Best SSP - Upgrade from Integra DTC 9.8

Also thought home theatre bypass is an option, but then that's another box which I wld prefer to avoid....can't we have a do it all?

Henryhk wrote: "hopefully can do the new high resolution HD 5.1 audio DA conversion." Nope.

Kal

Hey Kal, have u checked out the new Denon AVP A1HDC1? Looks like quite a juggernaut!

Interesting bunch of posts. I have been running an Integra 9.8 for a few months with zero problems.

FWIW

- there are some BluRay discs that are known to be problematic

- not all BluRay players are created equal, nor are all of them up to the current BD standard, nor do all of them use the latest HDMI standard

- in HDMI land, 50' is a very long run - a high quality cable is required to maintain the HDMI spec at that length (eg top of the line Wireworld) My longest cable is nine feet which is from the Integra to the Pio plasma

- my ISF tweaker and I did some looking and chose to completely bypass the Reon processor in the Integra - dunno for a fact but this could be the cause of some drop outs (we let the Oppo do the DVD 1080p)

As for Audyssey - I'm with iplaynaked (how can you not be) my calibration guy had never run it so we ran the calibration for fun. We did not do a before, but when we ran his Sencore 1/3 audio analyzer afterwards he looked at the plot and said it would take him at least a half a day to even get close using the built in 15 band (per channel) EQ. The difference in my room is pretty much unbelievable. Better yet having watched techs struggle with B&K (and fail miserably) this is designed from the git go to be used by the consumer. It is almost completely fool proof and can be redone everytime you change a component or move a speaker.

I am looking forward to having a Audyssey certified tech come out and run the full calibration.

As a general note, the folks at Integra deserve huge props for a very well thought out and easy to use GUI (user interface) Have not seen another manufacturer that can even come close and in this type of gear it is a huge benefit.

Finally, I am running an all HDMI system. Four sources switch through the Integra and output through one cable to the plasma. This used to take forty (40) RCAs to get from four sources in component 7.1. This is not only a clutter buster, it's a huge cost savings. It makes trouble shooting much easier and it eliminates the weak point in any system - the cables.

And the uncompressed audio from BluRay is unreal

Be aware that like any software company, Audyssey is constantly coming up with new functionality. (eg Dynamic EQ) Despite the fact that this is a software patch, the 9.8 cannot be upgraded to include new Audyssey features. A tech at Audyssey told me that some manufacturers have left hooks (APIs I guess) to add new functionality while others like Integra have not. This is one thing I would look at critically when comparing Audyssey offerings.

Spend more if you like or can, but most of us will be hard pressed to come up with more for anything near the money. More to the point, no matter what you spend anything less then this is not SOTA

I started this thread. Here is what has happened most recently. I went without any Blu Rays for weeks. I decided not to increase my investment and told my installers to bring back my original 9.8 - which had been sent back to have everything fixed and updated. Our plan was to add a booster to fix HDMI problems.
First, the replacement 9.8 now worked without the booster. Then we hooked up my original 9.8. On hooking it up, it displayed "Onkyo" on the screen. Had not done this originally. Issue with switches had not been fixed (they would not switch surrounds from monopole to dipole).
So they ended up bringing me a 9.9, which has worked extremely well ever since. Ran Audyssey using three locations, and need to do again for more locations to get it right, but all seems to be quite satisfactory.