Classe ssp 600 vs 800 ?

Having owned the SSP-600 (very happily!) I can tell you it is one hell of a processor with video bypass, switching, etc....It's audio performance and balanced bypass for 2-channel listening is also very impressive. I will say that I did wind up selling the unit to someone on A-gon that is still using it and raving about it when I sold the HT part of my setup and focused on 2-channel listening exclusively. If I was to build a new home theater and cash were a concern at the time, I would definitely consider picking up a used SSP-600 again without a moment of hesitation as I listened to alot of less and more expensive processors within my price range at the time from Levinson, Meridian, Anthem, Krell, Arcam, Lexicon and others before choosing the SSP-600.

For future investment and best video/audio quality though, I would go for the SSP-800 as the new DSPs, DeepColor video support, new HT formats supported, new balanced bypass analog pre-amp output section, etc...in the 800 is a substantial improvement over the already impressive SSP-600. I'm a run of the mill Audiogon user, not a dealer for any product but have alot of time experimenting and listening/viewing Classe and other controllers so if you want to chat, email me and I can share my direct experiences.

Check out the following;

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/processors/classe-ssp-800-preamp-processor

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=980916

http://www.avforums.com/forums/audio-processors-power-amps/772658-classe-ssp800-could-new-king.html

Check out the specs on the Classe Audio website as well.

Enjoy!

thanks for info, I bought the ssp600 and I must say, it is a huge improvent sound quality wise then the japenese prepro's that I have owned.

I am glad to hear you are happy with it! The configuration options and degrees of freedom in setting up various profiles, configs, etc...is also quite impressive. If you can, try out the balanced bypass functionality for 2-channel listening (you'll need XLR cables from the SSP-600 to your amp for L/R 2-channel listening as well as XLR from your source to the SSP-600). If you have any questions on setup, config, etc...please let me know.

i have aerial 10t's with 2 of their subwoofer's..driven by a mac amp 501 for the fronts and the mac 7505 for the macintosh rears and center channel...being more of an audio than video guy, which classe surround processor and cd player would u recommend, being reasonably economical in the used market? thinking ssp 75 vs 600? i have 3 other systems with top quality gear, rowland, pass, levinson, meridian..for music and theatre in the family room..
Rich

I know from owning it the balanced bypass for 2-ch on the SSP-600 is very good. I've heard the SSP-800 is much better in every way. What I found particularly effective was to utilize an SSP-600 for surround decoding and to handle the center, LS/RS and LSB/RSB channels while pairing with a CP-700 pre-amp on unity gain for the front L/R channels (home theater bypass as it is called...). The SSP 75 also has a great reputation but if can afford only 1 unit, make it the 800 or 600 (IMHO).