Pricing rant

[JTK]

I'm have been kind of exploring the idea of a receiver upgrade just for laughs.

I've made a very frustrating discovery.

In the two years that have elapsed since I last bought any hardware for myself, I've come to find that competitive pricing at authorized online dealers is a thing of the past.

Two Januarys ago I bought my HK 635 from One Call and they had that thing marked down a good $400 or so off of MSRP, like you would expect from aggressive salesmanship and just being competitive.

Three Novembers ago I bought my Onkyo DVSP1000 for $1447 from Vanns when it was brand new with an MSRP of $1999.

Same concept.

Wow, are those days long gone and over with. Now they're all like Crutchfield: MSRP.

I can't catch a @#$%ing break legit to save my life! My local scene is abysmal. That's MSRP plus sales tax, period. Choice leaves a lot to be desired.

So I'm at the mercy of the Internet or I can drive for over an hour to a Best Buy, but I see they're not even being that competitive.

For laughs, I called Crutchfield yesterday and called one of my old regulars and haggled with him for the best possible deal conceivable that they could do for me on a particular receiver.

I was put on hold for 5 minutes while he went to his supervisor and he came back on and acted like Santa Claus had bestowed this great gift: A whole whopping five percent off MSRP.

I hung up on him.

Just ridiculous. Do I HAVE to go gray market and take my chances of having a DOA item or hot merchandise and no manufacterer's warranty just so I don't get @#$^ing raped on prices ?!

At that rate, this entire industry deserves to feel serious pain from the consumers and I hope they do.

That just plain sucks, folks. Dead wrong.

If they want people to steal and go black/gray market, all they need to do is continue on as is, becuase now even I'm angry enough to be half tempted to do it.

P.S. I know our friends outside of America will rightfully have zero sympathy for me. You guys have it 1000 times worse than what we do here in the States.

EDIT: Hmmm...I see it varies from brand to brand. Maybe all hope isn't utterly lost here after all, but jeez.

[Zvi]

Internet is your friend, my friend
It's been a very long time since I bought any EC product in local store. That includes 3 DLP TVs, electric wall oven, rangetop, dvd and blu ray players, of course computers and parts for them and so on. Hell, I even buy some of my clothing online. 98% of my knives I bought online including factory and custom made.

P.S. You don't have to buy gray market on the net either.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Zvi

Internet is your friend, my friend
It's been a very long time since I bought any EC product in local store. That includes 3 DLP TVs, electric wall oven, rangetop, dvd and blu ray players, of course computers and parts for them and so on. Hell, I even buy some of my clothing online. 98% of my knives I bought online including factory and custom made.

P.S. You don't have to buy gray market on the net either.

The Internet is my friend, indeed, but one must be careful. I'm pretty much almost like you are at this point.

Some of the brands just seem to be harder to get nice deals on then others.

[Longshot]

What receiver in particular are you interested in?

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Longshot

What receiver in particular are you interested in?

Top end/ceiling: Yamaha RXV2700 or something those lines.

I'm still trying to hash out how much of a potential screw job I'd be in for if I bought something like that now and then HDMI 1.3 and God knows what else rolls around.

On paper, audio wise, HDMI 1.2 should cover me with ease, but hell you never know anymore it seems...

My HK AVR635 is a nice receiver but it lacks one thing: HDMI.

Since I have a PS3 I'd like to be able to enjoy LPCM and the rest of the new audio codecs. HDMI is the only way that can be done off the PS3.

[theknub]

JTK, doesn't our TV have an hdmi input and optical out? i might be wrong since i haven't looked at the back recently. but if that's the case, couldn't you output the audio signal from the TV to the receiver?

[JTK]

Originally Posted by theknub

JTK, doesn't our TV have an hdmi input and optical out? i might be wrong since i haven't looked at the back recently. but if that's the case, couldn't you output the audio signal from the TV to the receiver?

You can't pass LPCM and those higher end/newer audio codecs over optical or coax. It's got to be either multichannel analogs or HDMI.

Nice idea, though.

If the PS3 had some kind of multichannel analog output, or if there were some crazy adapter, I'd be good to go now, because I'd simply use my multichannel analog inputs that I currently have.

[4K display]

How about a cheap HDMI AVR to get you by for a year? Say $300-400 street?
I'm guessing a truly worthy AVR upgrade won't be available till mid-07 at the earliest.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by 4K display

How about a cheap HDMI AVR to get you by for a year? Say $300-400 street?
I'm guessing a truly worthy AVR upgrade won't be available till mid-07 at the earliest.

Like the new Pannys? Yeah, I'm considering it, although I think those might be a downgrade in some areas vs. what I have now.

[hyperdine]

I would just wait it out, JTK. Unless, you can afford to buy another receiver next year. In that case, I would say go for it.

I'm in the same boat. I love my THX certified Integra (Onkyo's little brother). It doesn't have HDMI, but it does have multi-channel analog inputs. I'm just going to hold off until someone like Denon releases an HDMI 1.3 unit.

I won't lie to you though. You are missing out on some seriously good audio. Uncompressed is definitely the way to go. At least I do get that since I've got the BD-P1000.

[theknub]

im in jtk's boat. i was seriously looking at an hdmi receiver earlier in the year. however, that never materialized and i'm kind of glad it didn't. i'll hold off now for another year, use the 6.1 inputs on my receiver and the sammy, and wait for 1.3. i'll wait on upgrading my speakers then for another two years or so, and then be happy as a clam when i get my 4th gen blu ray player too (can anyone say denon?)

[theknub]

Originally Posted by JTK

You can't pass LPCM and those higher end/newer audio codecs over optical or coax. It's got to be either multichannel analogs or HDMI.

jtk, while im still testing, i think you can pass lpcm over optical. in fact, i am doing it right now and i notice a significant difference between uncompressed and standard dolby 5.1. now, i don't know if you can pass it through the t.v. but im going over optical from my player to my receiver right now.

i know it won't work for the advanced dts-hd/ma or dd+ etc... but this is working no problem for me and it sounds phenomenal.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by theknub

jtk, while im still testing, i think you can pass lpcm over optical. in fact, i am doing it right now and i notice a significant difference between uncompressed and standard dolby 5.1. now, i don't know if you can pass it through the t.v. but im going over optical from my player to my receiver right now.

i know it won't work for the advanced dts-hd/ma or dd+ etc... but this is working no problem for me and it sounds phenomenal.

I know you can get sound, but I notice on my HK 635 that if I select LPCM on a menu for a BD (take Click for example) my receiver's processing picks it and you hear it, but I see that it's in Logic 7 mode, which is what I normally have "non DD and DTS" signals set to.

I'll have to do some more experimenting, but I was under the impression that coax and optical simply don't have the room or the bandwidth to pass on LPCM and the like with any justice.

In other words: You're taking a loss somewhere.

Do you have all your audio set to bitstream or Linear PCM?

I put in Click and set it to LPCM in the audio options. I pressed select to see the PS3's readout after I did this. It says Linear PCM 5.1 multichannel 48 Khz.

For full LPCM you can get that to 96. Optical and coax can't do that. Only multichannel analogs or HDMI can do it.

Go into your PS3 audio menus. Select optical, hit manual, and look at the choices. Cancel out, select HDMI, select manual, and then look at THOS choices.

^^ That's what I want.

[theknub]

well, can't do that on the sammy.

my experience (so far) has been that the audio is better over optical. the sound range just seems more dynamic. the analogs seem to have a bit more full front stage but my rears are lacking while i get more out of my rears with the optical. like i said, not a ton of testing yet. i did start a thread asking for feedback regarding this but not sure if i have heard anything yet (haven't visited that thread yet).

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=3805
and no input yet... but that's what i had started just for some more input.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by theknub

well, can't do that on the sammy.

my experience (so far) has been that the audio is better over optical. the sound range just seems more dynamic. the analogs seem to have a bit more full front stage but my rears are lacking while i get more out of my rears with the optical. like i said, not a ton of testing yet. i did start a thread asking for feedback regarding this but not sure if i have heard anything yet (haven't visited that thread yet).

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=3805
and no input yet... but that's what i had started just for some more input.

Posted.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by JTK

I can't catch a @#$%ing break legit to save my life! My local scene is abysmal. That's MSRP plus sales tax, period. Choice leaves a lot to be desired.

I guess you never noticed we Canadians moved the border on ya.

The lack of proper competitive pricing has driven me nuts here forever. Sony and Panasonic and Apple stuff all magically seems to be priced the same everywhere.

Originally Posted by JTK

P.S. I know our friends outside of America will rightfully have zero sympathy for me. You guys have it 1000 times worse than what we do here in the States.

Yeah, but sometimes we get a head scratcher like the PS/3 selling for the cheapest price in the world outside of Japan, or the Xbox 360 add-on for par.

Apparently our cries of "what's all this then?!" during the rape scene were heard after all.

Gary