Why do processors need ANY video hookups?

[HTEnthusiast]

I keep everything simple with smart TVs… by keeping them dumb. I never use the TV apps. I get a streamer, and use the apps on the streamer (In my case a 4K AppleTV). I can see where you might use the TV apps if you have it mounted on the wall, and using the audio from the TV,. However, if you are wanting audio to a processor, then you need an HDMI cable run anyway. Also, for whatever reason, the picture through the apps on my AppleTV is always better than the TV apps.

I felt like things were never stable with eARC in play. The streamers have a very small footprint, so I haven’t had any issues with them cluttering things up.

Additionally, I have a mesh network, and put one of the nodes by my main great room TV. I then connect the mesh node to the AppleTV via a short Ethernet connection. No eARC & no WIFI in play. Everything is proven/stable connections. I haven’t had connectivity issues in decades under that topology.

 

[tonyE]

I was razzing @lovinthehd.

So, sure enough, another Emo BaxX MC1 came up for sale... this time from a commercial seller and he has the "make me an offer" enabled.

Mind you, Emo has a 15% sale on the box, so it comes to ~$950. Shipping included. Brand new, full warranty, etc, etc...

This new guy advertised a USED box for 800 bucks. I made a reasonable offer, it was immediately rejected.. so I contacted the guy... his "lowest" price is 700. With shipping it comes to 750. Figure it out... that means a 21% discount from new....

So, I mentioned to the guy that his "lowest acceptable" price is too high.

If you look at the history.. you see that Emo BaxX MC1 have been going for as low as $550 used... in very good shape. That sounds like a fair price. If you search, you can see that "offers to sell" over 700 bucks do not sell, the advertisements expire without a sale. Under 650 they sell. Around 550 they go fast!

What's with these people?

I love the attitude of the first guy though.. he said he had gotten a "real great deal" for an AVR... so now he was selling his amp and processor. But, here's the clincher, he got a "great deal" on the AVR but he wants a crazy over the top price for his used stuff. Needless to day, it's been sitting there for 4 months.

I got time on my hands.

 

[lovinthehd]

So, sure enough, another Emo BaxX MC1 came up for sale... this time from a commercial seller and he has the "make me an offer" enabled.

Mind you, Emo has a 15% sale on the box, so it comes to ~$950. Shipping included. Brand new, full warranty, etc, etc...

This new guy advertised a USED box for 800 bucks. I made a reasonable offer, it was immediately rejected.. so I contacted the guy... his "lowest" price is 700. With shipping it comes to 750. Figure it out... that means a 21% discount from new....

So, I mentioned to the guy that his "lowest acceptable" price is too high.

If you look at the history.. you see that Emo BaxX MC1 have been going for as low as $550 used... in very good shape. That sounds like a fair price. If you search, you can see that "offers to sell" over 700 bucks do not sell, the advertisements expire without a sale. Under 650 they sell. Around 550 they go fast!

What's with these people?

I love the attitude of the first guy though.. he said he had gotten a "real great deal" for an AVR... so now he was selling his amp and processor. But, here's the clincher, he got a "great deal" on the AVR but he wants a crazy over the top price for his used stuff. Needless to day, it's been sitting there for 4 months.

I got time on my hands.

An "audiophile" of your status uses lowly Emotiva?

 

[Trebdp83]

Oh, f#%k. Somebody got into the Harvey’s Bristol Cream, again.

 

[mono-bloc]

So, sure enough, another Emo BaxX MC1 came up for sale..

More to the point, why would you bother with that cr*p in the first place. The guy did you a favour asking a high price

An "audiophile" of your status uses lowly Emotiva?

A truer word has never been spoken.

 

[Trebdp83]

Perhaps some sellers will be motivated to negotiate with buyers during the holidays while others may stick firmly to their price thinking some will pay anything for that particular Christmas present.

 

[tonyE]

Perhaps... but in my experience, if some item has been on sale for three months or more and it's overpriced then it will not sell. Sometimes, it may be the wife told him to sell it... and he doesn't want to... so this is a way to make the wife, and husband, happy. But most of the time it's just a seller that has an attachment of some kind to his stuff.

Like the one guy in NYC that posted a pair of Nelson Pass Aleph 2 amps.. for $24K.... I asked him why so high, or if it was a typo. He replied he wanted that much because they were perfect and HE had taken care of them. I kid you not... the typical "They are worth so much because they are MINE"...

Most of time, in such slow selling cases, if it's a dealer, they are just sticking to the price as if they were a brick and mortar selling a new, limited edition item. Like when a guy wanted $3500 for a used Pass Labs XA25. My opening bid was $2800. He said it was too little, didn't bother to counteroffer. About a year later he sold it for $2400. So, he sat on the investment of that amp for a year, which cost him money, and then ended up taking a big loss from his asking price.

If you're realistic with prices... you start with a high price (sell) or low price (buy) and negotiate in good faith. I've sold some stuff in an hour... and bought some stuff in two hours... move fast and agree to a price ( mostly Paypal but for two amps I sold, I got cash from local buyers ).

 

[tonyE]

More to the point, why would you bother with that cr*p in the first place. The guy did you a favour asking a high price



A truer word has never been spoken.

No, it is not the point. What else would YOU recommend? What do you have? Otherwise you're just going back to the BS that people where throwing around.

Oh, I'm ignoring the other guy.... I don't care. I posted here to get some advice about a specific component, not to get bricked by people who throw their destructive criticism without offering any meaningful advice.

It seems like the Emo MC1 is the perfect compromise for what I need. It's after all just for movies and TV shows... so it will do just fine. If I want true High End, I got lots of other stuff... Heck, my latest phono preamp allows me to roll opamps... good luck getting that from a commercial product.

 

[TLS Guy]

No, it is not the point. What else would YOU recommend? What do you have? Otherwise you're just going back to the BS that people where throwing around.

Oh, I'm ignoring the other guy.... I don't care. I posted here to get some advice about a specific component, not to get bricked by people who throw their destructive criticism without offering any meaningful advice.

It seems like the Emo MC1 is the perfect compromise for what I need. It's after all just for movies and TV shows... so it will do just fine. If I want true High End, I got lots of other stuff...

May be it does not sell because Emotiva has a bad reputation.

 

[mono-bloc]

Like the one guy in NYC that posted a pair of Nelson Pass Aleph 2 amps

The answer is quite simple, find me another pair. The Aleph 2 stopped production in 1997 and supplies ended in 2000. Price at the time was $14.000. Your really on a different level with this kit, It's like a lot of brands and models, very limited supplies generates higher prices.. Check out prices on Audio Mart in your respective country What else would YOU recommend? On the integrated lines I would suggest Rotel, NuPrime, Primare. Hegel .Nad, Etc. With power amps, again Rotel,and NuPrime, Mono bloc's are another story.. The problem with Emotiva is there cheaply made, pretending to look expensive, But there performance simply does not cut it What do you have? My main system at the moment is top end Cyrus, It's a six box system with mono-bloc's. I also have a Rotel with Pre-amp and again mono-bloc's, I'm really not that interested in Home Theatre. But there is a Oppo player, running through a 5 channel Rotel P/A, or one of Arther's wonders a 5 channel Elektra. I,ve had the Rotel Mono Bloc's close to 30 years and there as good as the day I first switched them on. I might add I don't own an AVR, Most of them are rubbish, many many years ago I owned a yamaha Z 11, It lasted about a week and I sold it off. Never to repeat my mistakes again.

 

[tonyE]

The Aleph 2 amps are pretty common. Normally they run $3500 or so. At this age, they require new caps and a tune up.. which runs about $1000 bucks at the factory. I'm in the USA... so I know these prices quite well. I have a large search list in my Hifishark.com nightly search..

The thing is that your recommendations do not match my needs at all. I just need a single very specific feature for my HT, that's all. And your comments about your 2 channel system are simply out of scope for my HT needs that I've discussed here... if you want to discuss 2 ch, then it's a different thing... and for that, well, I like tubes and Class A FETs. The more rare, the better.

Currently my HT has a Nuforce MCA20, a Parasound P7, a laptop PC that's running an ASUS Xonar U7 which does a very good job with DD and a UMC-1 that does a good job decoding DD and DTS. I use the LG TV for video switching and sources are the PC (driven directly to the P7 ) and Tablos (OTA) and Roku ( for network streams ).

What I'm looking for is something that will take the surround tracks from whatever the TV is playing and push it through the P7. It seems like I'm stuck with an AVP, for which I will never really use any of its other features. My experience with Emotiva is that it is reliable enough to do that.

After some comments... it seems like the Emo MC1 will do the trick if I can get it used for 600 bucks or so.

Audio only wise, I got a number of systems... my main 2 channel is currently running a CJ ET3SE preamp into a variety of DIY amps... FW F4, F5, SIT3; Pass Aleph 5, Aleph 2 monoblocks and a fully rebuilt ARC D70-II. I also have a prototype SIT3 "turbo" which wants to smoke itself.. hopefully we've figured it out by now. It's hard to get 35wpc out of SIT amp. Front sources are a Linn LP12, Lingo, Karousel, yadda, yadda into either a DIY Pearl 2 or Pearl 3. Digital is an Android tablet running an op amp upgraded Burson Play... I got no CD player... nor a DVD player anymore. All such have been rip'ed into the 110TB of NAS storage in the house. Speakers... well, Maggies, Audio Notes, PSB, Acoustic Energy, Elac, Quad (not planars ), etc, etc...

Oh, I got a collection of low watt class A MOSFET amps too. And vintage.

To tell you the truth, about 20 years ago I left the bandwagon of commercial brands... I find that some brands, if purchased used, can be a good deal, but very few. Pass, Conrad Johnson, Audio Research... but most brands are just a waste that hurts my ears. Specially most anything that runs solid state, bipolar AB... yuck! With the sole exception of Nuforce STA200 ( A Job variant ) and a CJ MF2100.

Now, your earlier comment... if you're not into HT, then why did you have to belittle the sound quality of the Emo? You can not compare anything for HT with the 2 channel stuff... mostly because fundamentally movies and TV shows contain fake soundtracks... you can not compare them because fundamentally the quality of the source is different.

I've had an UMC-1 for many years and it does its job strictly as an audio surround decoder quite well. I don't ask much of it. Does it sound like the Burson or the Linn over all the super duper stuff in the living room? No... but then I'm not playing much music through it, mostly movies and TV with their fake surround tracks. I put up with harshness and lack of soundstage depth in the HT that I will never put up with the 2ch systems.

 

[Trebdp83]

The MC1 just works here as an upgrade to the UMC-1. It has the needed features, connection ports and form factor while also being very familiar as another Emotiva product. So, if one is found at an agreeable price, it's a win. Buying one will be one challenge. Setting up eARC properly will be another one.

 

[tonyE]

I love challenges... it's part of the game.

And yes, the MC1 is a direct drop in substitute for the UMC-1. Wiring and all.

I verified already the configuration for the audio in the Rokku and TV... so it ought to be "easy" to get that eARC to lock up... huh? HUH?

BTW, there seem to be enough of them floating around.

As an aside... I don't want the HT's audio system to "soundstage" at all. I actually want the HT audio system to faithfully replay the sounds ( ie: soundstage, panning ) that were recorded into the soundtrack. I don't want the audio to create ersatz soundstages all over the place.. it'd be nuts.

In the 2 channel world it's very different. The "soundtrack" contains some ambiance from real recordings, or attempts to be real, so I want the 2 channel set up to introduce the ability to create a soundstage from that ambiance.

Totally different systems for different kind of audio sources...

I got a Schitt Syn recently to play with in my home office. I wonder if I should put one of them in my main 2 ch just to drive a couple of rear speakers? I got the speakers, the amps... the only hassle will be the wiring. Has anyone seen a good wireless bridge? Just something that I can push analog audio into at the front and take it out from the back. I could use the Quad 12LS active speakers in the rear... I think I'd prefer Bluetooth, not anything using the 801.11 a/g channels.