Digital stereo receiver?? Any out there??

[nordhaven]

Do you folks know of any digital 2/ch stereo receivers out there yet?

 

[Seth=L]

Companies like Yamaha, and Sony used to make them. I don't know of any they make now. If you find a used one you will have to make consideration for outdated DACs.

 

[Nick250]

Do you folks know of any digital 2/ch stereo receivers out there yet?

I would think your best bet might be one of the Panasonic digital AV receivers and just use it for stereo.

Nick

 

[stratman]

Yeah Nick is right, I have that Panasonic its a great piece of gear, it sounds really nice. The only thing with digital receivers you must know is that they run hot. Make sure you give it breathing room.

 

[nordhaven]

I would think there would be a market out there for a digital 2/ch stereo receiver?

 

[Seth=L]

I didn't think of this untill stratman and Nick made their posts, what do you mean by digital? Do you mean digital amplifier or do you mean a 2 channel receiver or integrated amp that has digital inputs for PCM?

 

[groov']

T-amps and D-amps

Of course there are integrated 2 channel (or more) D-amps or T-amps (based on tripath chips). Where would you need that receiverpart (FM/AM or XM) for?

Take for instance the Chinese Trends Audio TA-10 amp(http://www.trendsaudio.com/EN/Index.htm) and the American(?) Sonic Impact T-amp and SuperT-amp (http://www.si5.com/products.php?cID=42)

They are very cheap ($ 100 - 170), very light (1lb) , only good for small rooms (20 sqm) and sensitive speakers (> 88 db and > 4 ohm). Plus they have only 1 input and 1 output and are not easily available due to huge demand.

These amps got positive reviews on 6moons.com, tnt-audio.com, audio-ideas.com and stereophile.com. They are rather controversial though: there are also a lot of T-amp haters out there (especially in the -analogue-audiophile establishment).

Reviews:

* T-amps shootout: http://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/tripath_amps_e.html
* Sonic Impact Super T-amp: http://www.stereophile.com/solidpoweramps/1006sonic/
* Trends audio TA-10: http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/trends/ta10.html
T-amps: http://www.audio-ideas.com/reviews/power-amps/t-amp.html

 

[VicAjax]

Yeah Nick is right, I have that Panasonic its a great piece of gear, it sounds really nice. The only thing with digital receivers you must know is that they run hot. Make sure you give it breathing room.

run hot? i got an XR55 for my father-in-law, and it only even gets warmish when it's getting a workout.

 

[Seth=L]

run hot? i got an XR55 for my father-in-law, and it only even gets warmish when it's getting a workout.

Power supplies work harder when the volume is lower, hence they will be warm.

 

[nordhaven]

I didn't think of this untill stratman and Nick made their posts, what do you mean by digital? Do you mean digital amplifier or do you mean a 2 channel receiver or integrated amp that has digital inputs for PCM?

Yes, A digital amped receiver or intagrade that has digital PCM inputs. I'm gonna check out these T amps mentioned above.

 

[Seth=L]

Yes, A digital amped receiver or intagrade that has digital PCM inputs. I'm gonna check out these T amps mentioned above.

The T-amps are very weak in terms of power. They are single analog inputs too.

As far as a combonation of a digital amp and digital inputs, I don't believe it exists, unless you get surround sound receiver.

 

[MichaelJHuman]

Don't call them 'digital receivers'. They are receivers with class D amps. Just because the marketing departments are clueless doesn't mean we need to perpetuate their idiocy on this board.

 

[Nick250]

I would think there would be a market out there for a digital 2/ch stereo receiver?

One might think so, but as it turns out there is a very small market for stereo receivers. My guess is that AV receivers fill that part of the market even though the buyer does not need all the bells and whistles. The economies of scale also make the AV receiver very inexpensive. An AV receiver run in "pure direct" mode is for all intents and purposes a stereo receiver.

Nick

 

[nordhaven]

Thanks for the info guys! I was thinking a class D stereo intagrade would have beinfits over a SS analog. Could they be smaller, less money to build, run cooler and eliminate any D to A conversion loss? I got to read up some more on how these D class work.

 

[stratman]

run hot? i got an XR55 for my father-in-law, and it only even gets warmish when it's getting a workout.

I run mine at lower volume due to the size of my HT and I want to protect the hearing I have left Seth is correct, if you run it low believe me it'll run hot.

 

[nordhaven]

It's all here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_amplifier#Class_D

A good read!

 

[highfihoney]

there are also a lot of T-amp haters out there

Count me as one of the t amp haters

 

[jonnythan]

Count me as one of the t amp haters

Not me.

iPod + T-amp + Polk R15s = great bedroom system

 

[nordhaven]

Class T amplification looks to be the future. There are manufactures out there building integrated DVD player/processor/amplifiers. Just hook up the speakers! I read that Samsung and others are engineering these integrated units into future TV's.

 

[stratman]

To be frank, I wouldn't want all this crap built into my tv. Some of the benefits of seperates (components) are reliability and redundancy(your receiver breaks down, you can replace it without tearing apart your whole system and still watch tv). I can just see the repair nightmares. Systems are better when there is built-in simplicity and flexability.