Norman,
the problem isn't your price. It's the 2.0 spec: there are no 2.0 players yet... it's still probably a few more months before we get it. Yes, no argument for me that this is pretty lame considering how long BD has been on the market, especially since HD DVD had it working day-one.
HOWEVER,
my point with the original post was that the PS3 *will* be 2.0 compliant with an update. So it's a "safe buy" now because it already does profile 1.1 and *will* do profile 2.0 (web interactivity). I'm not sure what the cheapest price of a PS3 is, but it's probably a little above your $250... but still close enough to warrant consideration.
Quote:
Are you saying that with my PS3 I would have to bypass the amplifier's capabilities and rely on the PS3 to turn TrueHD & DTS MA into PCM for output?
If that's right, how would that sound as opposed to sending the unconverted signal to the amp for decoding?
|
Yes, that's exactly what I mean. The PS3 has to do the "extraction" of both TrueHD and (soon) DTS-HD MA to PCM for passing over HDMI.
In theory they should both sound the same since it's getting turned into PCM by one device or another. But in practice it's possible that some variables *could* affect the sound depending on where it happens. For instance, jitter might affect PCM over HDMI differently than bitstreamed compressed audio data. It's also possible that dialog normalization and other "features" of TrueHD, or some sort of additional processing, could be applied in one case but not the other (or applied differently) depending on your gear and set-up.
Since I can only decode to PCM and hear it that way I can't compare myself. But I can say that the decoded 5.1 24/96 TrueHD on the David Matthews BD (sent as PCM over HDMI to my Marantz) was beyond belief.
BTW, I bought a Marantz 8002 with HDMI 1.3 and built-in decoding of TrueHD and DTS-HD MA so I could keep my options open in the future: the PS3 is not the last BD player I'll ever own and I'd like to hear it both ways and decide what I like better with my next player (bitstream versus extraced PCM). I would encourage ANYONE buying a new audio receiver to do the same: don't get ANYTHING that doesn't have HDMI 1.3 *and* internal advanced audio decoding. Keep your options open... you might have that receiver for a long time (had my last one for over 5 years) and you want to make sure it can accept and decode these new formats to ensure that you're not going to miss anything going forward.