, but maybe in the future I'll change my mind.

It's interesting you both suggest letting the DVD player do the upscaling as Googling suggested using the TV was better, although it depends on the age and performance of the chips in the various devices. One reason for this was that when upscaling is performed earlier in the process, the HDMI cables need to be more capable to ensure the more detailed image is transferred. That shouldn't be an issue for me since I'll be using a new AudioQuest Ultra HDMI cable.

I guess it will be a case of testing the various devices/settings when I have everything connected up. Still a long way to go before I'm in that position.

As long as you are using a cable that's known to be compliant with up to 40-48Gbps, you won't have to worry. Your Audioquest cable can do that.