AV2

Essentialy it decodes the dolby or DTS signal into 5.1 or 7.1 channels which are then fed to amps of your choice (in my case a SuperNait (2 channel integrated amp) for front left/right, and a 175 (three chanel power amp) for the front centre and rear left/right) plus an n-sub (sub-woofer with built in amp) giving me 5.1.

DVD players put out dolby/DTS on a digital output which is what you feed to the AV2 (or other processor).

They (DVD players) can also put out simple two channel which is what you'll get if you have only the DVD player and a TV (connected via Scart or whatever)

You may be confused because many surround amps (the typical Sony/Yamaha etc offerings) are combined AV processors with 5.1 (or 7.1) amplification all in one box....

Hope that helps (and if innaccurate others will correct I'm sure!)

Look at the DVD player as a CD player and the AV2 as a pre amp.

Job done.

Its effectivley a multi-channel digital/analog pre-amplifier

So... an AV setup does not require a pre-amp? We could feed the AV2 outputs directly into, say, NAO300 for fronts, 145 for the centre and a 250 for the rears?

Yes but quality as a preamp for the AV2 is around Nait5i level.

So for CD, LP then if using a a NAP300 ideally you'd feed it via a better pre amp and pass the front signal to the NAP300 via the preamps AV output

In the silly question category too I think: Is the AV2 also a DAC, i.e., could you feed the digital out from something like a Squeezebox into it and have the AV2 process the signal into two channel stereo?

If the answer to this question is yes, can I assume that that this would be a Huge improvement over the Squeezebox alone?

Yes, did that with the AirPort Express for a year or two.

Ah - so can you give your impressions as to how the AV2 and SN compare in that role?

Been about wondering this for a while now.

BR

SUPERNAIT is better IMHO.

Reading this thread, another question springs to mind - how will the AV2 handle the latest lossless "HD" multichannel Dolby Digital/dts codecs found on BluRay and HD DVD discs?

It appears to me that in this case I'll only be able to get vanilla-flavour DD/dts through the digital input, and if I want the other stuff I'll need a player with built-in decoder and 7.1 analogue outputs.

Anyone know if this is correct or not?

quote:

Originally posted by tonym:
It appears to me that in this case I'll only be able to get vanilla-flavour DD/dts through the digital input, and if I want the other stuff I'll need a player with built-in decoder and 7.1 analogue outputs.

That's basically it. I wouldn't worry too much about 7.1 analog o/ps, only a handful of films have even been mastered to that level and I'm not sure if the AV2 might only be 5.1 anyway. Might be worth mentioning that the 'legacy' DD/DTS that you'll get from the co-axial digital output is often of higher bit-rate than from DVD e.g. DD at 640kbs instead of 480kbs, DTS at 1.5kbs instead of 750kbs. These higher bit-rates are perfectly compatible as well with just about every AV amp/processor out there.

That's not quite it. Most BD/HD-DVD players have the ability to send the uncompressed PCM variant of the lossless HD codecs down the digital line. The AV2 has always been able to decode this and so can give you almost the same level of quality as is available through HDMI 1.3a. That said, it's not quite as high resolution.

Frank,

That's true, I'd forgotten about that method of getting the audio into a non-HDMI processor.

The s/pdif connection doesn't have enough bandwidth to handle all 5.1/7.1 channels of high resolution (eg 24bit/96Khz) PCM audio so in this instance the audio would be down-mixed to 2.0 channels. On arrival at the AV amp, this can then be passed through a DPLIIx processor to extract the surround information

A couple of points Allan - my AV2's 7.1, and in addition to having the 7.1 analogue bypass inputs it's able to process dts-ES to 7.1 (not that I've ever seen a disc with this...)

Not sure about the s/pdif itself being unable to handle the necessary bandwidth, at least for 5.1. My previous Tag Mclaren 7.1 processor decoded dts 24/96 5.1 which I believe is uncompressed. I've a few music DVDs, most notably Queen's "Greatest Video Hits" 1&2 which sounded absolutely awesome!

The AV2 can't decode this & has to downsample, but still sounds almost as good with these discs nevertheless.

Personally, I'm rather more attracted to the surround-sound potential of the HD video formats than the picture quality. Although currently as Frank mentions only a few discs have been mastered at 7.1, I nevertheless have the setup to take advantage of this & probably won't be too bothered to buy a player at the moment if I can't.

Mind you, I might just change this opinion...

Tony,

Wasn't sure if the AV2 had 5.1 or 7.1 analog inputs but seems like you've confirmed it's 7.1.

quote:

previous Tag Mclaren 7.1 processor decoded dts 24/96 5.1 which I believe is uncompressed

DTS is a lossy, compressed format, unlike PCM which is lossless and uncompressed. I've just quickly googled for 'Queen greatest video hits' and that confirmed that this is a DTS disc.

I would imagine that the AV2 can decode any DTS codec (talking here about plain DTS of any standard bit-rate, not DTS-MA or DTS-HR) but I wonder if downsampling takes place post-decoding because the DACS can't handle the sample rate?

24/96 dts seems to be the "forgotten " format for multichannel sound.

It's interesting that of the four DVDs I've got (the two Queen ones I mentioned previously, plus "Queen "Live at the Bowl" and more recently Blackmore's Night "Castles and Dreams") with dts "24/96" as opposed to standard dts, this only came to light when I actually received the discs and wasn't mentioned when I ordered them. Amazon merely list them all as "5.1 dts surround"

The 24/96 dts certainly occupies a lot more space on the disc - you don't get many extras on any of them. I suspect that's why this particular format seems to be confined to music DVDs only.

see FAQ for compatible AV2 formats.

http://forums.naim-audio.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/3452929996/m/3402906017

96/24 is downsampled to 48Khz in AV2 processor

Also does "7.1" DTS ES-discrete/ES-matrix and DD 5.1 EX modes

Alan, hmmm, my understanding was that the AV2 could receive the full 5.1 surround in LPCM through the S/PDIF interface, and is therefore a high quality connection, if not as high as the fully uncompressed 24/192 available to a Dolby TrueHD or DTS Master Audio stream.

Must admit to being a little confused about this.

Frank,

S/PDIF when used for PCM is 2-channel only. I've just taken a look at the link above to the AV2 FAQ - what's missing from that information is the number of channels and the bit depth. Perhaps AV@naim or Dave Dever can confirm.

Allan

I will update accordingly next week...

quote:

Originally posted by Frank Abela:
Must admit to being a little confused about this.

Looks like we're all a bit confused by this Frank!

Hopefully AV@naim will help to clarify things a little bit more. I've yet to see anything that gives a clear and accurate view of the matter.

I aalso a little confused. I have just perchased a Pioneer LX70A Blu-Ray player and an unsure how I should set it up. I have connected it both via Optical and Analogue connections. In the set up menu for theBlu-ray player have the option of out putting regular DD and DTS, or the PCM version. The player is capable of handling all of the latest HD Audio codecs. If I set it to PCM and route it via the Anqalogue connections, leaving the player to de-code the audio, do I need to revert to standard DD & DTS settings to play standard DVD's through the optical connection? Which route will give the best sound? Any help and advice gratefully received.

Morri,

Do you have a URL to an online manual and I'll take a look. In the Audio setup menu for my Sony (made by Pioneer), I set the following options:

DD = DD
DTS = DTS
(leave the others options on default)

If 'Downmix PCM' is selected for either of the above two options you get DD or DTS downmixed to 2-channel PCM from the optical connector (which you don't want). So, assuming you've used the above settings:

When playing a DVD: DD and DTS are output from the optical connector as normal. For the analog outputs, the player decodes the DD/DTS internally, converts it to analog and outputs it via the 5.1 analog connections.

When playing a Blu-ray Disc: the player will automatically pick up the 'core' (ie normal) DD or DTS soundtrack and output this from the optical connector. For the analog output, the player will use and decode the high-resolution/lossless soundtrack and output it via the 5.1 analog outs.

Thanks Allan, I have found the URL to the online manual. I am probably being thick but it didn't help me.

http://www.service.pioneer-eur.com/peeservice/instrmanu...RB1479_BDP-LX70A.pdf

Morri,

It's very similar to my player. Looking at your manual, the bit you're interested in is Chapter 8 - Initial Setup Menu. Press 'Home Menu' on the remote then select 'Initial Setup'.

In the Initial Setup Menu, under Audio Settings (page 40) you need to:
Set 'Dolby Digital Out' to 'Dolby Digital'
Set 'DTS Out' to 'DTS'
Leave 'DTS Downmix' as 'Stereo'
Leave 'HDMI Audio Out' as 'Auto'

Under Speaker Settings (page 41) you need to:
Set 'Audio Output Mode' to '5.1 Channel'
Then against 'Speaker Setup' select 'Next Screen' to go to the screen where you tell the player how many speakers you have (see page 43)

That's it! When you play a DVD it should just behave like any normal DVD player and you'll probably be best using the optical or coaxial digital output. When you put in a Blu-ray Disc, check what audio options are available on the disc and select Uncompressed/Dolby TrueHD/PCM/whatever and you'll be getting full blown high resolution audio out of the analog connections.

Allan