New State of the Art 20 channel A/V Receiver (StormAudio ISR Fusion 20)

[HDTV1080P]

Since this product has HDMI switching it is a A/V receiver instead of just a surround sound processor.

This StormAudio ISR Fusion 20 is the nicest A/V receiver that I have ever seen so far. It has 20 channels of audio processing with 16 powered channels. This A/V receiver offers Auro-3D, DTS X Pro, and Dolby Atmos. Also all the most common HDR formats are supported like HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision HDR, and HLG. The A/V receiver offers 7 HDMI inputs and 2 HDMI outputs with all HDMI ports supporting 8K with HDCP 2.3. Companies are not making 7 8K HDMI inputs for no reason. In theory there might be in the year 2026-2028+ a 8K optical disc format, 8K streaming box, 8K cable TV box, 8K satellite receiver, 8K videogame console, and 8K camcorder released. But if those 8K devices are to be released in the future then they most likely are not going to be using HDCP 2.3. There is a strong possibility the movie studios might want to use a new secure encrypted form of HDCP like HDCP 3.0 or greater. And the problem is this StormAudio ISR Fusion 20 like all current A/V receivers that offer 8K switching on their HDMI ports does not have a firmware upgradable HDCP chip. This new A/V receiver from StormAudio has a list price of $19,999, and for $20,000 if one has to buy a new A/V receiver to get HDCP 3.0 for 8K switching, then selling a A/V receiver like this used will most likely lose 50% of its value if one wants to upgrade to a hypothetical new A/V receiver with HDCP 3.0. So this StormAudio product is the best or one of the best A/V receivers on the market, but the owners of the HDCP technology for HDMI needs to make their HDCP chips firmware upgradable in order to future proof a product. A firmware upgradable HDCP from Intel could use a superfast chip with a lot of memory and bandwidth with a secure upgrade feature over a ethernet connection.

Widescreen Review magazine wrote a professional review for the StormAudio ISR Fusion 20. The review can be found on pages 12-20 in the May/June 2024 Widescreen Review magazine.

https://www.widescreenreview.com/wsr_issue.php

https://www.stormaudio.com/produit/isr-fusion-20/

[HDTV1080P]

Some type of firmware upgradable hardware based HDCP is a must have for the consumer market for all new consumer products that use HDCP for HDMI and Displayport. Another popular feature would be a industry wide A/V receiver motherboard that allows consumers to swap out a power supply, CPU, HDMI card, tuner card, memory unit, etc. If the A/V receiver companies would switch to a motherboard similar to what desktop computers use in terms of style, then consumers could easily upgrade their A/V receiver by plugging in a new HDMI card from Pioneer, and new audio decoding board by Denon, etc.