Tag Archives: AV Gear

News

Samsung UHD Blu-ray Now Available

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Just a quick post to let you know that some UHD Blu-ray players have been released starting yesterday and that it seems that Bestbuy preorders are starting to ship over the weekend.

If you want a first peek at what’s inside the box and at the menu, I encourage you to visit this discussion on AVSForums.

It will take a couple of weeks for my pre-order to arrive here in Canada, but I’ll let you know as soon as I can try the player.

Quick update : I now have both the player and two discs (Martian / Maze Runner: Scorch Trials) in hands and will be doing some testing over the weekend, I’ll give you some impressions soon.

Reviews

Impressions On The Marantz SR7010

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With the objective to be prepared for DTS:X arrival this quarter, I necessarily had to replace my receiver as my Onkyo TX-NR1030 was not going to receive any firmware upgrade to support the new format.

After evaluation and comparing models, I selected the Marantz SR7010, which represents the first time I try a model from Denon & Marantz group. It is also the first time I try Audyssey as a room correction software.

The Marantz SR7010 offers amplification for 9 channels and supports the addition of a two channel amplifier for a total of 11 channels processed. This allows for a Dolby Atmos (and soon DTS:X) 7.1.4 configuration which is what I have in my home theater.

One important thing to know, as it was reported before, the D+M models of this year do not allow Dolby Surround (the upscaler that comes with Dolby Atmos) to be applied to any of the DTS formats. It’s a limitation for now, but it can be bypassed by asking your Blu-ray player to send decoded PCM sound instead of Bitstream (a change you need to revert to get Atmos working). It will be less of a limitation early March when the DTS:X update arrives and allow to apply DTS Neural:X to DTS soundtracks.

The Marantz comes with a strong support of HDMI with 8 inputs all compatible with HDCP 2.2 and HDR through HDMI 2.0a. They all support the full bandwidth of the spec at 18 Gbps. There is also a secondary output that can be used if you want to bring the signal at the same time to a projector and a television for instance.

71M-hznT44L._SL1099_

I need to begin my impressions by the fact that I am very pleasantly surprised by the results of applying Audyssey MultEQ XT32 in my room. There is a real impact on sound quality produced by the receiver when Audyssey is enabled which makes the rendering of movies and music more dynamic than before. The sound when Audyssey is disabled sounds flat and not engaging. The calibration process, with 8 different recording points is well done and is surprisingly quick considering that it still needs to generate roughly a hundred of test sweeps.

I also really appreciate the menu system of the receiver, it is quick, efficient and modern looking. Configuration of the audio, video, network and other options is really efficient.

The music playback is totally satisfying, but I need to say that I dislike the fact that the all channel stereo mode does not enable the height speakers, which should be really easy to implement. I gotta admit it does not make a huge difference to have them on or not, but as long as they are there why not use them.

Finally and most importantly, The Dolby Atmos performance of the receiver in 7.1.4 is really impressive and engaging with a true enveloping effect. I’m looking forward to see what DTS:X will sound like, my guess is that it will be very similar to Atmos as it’s what we’ve been hearing from the demos made at CEDIA and other events. I’ll be updating the blog once of course as soon as I can test it early March.

News

Onkyo announces its first DTS:X compatible receivers

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Onkyo just announced this morning their first two 2015 receivers to support the new upcoming DTS:X format (through a firmware upgrade to come later this year). The TX-NR646 and TX-NR747 will offer both 7 channels of amplification for a maximum setup of 5.1.2 speakers.

The other important information is that both will support HDMI 2.0a and HDCP 2.2 at the required bandwidth of 18 Gbps.

Continue reading Onkyo announces its first DTS:X compatible receivers →

Reviews

Impressions on the Onkyo TX-NR1030

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I need to start this post by officially thanking Onkyo for the great customer service they gave me after my initial receiver arrived with a major issue, either due to a bad unit or to transport from the online retailer I purchased it from. On a late Friday night, the social media people on the Onkyo team replied to me through Twitter and helped me confirm the issue and start the replacement process.

Onkyo then went over the usual level of service as they did accept to replace my unit instead of sending it for repair as my retailer did not have any in stock to help me. Instead of being stuck without my home theater for weeks, the replacement unit was shipped on the next business day. This is tremendous support and it is definitively a good way to keep customers with the brand.

Having said that, I’ve been using the receiver for a week now and I can say that I’m very happy with the experience. To start, I picked the Onkyo TX-NR1030 because of its support of 11 channels. The receiver includes amplification for 9 channels and you can connect an additional stereo amplifier to go up to a reference Atmos implementation of 7.1.4. To do this, I added a AudioSource AMP-100 stereo power amplifier, simple but efficient and because it’s used for the height back speaker, it can provide the required power for a good price.

Onkyo TX-NR1030
The connections behind the Onkyo TX-NR1030 are interesting, the speaker connectors are more accessible than the previous models I owned.

 

The switch from my previous system at 5.1.2 (with an Onkyo TX-NR737) is noticeable and a great improvement. Not only does the two additional height channels add a more dimensional effect to the height layer, but the addition of two surround speakers also support better the 360 degrees effect, even better with Atmos movies and object positioning. The TX-NR1030 has enough power to drive the 9 channels in a very efficient way and the sound quality is very good.

The Atmos demos (available as downloadable on Demo World) are impressive in 7.1.4 and the thing that surprises me is that different the trailers are now my favorite ones from when I tried in 5.1.2, mainly because of the added dimension and sense of movement.

The receiver configuration tools is quite well done and the AccuEQ calibration works well. I have a read a lot about it being inferior to Audyssey that was used before by Onkyo, but I cannot judge as I did not use it before. I played multiple sources with and without AccuEQ room correct enabled and my final selection is to keep it on as it improves the dynamics and the clarity of movies.

I also appreciate the net functionalities of the receiver, including DLNA and Spotify Connect. My only grudge with the feature is with the file server mode as it only support some shares and not the ones my router and NAS provide, it seems too tied to typical Windows file servers.

In a nutshell, I can say I’m very happy with the receiver and with the new 7.1.4 setup it can support. My only hope is that Onkyo will confirm an upgrade path for the receiver to DTS:X when it’s officially announced next month, I’ll keep you updated on this.