Which receiver to enjoy uncompressed audio?

[PaulDubya]

Whats the best quality and most inexpensive reciever on the market that will allow me to enjoy uncompressed PCM?

[devils3023]

Onkyo txsr-605. you can find it for as low as $449 but its sold in circuit city for $499 regularly.

[PaulDubya]

Originally Posted by devils3023

Onkyo txsr-605. you can find it for as low as $449 but its sold in circuit city for $499 regularly.

thank you my friend

[jmy2469]

I have this receiver.It works great! It only had 2 hdmi inputs, so if you have more than 2 devices you need to hook up, you can buy an hdmi switcher from monoprice or step up to the 805.

[Amon37]

Originally Posted by jmy2469

I have this receiver.It works great! It only had 2 hdmi inputs, so if you have more than 2 devices you need to hook up, you can buy an hdmi switcher from monoprice or step up to the 805.

Also if you have 7.1 and you want to matrix 5.1 LPCM to 7.1 you need the 805.

[dhwang80]

another vote for the Onkyo 605.
ordered it from Circuit City for $399

it decodes Dolby True HD (Fifth Element Remastered) and the DTS-master as well...whenever that's utilized.

my only little complaint is that when listening to uncompressed/dolby true hd, etc..the display just says Multichannel

and for some reason i can't use the late night function while watching blu-ray movies....

[Memnoch]

Can't beat the 605.

[GreenMotion]

Originally Posted by dhwang80

my only little complaint is that when listening to uncompressed/dolby true hd, etc..the display just says Multichannel

This is not an error in the receiver. For it to detect truehd, the signal needs to be sent out thru bitstream. Unfortunately the PS3 (and possibly other players) don't support bitstream for truehd yet. Instead, it decodes it itself and spew it out via multi-channel PCM.

However, even though it says multi-channel, you should still get the truehd sound (decoded by the player) If you have a PS3, hit the info button.

I myself have the 805 and love it. I do hear my speakers pop when I switch between my PS3 and cable box etc. etc., but lots of people have reported this and it is nothing to be worried about.

[assur191]

Does the receiver in the Onkyo HT-SR800 package decode uncompressed?

[GreenMotion]

No, the sr-800 does not support uncompressed audio. (you will need HDMI for that)

[Zaphod]

Originally Posted by GreenMotion

This is not an error in the receiver. For it to detect truehd, the signal needs to be sent out thru bitstream. Unfortunately the PS3 (and possibly other players) don't support bitstream for truehd yet. Instead, it decodes it itself and spew it out via multi-channel PCM.

Now is this the same for just regualr DD tracks or DTS tracks. On both of these my Onkyo 605 only shows the Multichannel for these as well. Is the PS3 decoding these onboard as well and then sending them out PCM?

[theknub]

Originally Posted by Zaphod

Now is this the same for just regualr DD tracks or DTS tracks. On both of these my Onkyo 605 only shows the Multichannel for these as well. Is the PS3 decoding these onboard as well and then sending them out PCM?

assuming your player is setup to decode audio onboard (set as pcm), any signal the receivers receives will only display pcm

[GreenMotion]

Originally Posted by Zaphod

Now is this the same for just regualr DD tracks or DTS tracks. On both of these my Onkyo 605 only shows the Multichannel for these as well. Is the PS3 decoding these onboard as well and then sending them out PCM?

If you set your PS3 output to Linear PCM .. then yes. If you set it to bitstream, it should pass it on to your receiver to decode. On the PS3, this works fine for DTS, DTS-ES, DD etc. etc. Just not for truehd.

[Zaphod]

Originally Posted by theknub

assuming your player is setup to decode audio onboard (set as pcm), any signal the receivers receives will only display pcm

Then the next question is this, thanks for the answer by the way, can you set the PS3 to decode tracks that are meant for PCM (i.e. Dolby TrueHD), and send out bitstream for the likes of DD and DTS? Also if not through the same HDMI cable can you set up the PS3 to output the audio via both the HDMI and the optical at the same time, or is it either one or the other.

[GreenMotion]

I believe it is either one or the other. Ideally, the PS3 would be able to pass truehd etc. as bitstream as well, but that is not yet the case. I am hoping that this will be fixed by a future firmware update.

However, I believe that if you set it to bitstream, all DTS, DTS-ES etc. will be passed on to the receiver for decoding, BUT, trueHD will still be send out as PCM. So, that may be worth giving a shot. This way your receiver should be able to detect/decode the signal (i.e. displaying DTS on the display etc), except in the case you're dealing with TrueHD, at which point it would show MultiChannel PCM.

Anyway, lets hope Sony fixes this issue in a firmware update.

I have my PS3 set to bitstream by the way!

[Dadds]

The 705 comes out in 2 months.

[leukoplast]

Originally Posted by GreenMotion

This is not an error in the receiver. For it to detect truehd, the signal needs to be sent out thru bitstream. Unfortunately the PS3 (and possibly other players) don't support bitstream for truehd yet. Instead, it decodes it itself and spew it out via multi-channel PCM.

However, even though it says multi-channel, you should still get the truehd sound (decoded by the player) If you have a PS3, hit the info button.

I myself have the 805 and love it. I do hear my speakers pop when I switch between my PS3 and cable box etc. etc., but lots of people have reported this and it is nothing to be worried about.

Don't count on the PS3 ever supporting bitstream on DTS-HD and DD-THD (at least on older models) Since its HDMI 1.3 was a earlier version, and cannot bitstream the new lossless audio formats. So sad to say, this is a hardware issue.

And hopefully soon the PS3 will be able to decode DTS-HD, cause I've already had a few opportunity's to use it, but have had to go with the lesser audio. Which is a bummer cause I just got the Onkyo 605. Of course w/o bitstream, doesn't really matter what receiver it is.

To the OP. If you want a more future-proof receiver thats cost effective, go with the Onkyo 605. But really, any receiver that can receive a digital signal (via HDMI or optical) can play uncompressed audio. But keep in mind the HDMI can carry a 5.1+ signal of uncompressed, but the optical can only carry a 2.1 of uncompressed. So at least get a HDMI receiver.

Originally Posted by GreenMotion

I believe it is either one or the other. Ideally, the PS3 would be able to pass truehd etc. as bitstream as well, but that is not yet the case. I am hoping that this will be fixed by a future firmware update.

However, I believe that if you set it to bitstream, all DTS, DTS-ES etc. will be passed on to the receiver for decoding, BUT, trueHD will still be send out as PCM. So, that may be worth giving a shot. This way your receiver should be able to detect/decode the signal (i.e. displaying DTS on the display etc), except in the case you're dealing with TrueHD, at which point it would show MultiChannel PCM.

Anyway, lets hope Sony fixes this issue in a firmware update.

I have my PS3 set to bitstream by the way!

Preferably, I like to set my PS3 to output bitstream for the other audio formats. But I found out that you may not hear certain things if it is in bitstream.

And I found this out when I was in the fifth element menu, and I could not hear the clicking when I moved across the options. Which is pretty lame that it doesn't output everything via bitstream.

BTW firmware updates can only provide us PS3 owners with more internal PS3 audio decoding..but it cannot pass bitstream DTS-HD/DD-THD due to the lacking older version of 1.3 HDMI.

So its a hardware issue, which can't be solved with a firmware update. (bitstreaming lossless that is)

[devils3023]

Older version of hdmi v1.3? Im not sure about that. 1.3 is 1.3 i believe, someone else wanna chime in on this?

[LembasBread]

Is it just me, or does the TXSR-605 seem to have the LFE bug that many other (so I've heard) recievers have with Multi-channel LPCM? When A-B'ing bitstream Dolby and the LPCM tracks on BD's on the 605, the PCM's LFE seem a lot flatter and lower in amplitude than the DD's LFE. It's a pain to have to readjust the amplitude on my sub every time I listen to the different sources.

Otherwise, it sounds great for its price range!

[looics17]

sorry to sound dumb but what is the best scenario for sound? would my untuned ears really notice the difference? what should the ps3 be set to and y? is dd better than pcm and y? if u mention compressed then y? optical only gives 2.1 but i really should be aiming for 5.1, what the difference and y? can somebody just come round and do this for me ha ha ha

looics

this stuff is interesting but so hard to understand and also how do i search for a past thread or link to a thread?

also whats lfe , my receiver has it but what for and when should i use it? pcm or dd?