back to article Denon delivers low-cost DTS:X AV kit. Finally Dolby Atmos gets some competition

Last week, amid the playboy splendour and shabby chic that is Monte Carlo, two giants of the AV and Hi-Fi world were busy putting a glam new spin on the latest audio tech. Sibling brands Denon and Marantz took the wraps off a slew of cutting edge audio components at an impressive dealer product showcase. Vintage Denon PMA 7000 …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Meanwhile

    the rest of us listen to the music wafting from the mob's single speaker in the background :)

    1. Martin
      Happy

      Re: Meanwhile

      And for extra quality sound, drop the phone into a pint glass.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    I'd buy the Denon..

    ...on looks alone.

    Granted the 200 speakers you seem to need these days will still be pig ugly.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In the meatime...

    Will the movie/music/entertainment industry get their act together acd release everything everywhere with all the options at the same time. If not feel free to download what you can't aquire legitimately.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I like the look of that very much indeed!

    I'm talking about the PMA 7000 Z of course

    1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      Re: I like the look of that very much indeed!

      Seconded. All those lovely knobs and sliders to twiddle and whatever you do with a slider.

      1. Hero Protagonist

        Re: I like the look of that very much indeed!

        "whatever you do with a slider."

        Errrm, slide maybe?

        1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

          Re: I like the look of that very much indeed!

          Sliders? Pah! Those are rockers!

          Well, at least some of them...

  5. Douchus McBagg

    I don't think i'll go Onkyo again since my tx-nr609 melted it's chips on the HDMI board, manifesting as sending crackles as loud as gun shots to the poor speakers before going completely dead on the audio side. the rest of the amp was blissfully unaware that anything was wrong.

    gave the feeling that it was certainly "built down to a price". bless richer sounds cotton socks, they managed to get Onkyo to admit it was a known fault, ship it for free, fix it for free, and supplied me with a replacement in the mean time.

    when it came back, can see the new board through the top vent, but no heatsinks on the chips to maybe prevent this problem in future. so it's working. but for how long... (un

    so atmos is 5.1.2... I guess it must scale up to 7.2.4, as that's what I previously had been lead to believe as a "true atmos"(?) setup. are the "tops" separate channels, or effectively the same?

    1. Sgt_Oddball

      I'd second that, had a different onkyo system that started bugging out and wouldn't come out of standby without doing a reset. Plus the remote died after my eldest tried eating it.

      So back to a 1976 pioneer sa-500 II with a/b speaker loops. Just the thing for multi room setups (did require a rewire though to upgrade the speaker terminals to proper posts though). Bloody things bomb proof and sounds more alive than the onkyo ever did.

    2. Dabooka
      Stop

      Onkyo go 'bang'

      Two Onkyo's in my 'circle' gone pop as described.

      My old Yamaha got replaced some 3 months ago. Final choice was the Denon as I wanted dual (but independant) HDMI outputs. The Sony alternative was like a chocolate box, I have no faith in Onkyo now and Marantz were too expensive for same feature set, unless i went open box on old stock.

      Still not sure I need, want or could use 'Atmos' or it's alternatives

    3. JacobZ

      Onkyo HDMI problem is old news

      It was a design flaw on the boards. AFAIK nothing manufactured after 2012 should have the same problem

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Same thing happened to me, TX-NR509 suddenly dropped dead on the HDMI output at fourteen months old. Onkyo said they couldn't repair it since they didn't have any spare HDMI boards (from reading up on it at avsforums they'd basically run out of all their spares repairing the HDMI boards of everyone else who'd had theirs fail) and when I requested a replacement product told me the old "out of warranty" bollocks. Since it was a systemic design flaw that was affecting multiple owners of these things I swiftly went down the small claims court/richer sounds/yamaha route. A shame since I couldn't fault the onkyo whilst it worked but they handled the repair/replace situation terribly badly.

  6. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Thumb Up

    Blimey!

    Are National Panasonic and Heathkit still making stuff?

    1. lambda_beta
      Linux

      Re: Blimey!

      How about Dynaco or Ampzilla and Phoebe?

    2. FutureShock999

      Re: Blimey!

      No, but Arcam and Rotel certainly are...if you want to buy British quality, it is still available, and built like a tank....

      1. Frank Bough

        Re: Blimey!

        Rotel is Japanese, obv.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    >The catch is that the UK release of the same movie does not have a DTS:X audio option, it’s only appearing on the US disc.

    Weird.

    Why would they go to the trouble of producing an entirely different encoded version in the UK?

    1. Chris Hance
      Coat

      No space left on the disc after they inserted the extra "u"s into the main audio track.

  8. AegisPrime
    Thumb Up

    Harrow Audio (http://www.harrowaudiohifi.co.uk) recently supplied a friend of mine with a wonderful 5.1 Monitor Audio Radius setup (including the W12 sub and the larger front speaker) - the whole shebang including a discount Marantz AV Receiver cost around £2150 which I thought was bloody good value for a top-notch home-cinema audio system.

    1. uncle sjohie

      Monitor Audio and Marantz always sound very good together in my opinion. I once heard a Marantz KI setup hooked to some Monitor Audio floorstanders a tenth of the price of the Marantz CD/amp combo, and it just rocked. Ditto for their AV/5.1 combinations.

  9. Mark Exclamation

    The words "Sony" and "quality sound" are mutually exclusive. If you want a decent system, don't include a Sony amp.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hi-fi land contradictions

    I don't think High Res Audio gaining traction and vinyl spinning back into life are necessarily contradictions, arguments about their respective benefits/quality aside, both are often sought after by people looking for better quality sound.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I had a Kenwood 850W once, useless for music, great for food

  12. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

    Eh?

    Much like supercars, people who can afford these are often too old to fully enjoy their performance. Even if the amp doesn't cost too much, buying a quality speaker set breaks the bank.

  13. James Pickett

    "people who can afford these are often too old to fully enjoy their performance."

    But people who are young enough don't have the musical experience... :-)

    I like that 1975 amp, though. A golden era.

  14. Flakey

    Whatever this new stuff..

    ..can push out, I'll pit my Marantz PM310, coming up for 30 years old, against it. Hooked up to my PC and a pair of Wharfdale speakers it can still cause the neighbors to complain.

  15. James Pickett

    Golden age then. At least it's not just me...

  16. Shovel

    ATMOS, more is not always better.

    I witnessed a fully-outfitted Atmos system at Bjorn's in San Antonio, playing the movie Gravity. Between the ultra-wide screen and the 4 extra ceiling speakers, my senses were over-whelmed to the point of having to close my eyes and cover my ears. It wasn't that the sound was too loud. It was my brain unaccustomed to the visual/aural emersion simultaneously. it reminded me of the first time I went to an IMAX movie, except now it fits into your living room.

    To run a proper ATMOS system, I must add 4 extra amplifiers on top of the already 7 surround, plus 2 subs. And to have the projection system 4K capable, plus adding the motorized Stewart Filmworks-adaptive-Uniform-Gain system, I'd have to upgrade the electrical service in my house. And let's not forget wireless control. Only thing left is some Magic Finger couches and Magic Mouth groin adapters.

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