Blatant display of my ignorance, please help :) (1 Viewer)

[John-Miles]

Ok its been a while since i have blatantly displayed my ignorance, but can someone explain pre outs to me. I am "hopefully" soon upgrading my receiver, and well honestly I dont knwo exactly what to look for. right now the things i am looking at are inputs (optical coaxial, and omponent video switching) but I have no idea what some thigns are like a-b switch? and pre outs?

anythign else you think i might want to know but dont know to ask please tell me.

just so you knwo I am considering the Yamaha RX-V1300

 

[Keith Mickunas]

The a/b switch probably refers to it having connections for two pair of main speakers. With the switch you can activate only one pair, or both. Running both will put a higher strain on the receiver. Some people use this to put speakers in two rooms for example. Its not recommended to use both all the time though. For movies you'd only want one set running so that you can get the most out of the receiver.

The pre-outs allow you to connect external amplifiers to the receiver and use the receiver as just a pre/pro. This is good way to step up to separates, as well as give you better power for your speakers. With the 1300 you have pre-outs for all the speakers.

The 1300 is a very capable receiver. The only thing it lacks is pre-ins for all channels, although it does have the 5.1 channel input so that may be moot, and video for the zone 2 output, which would allow you to distribute video from any of the components connected to your receiver to another location. The component video switching has bandwidth of only 60MHz which if I'm not mistaken is to low for HDTV but should be good for most other sources.

The receiver also has inputs and outputs for remote control devices which are good for custom installations and the like as well as a 12 volt trigger which can be used to turn on external amplifiers. These are nice features often not seen on receivers in this price range.

 

[John-Miles]

Ok so what are Pre ins?

and i thought hdtv needed like 54 Mhz?

is that wrong?

 

[Keith Mickunas]

Pre-ins are essentially the same as the 5.1 channel input. They allow an analog signal to be put directly to the amplifiers bypassing the receivers processor, although the processor is still active. As far as I know, the only real advantage to pre-ins over the 5.1 input would be to allow you to route your speakers through an external equalizer. If you were to connect the pre-out to the equalizer's input, then the equalizer's output to the pre-in, you could then be using the processor of your receiver, plus the equalizer, and feed it to the receivers amplifiers. You can't do that with the receiver's 5.1 input because when you activate that, no processing is done by the receiver.

I've heard that you need double the bandwidth capability to insure no loss. Ideally you want 108Mhz for HDTV. The -3dB level is at 60Mhz, that's way to close to 54Mhz, so there could be some signal degradation if you route HDTV through the receiver. I believe DVD should be fine, as well as any game system.

Of course, most people would say you shouldn't run your video through a receiver's switching anyways. If your TV has 3 or more component inputs, you're set anyways, you could run DVD and HDTV direct, and anything else you might have would go through the receiver. However if you have an HDTV-capable TV, and it only has 1 component input, you might want to consider a different receiver.