Should I upgrade my Blu-ray player now?

Bob, a look at the versions of used Meridian pre/pros is revealing of the upgrades that have occurred along the way. I have a Proceed PAV/PDSD pair, and the idea Madrigal had was that the PDSD would be essentially a card cage into which the latest and greatest technology could be inserted. Of course, that died with Madrigal. The technology of analog preamps seem much more stable so that's where I hang my hat.

Funny thing is that I didn't notice much a difference when I moved the Oppo 105 from the Cary 11a to the Parasound JC-2, but for the Sony XA5400ES it was as though a veil had been lifted.

db

Db,

If you're correcting for ROOM INDUCED effects, the benefit of room correction shouldn't vary whether the system is good, great, greatest. Of course, that assumes that there are room induced effects to correct AND that the correction software causes no "collateral damage".

In every listening room in which I've done an A-B (+/- 6) there is no question re: the former. Others may debate the latter, but - as a practical reality - I believe that the benefits of fixing the room swamp any delta in the "native" (that is, uncorrected) performance of virtually any two pre-pros, regardless of the price delta. That judgement will surely vary from individual to individual, but I suspect that it will vary much less with increased exposure to A-B testing. I know that some who claim extensive A/B experience remain unconvinced, but I gotta confess that that always baffles me. One man's meat, I guess.

BTW, I still own a Theta Casablanca which has wonderful "native" SQ, but IMHO it can't touch the eq'd performance of the relatively inexpensive Integra AVR which replaced it in my HT room. But, hey, I can also succumb to audiophelia disease. The Theta soldiers on valiantly in a vinyl-based, multichannel, dual-use system in my den (because the cognitive dissonance of vinyl to ADC to DSP to DAC diminishes the "philosophical satisfaction" I get from LPs), but IMHO it is never going to provide the SQ I get from the less expensive replacement.

As always, YMMV.

Marty,

I discovered that I could compare the Oppo 105 direct to the amps or through the preamp by connecting one to the XLR and the other to the SE inputs of the amps, and switching between them. I left that arrangement connected so I can choose either. It occurred to me that I could do the same with a processor that had functional ARC if I could find one cheap enough to try. A used Marantz or Integra might do. Output from the 105 and 5400ES could be HDMI to the processor and analog to the preamp. I wouldn't want to digitize analog from the phono stage, so it would go only to the preamp.

Thanks for implanting the idea. Now to find an inexpensive processor.

db

Would a used Anthem AVM50 with ARC be suitable for implementation of acoustic room correction?

Shortly after the Cary Cinema 11a came out, an AVS thread was full of raves about its sound quality and hisses about the buggy implementation and inaccuracies of its acoustic room correction.

db

Db,

I was impressed by an early gen avm 50 I heard some years back, but I believe that there has been more than one version, so it's hard to say much with confidence. I think it was a fairly pricey piece (IIRC), so you might want to consider the Onkyo PR SC 5509, which IMHO is a very fine sounding unit (Audyssey xt 32) at $2k-ish, new. (They also pop up used for <$1500 from time to time.) I can't guarantee that you'll love it, but I do.

Good Luck with the experiment.