<font color='#000000'>Hello everyone. Newbie here.
I have an old Sony STR-GA8ES. While it has an analog 5-channel input for DVD, it does not have Dolby Pro Logic II. I have been using one of Sony's DSP modes for 2-channel material but having heard Dolby Pro Logic II I want it! The DSP mode creates a somewhat distant soundstage whereas DPL II keeps the immediacy.
I have been experimenting with my PC, using Windows Media Player to play WMA files ripped from CD at 90% VBR, as well as Internet radio, feeding a Creative Labs Audigy 2 NX soundcard hooked to my Sony through its multi-channel analog input. The Creative card has a mode for up-sampling two channel material to five channels called CMSS 3D which is really quite good. It pulls out ambience nicely and creates a nice sense of depth. It doesn't seem to modify the front channels, and unlike some other up-samplers (eg SRS Surround), the surround feed is not mono.
Anyway the bug is upon me and I have been looking into buying a new receiver with DPL II and Dolby Digital.
I've spent hours on this board and others, reading the manuals, etc. It was a close race between the Yamaha RX-V2400 and the Onkyo TX-NR801.
The Onkyo has a nifty feature called Net Tune which allows you to play files from your PC and Internet radio. Unfortunately the general experience seems to be that it is unreliable and the station selection on the Internet radio is limited. I can easily play music from my PC (I have dedicated an old 366MHz laptop to music -- I connect to it from my main laptop using WIFI and Windows XP's remote desktop connection, then run media player to play WMA files and Internet radio). Also the user interface and flexibilty to play different audio sources from the PC is bound to be much better than on the Onkyo, so I decided that the Net Tune feature should not sway my decision.
The Audigy soundcard has an optical digital output and I'm hoping that I can use it with the new receiver instead of the multichannel analog input. However I don't know yet whether the receiver can decode a digital multichannel output stream from the soundcard, or even if the sound card will output more than 2 digital channels - does anyone know?
The Onkyo has really good input management. You can control the volume level of each input and there is comprehensive control over which decoding and surround modes are applied to each input and to each type of audio stream (eg PCM, analog, Dolby Digital). You can even control the volume of each channel on the multichannel input. While the DSP modes are not as comprehensive as the Yamaha's, the Onkyo does allow you to disable DSP processing for the front channels. This is a feature I have long wished for on my Sony, as it would give some ambience without destroying the front soundstage.
Another nifty feature of the Onkyo is that the multichannel analog input can be assigned to one or more device inputs. This makes setting up your remote easy. For instance, if you have an SACD player hooked into your multichannel input, you can associate it with, say, the MD input so that whenever you switch to MD it uses the multichannel input. Then you can set up your remote so that whenever you switch to MD, the remote command set controls the SACD player. Finally, you can switch the lettering on the front panel of the receiver from "MD" to "SACD".
The multichannel analog input on the Yamaha is not good. When multichannel is selected, no other input can be chosen. This makes it difficult (impossible?) to set up a remote properly. You can easily configure the remote to switch the Yamaha to multichannel when selecting a multichannel analog device (like SACD); but when you subsequently switch to another input device, the Yamaha will remain in multichannel mode (even though it will switch inputs) and you will have to turn off multichannel manually as a separate step.
Despite this I did end up choosing the Yamaha (I ordered one from Tweeter for $900). I wanted the component video up sampling feature, and while the jury is still out I have read good things about the YPAO auto configuration. The Yamaha has slightly more power (120 watts versus 100), Dolby Pro Logic IIx, and a larger (better?) selection of DSP modes. If the optical digital feed from my PC to the Yamaha works properly for more than 2 digital channels then I will probably be very happy with the Yamaha, but if I end up having to fall back to the multichannel analog input, then I may revert to the Onkyo because of its better management of this input (unless YPAO is really good).
I'd welcome any thoughts or comments.
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