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You meant 26th jan (today), right? I will be there to get benefited by 1st day's excitement & enthusiasm of demonstrators:) It is a very good opportunity to explore latest offerings from a whole lot of brands... looks like many of them are just entering into indian market.

By the way, I need feedback/opinions on a few things related to home theater which I hope people following this thread should be able to provide. Sorry, its a big post...

1. room equalization
Let me set the context first... I have concluded from my www research (and backed by experience) that rooms add a lot of distortion to sound, usually much more than what is caused by decent speakers, or amps/players/receivers. This problem gets worser with concrete buildings, as in our country. However, not many people are really aware of that. Traditional solutions to the problem include- a) play around with speaker positioning b) use carpets/curtains which can improve acoustics c) put sound proofing material on walls, ceiling etc., most likely after consulting an expert d) tune the system using inbuilt or external parametric equalizers e) have a specially designed, dedicated listening room. I think most of the people don't bother about all this at all. Some may try first 1 or 2 options. "audiophiles" probably go till c) or d), while e) is limited to professional environments, not home (unless the person is too rich and/or too crazy about music/movies:)).

Recently, manufacturers have been trying to address this issue by providing some kind of auto-room-equalization feature. Examples I came across are YPAO by yamaha and some similar feature by pioneer. Also, there is one company which specializes in this area called audyssey (Audyssey Welcomes You). Their technology is based on an Indian's phd thesis, and other people involved include a developer of THX. They claim to be radically different in approach to solve both frequency and time domain distortions. They also claim that it not only minimizes effects of rooms, but also compensates for flaws in speaker response as well. I have read rave reviews and testimonials about this technology named "multeq". Overall, it sounds pretty interesting, doesn't it?

I would like to know about impressions of people who might have used this audyssey equalization(or any other one for that matter), regarding how effective or worthless it is. As per their website, it is commercially adopted in some models of denon and marantz, and stripped-down version is there with onkyo. I have actually seen one such onkyo receiver in a showroom, but could not test it (because for that I would need to take it home, no point in testing inside a listening room which is already heavily treated, acoustically).

2. Virtual surround through ordinary headphones
This is another thing which I found interesting. I have personally experienced dolby-headphone many times, and I must say its amazing. It can not replace real multichannel surround, but comes close and is very convenient for late night listening. I have also listened to yamaha's "silent cinema", but only in showroom not extensively, so can not comment on that. Here too, I request people to share their experiences about how good or bad various virtual headphone surround technologies are.

3. High definition content in India
Market for plasmas & lcd is booming and many of them have HD capabilities, but there is no content available. DTH services offer video only upto dvd quality and audio upto cd quality. It is surely going to take a while before hd-dvd or blue-ray discs become common. While the battle between the two is still unresolved, a third player called VMD seems be all poised to kill both of them! - see ::::::::NME WEBSITE:::::::::::: . By the way, the president-CEO of this company is an Indian too. The question is, would it be worth investing in hddvd or blueray player now? I think the answer is- wait and watch. Be happy with dvds till then, what say??

Hello all,

There is an offer which came in the Newspapers today in Bangalore. Onkyo 590 HTIB (S590) at 35K. There is LG 29" TV 'free' with it. I was looking forward to get an entry level HT and a 29" TV nonetheless. Is this a good deal? What is the price of Onkyo S590 in India (no combo offer)?

Thanx
~maniac

Hi Experts;
I have been pondering to buy a Home theatre for months. Went to the Bangalore AV exhibition and am bowled over the following setup:

KEF 3005 Series ( what an experience is it to hear the active/passive sub) with Denon 1907. Cost = 107000/- av reciever is about 32000/- (anybody can confirm if this is ok)

what do you guys think?

BTW, I quite liked the Marantz 4001/Onkyo Tx-Sr603 recievers , Any ideas which speakers should I match them up with???

Finally I also liked the Sonodyne 200w sub. it looked awesome.

Oops, I met Sam Kapasi finally too.

guys....any1 has tried out the dvd recorder home theatre systems? won't they be a better bet than the dvd play only systems?comments plz...

Islandman ,

Onkyo TX SR 603 has been upgraded and is replaced by TX SR 604 now. They also have a higher model TX SR 674. Both of them rock and have got rave reviews in audiophile sites. 603s are very few in market now and are available at a good discount.

Have you auditioned Sonodynes Sonus / Avant speakers ? worth a hear..

If I remember the model number correctly, this is the one which I had mentioned earlier in relation to stripped down version of audyssey room eq. s/w... just in case anybody bothered to read entire post!

BTW, one more query- how are "spaceaudio" speakers? Never heard about them before. See Untitled Document Particularly their tower, bookshelf, center & bipolar models. (I am skeptical about any tinny cube satellites since I believe they are bound to be limited in lower frequencies and their subs are fed with much more than recommended first 2 octaves which results in localized boom.) I am asking this because these were the only ones with (unexpectedly!) down-to-earth "tags" for what they appeared to be, unlike everything else in the Bangalore exhibition. Unfortunately didn't find any demo for those.

Before it possibly gets haywire, let me clarify that I do not intend to create another Soomoku kind of argument here:p...which happened in ICE section sometime back, and even that too was not intentional anyway. (for those who are not aware of what it was, kindly ignore the comment). Just looking for some honest/unbiased reviews regardless of any comparisons which are not necessarily called for...

1. Santosh , Both TX SR 604 and 674 have Audyssey 2 EQ now. A very useful tool IMO.( an upgrade from 603 I think )

Looks like these are the only 2 onkyo models with 2EQ and both are shown on audyssey website also. As per the site, 2EQ variant will do the same job as MultEQ or higher for basic adjustments like polarity,level,crossover & phase (i.e. delay). However it won't do a good job for room equalization as such because of basic resolution used in satellites filters and no filter for sub! I wish sub should have been preferred over satellites because lower frequencies are relatively more prone to room distortions. Therefore not equalizing sub is like defeating the purpose! That said, I also think that satellite filter will correct their frequency response if nothing else. But if you already have high-end speakers, I expect it not to add much value. Additionally I "guess" satellite equalization may have something to do with improving imaging and dialog intelligibility. After all, it is very much obvious that ideally both should have a filter...variants are usual marketing gimmicks to maximize net $$ out of premier and mass customer's pockets combined:)

I guess it is 18 or 19 K. The offer is a decent deal if you do a break up. I bought the onkyo AV reciever and its pretty decent with basic features.

guys i need your help on this i have a onkyo amp (imported from dubai) the problem is during transportation some thing happened to it i found out about this about 2-3 months back i kept on checking with the onkyo guys they said they have not got this model it the surround system has a problem and will cost about 20k to repair it so is it advisable fix the existing amp of trade it in and get a new one.

dvd recorders are very expensive here the 250gb hdd costs about 43k..i have a 80gb pioneer dvd recorder got it from singapore its 17k



@ all the experts recently i bought a bose acoustimass 16series but i really dont know which av reciver to buy i was offered Rs 63660 for a denon avr 2807,also checked out marantz and onkyo i also visited a shop next to lcd i forgot the name of that shop im getting confused which one to buy... and my budget is 70k

which are the good dvd recorder home theater brands available in india apart from pioneer?what would be the approx cost of an 80 gb recorder?

Muni... thanks for the response.

Checked at E-zone, the same set was available at 25K i.e. without any combo offer. Is it priced < 20k. If yes where can I get it. Any good places in Bangalore (where you do not get cheated) to check these brands out.

I did not go with the offer. Deferred the decision by a month. But have to buy a nice HT for sure (no Philips / Sony stuff).

~maniac

Good news for DVD audio / SACD fans:)

Onkyo launches their latest universal disc player , DV SP 504 in India.

Plays DVD audio, SACD in addition to any other disc format you can throw at it., except blue ray / HD DVD.


Plays Super Audio CD, DVD-Video & DVD-Audio, Video CD, MP3-encoded disc, WMA-encoded disc, CD-R/RW, DVD±R/DVD±RW, DivX®-encoded disc, JPEG-/HD JPEG-encoded disc, and PCM audio CD* HDMI digital interface HDMI Output for Video and Audio HD conversion (to 720p/1080i) Vector Linear Shaping Circuitry (VLSC) Direct Digital Path Component, S-Video and composite video outputs Cirrus Logic CS4398 192 kHz/24-bit audio DACs 108 MHz/14-bit video DAC Progressive scan video output Coaxial and optical digital outputs 5.1-multichannel audio outputs with surround mode switch
ONKYO SIGHT & SOUND INDIA

estimated MRP , around 25 K.

thats the secret. since it cannot play HD DVD & Blue Ray, they have thought it convenient to dump it into india. how wow !! happens in any commodity.

A good setup though.

P.S has anyone tried DVD audio ??