Sunday, August 17, 2008

Gadget Overload (is there such a thing)

I know I haven't blogged for a few weeks and now I've got two in a row but I'm trying to avoid doing work on the weekend so stick with me. Amyo raised the notion that I'm close to gadget saturation. I must admit that I reluctantly have to agree a little.

After much delay my new flat panel TV turned up and I'm really at technology saturation level.

Not to let that stop me I've been working on a bit of a technology cull to allow for some replacements.

The Loewe has found a new home and the Pioneer DVD-A/SACD player is soon to have a new life on Ebay, along with a few of the double up consoles. The big change is going to be the retirement of the Yamaha amp. With the new TV and the plan to hide the cable runs to the projector I'm looking for some upscaling to reduce the cable runs to just HDMI. As well serving as the Yamaha has been over the last 6 years it's lack of video processing and support for the HD audio formats means that it's time to look for an update.

The current contenders are the Yamaha RX-V863, Onkyo TX-SR606 and the new comer (from today) Harmon Kardon AVR 255.
I considered buying at the same level Yamaha as I have now (the Yamaha RX-V3800) but with all the improvements in technology the lower end amps now do more (power wise) than my old amp could. The HK is a great looking amp and has the best video scaling of the 3 but there is little in the way of reviews. Fortunately I've found someone with all 3 in stock so I can do a bit of a test run.

Stay tuned... there could be a new amp unboxing just around the corner....

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I'll be interested to know your results since I too am looking for a hdmi capable receiver.