To Upgrade or Move Forward??

[moodyda]

I have situation that might be shared with many of you now or sometime in the future. I have a circa 1999 pre-amp, B&K reference 20, that has been a great pre-pro but it is beginning to fail. My options through B&K are to replace it with a Ref 31 for $1,000 and you get a new remote and a pre-pro of the last generation (does not decode all the new blu ray stuff) or Upgrade to the latest reference 70 that will do all the HDMI switching and the latest codecs for $2,700 (msrp 3,700) less the $1,000 credit for my ref 20. I have read that there are many issues with the latest ref 70 and they are replacing a board that will provide a fix that will be due out sometime in January.
I do not really want to fork out $2,700 for an "iffy" unit and I am not sure about investing $1,000 in yesterdays technology (though B&K did it better thany other for their price point... my opinion). I was looking at 2 new units offered here locally in West Palm Beach, (Recievers; are they up to Pre-pros yet) Pioneer sc-25 for $1,000 or a Rotel 1550 for $1,500. Even with those recievers I could make use of my B&K 5 channel amp (125 "true" w p/c) for my 5.1 and utilize the onboard amps for multi zones.
If staying with B&K I would probably go with the older Ref 31 to save some dough but I wonder if it is a waste since I can get the latest technology for the same price point or 500 more. I do not use Blue Ray yet and never used video switching (the wife hates to turn on all audio components to just watch tv plus it is a waste of energy if it is not needed). I was told that the audio you get from blue ray can be decoded by the player and sent out to a 5.1 set-up.
My current system is a 5.1 set-up that includes Sonus Faber Grand Piano (6 ohm) for my front 3, Klipsch KSF-S5 (8 ohm) surrounds and a SVS pb12 plus subwoofer. I really do not see the need to add 2 speakers for the 7.1 effect, plus my current room set-up will not allow for it at this time. Finally my TV is a 65" Mitsubishi rear projection that only accepts up to 1080i which currently rules out all HDMI connections (at least to the TV).
Is the latest technology that important based on my criterea listed above or am I missing something?
What shall I do?
Upgrade with B&K(ref 31) or Move forward (with a receiver)

Thanks, Dan

 

[zumbo]

What happened to the other thread? This added information should be in your other thread. No need for a duplicate.

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61576

 

[Gior]

Hi Dan,

I'm not sure the B&K reference 70 you are looking at does actually do all the latest codecs (DTS Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD do not seem to be present). It may be touted an extremely 'clean' unit in terms of sound quality but really, what does that mean? There are so many variables that can be treated first to get accurate sound such as room acoustics that no matter how clean your sources are, if your room acoustics are bad, you really are missing out on your 'good' sound. This is where the newer processors potentially have an advantage if utilised correctly - room correction.

So anyway, I'd upgrade and move on If you want a 'Preamp' I can strongly recommend the Integra/Onkyo range as I am using an Integra DHC-9.9 myself and have found it to be a truly excellent unit. Properly calibrated with the Audyssey MultiEQ XT Pro installer's kit, it really is excellent value for money (should be well under $2k US now as it is on runout sales atm). The new models are the Integra DHC-80.1 and the Onkyo PR-SC5507p (same unit but currently without the Audyssey Pro enabled I believe) and they retail for about $2399. You can probably again pick them up for a bit below $2k right now. Going this path, you can continue to use your B&K 5 channel Amp till you figure out you want more 'grunt' It still probably won't go to waste as the new Integra/Onkyo has 9.2 channels (all with balanced XLR outputs btw) so you'll still need to get another 2 stereo amps or a 5 or even 6 channel amp (hey you may want to run passive subs?) Anyway, if that is not enough, very soon, you may even want to run a full Audyssey DSX setup which is 11.x channels (the new Denon 4810 has 3 subouts and does 11.3 supposedly and has 9 channels of amplification on it)

Another thing, if you haven't heard the new audio on Bluray, you really are missing out Lossless formats are AMAZING. Also, many Blurays seem to be mastered much better than their DVD counterparts on both Audio and Video. And IF you are going to add another 2 speakers for 7.1, try adding it for front WIDTH channels over rear channels. It is meant to be a much bigger improvement.

BTW, if you look at your other post regarding HDMI to component, I may have a possible solution