Need expert advice on a 7.1 CH HT system.

[subhash]

hi , has anyone heard/auditioned the new Marantz 7003/8003 CD/SACD player? also is there any audible difference in performance from the older 7001?

 

[reignofchaos]

All new products, when released, are expensive and there is resistance in the minds of people to move. Take the case of cassettes vs tapes, CDs vs LPs, DVD vs VHS, DVD vs Laser Discs, 3.5 inch floppy vs 8 inch, MS Word vs Wordstar, Excel vs Lotus 123, mobiles vs pagers.... the list is endless.

The situation is even worse today given the recession we are living in. If not, the discussion in all these magazines (online and offline) would have be different. These same authors would have been encouraging everyone to throw out the DVD Player and HR Ready TVs, and berating you for using such 'aged' equipment.

I agree it makes sense to wait for sometime for prices to fall before you buy a BD player. But there is no doubt in my mind that a BD Player and BR Discs will become as common as DVDs are today.

When? That is a beeeeeeg question.

Believe me, 5 or 6 years from now, you will see DVDs in the flea shops around the country as you see records today. BTW, I wonder what happened to all those millions of VHS tapes in the country. Where are they all?

Whatever recession we have had in the last 50 odd years, the growth and movement of technology has never been hampered.

Cheers

Venkat what you talk is very true. However the scenario now is a bit different from what it was say 5-6 years ago. If you'd been following, there has been a paradigm shift of late and people are moving from CDs/DVDs and similar physical media to electronic downloads.

I'm not talking about poor quality mp3s that used to be exchanged until recently off underground sites, I'm talking abut high quality audio and video data. Even stalwarts in the industry like Linn are moving over to this medium and offering studio master quality 24bit/192kHz downloads over the web for prices far cheaper than what an SACD of the same album costs.

Unfortunately we are still lagging behind the rest of the world in terms of available bandwidth as even a 512k connection is considered "broadband" in India. However elsewhere in the world, people are actually watching 720p/1080p streaming video on demand from content providers like netflix. The latter recently crossed 10 million users and the number is only growing.

Sooner or later we'd see a similar phenomenon happening in India too. Sony itself has admitted that the day of the optical disc medium is over and the future is electronic downloads. It has also said that bluray is potentially the last optical disc medium that the world will ever see.

Personally I'd not invest in a Bluray player since first of all no titles other than 2-3 are available and a decent player itself is kind of expensive. Other than that, I have an HTPC which plays just about everything including HD in stunning quality so I'm not missing out on anything. One can also get a bluray drive for ~5000 rupees for it.

 

[venkatcr]

ROC, I agree with what you say vis-a-vis music. The music file size is limited and it is easy to download even a FLAC file of say 40 odd MB. The important point is the music and it's rights are with you.

But I am not sure of streaming movies. Though, yes, NetFlix is working, but they are at a resolution of 720P or around that. When you are talking about 1080P and above, the file sizes are huge - 50GB currently and will touch 200GB by 2011. Ultimately whether you see online or you buy a disc is all about economics. If you have to spend 10$ to see a movie once, and the same 10$ to have the same movie permanently with you, which will you prefer? For example, I will not hesitate to pick up Star Trek, X-Men, Die-Hard Series, X-Files, some Discovery Channel Episodes, etc. I am sure each one of us will have a set of movies/TV Serials we love. BTW, in the US, Blu-Ray movies are around 15$ today and will touch 10$ very soon.

My DTH provider offers some new movies at Rs.50 each. I don't find it convenient to sit and watch at his timings. Yes, streaming video will give you timing flexibility, but somehow I am uncomfortable with having someone else controlling my viewing or listening habits, and having to depend upon someone else for see a movie. In computer software, Oracle offered their million dollar Accounting System online on a pay per transaction price. It was a complete failure, as your account masters had to be kept on Oracle servers.

Today, for example, if two people go for a movie in a good cinema hall, the minimum expenditure is Rs.500. That is why when a I see a original DVD of some movie I have not seen available at around 500, I unhesitatingly pick it up.

If you see Blu-ray.com - Blu-ray Movies, Players, Recorders, Media and Software, literally every movie is being remastered in Blu-Ray. Studios are losing money in DVD, and they are looking to make money on Blu-Ray. Please red the article Blu-ray.com - 2009: The Year of Blu-ray Movies. His conclusion?

At the time, many spoke about how 2008 would be the year that Blu-ray would either come into its own or painfully fade away. Looking back, it may be more accurate to say that 2008 was the year for Blu-ray hardware - seeing the drastic price reductions of the pre-holiday season - and that 2009 is the year for Blu-ray movies. While no one has specially come out and said it, there is a very visible change in the studios' Blu-ray policy. Having followed this format from the very beginning, I can honestly say that there were times were I would doubt a studio's commitment to Blu-ray. I don't think anyone could say that today.

Cheers

 

[reignofchaos]

ROC, I agree with what you say vis-a-vis music. The music file size is limited and it is easy to download even a FLAC file of say 40 odd MB. The important point is the music and it's rights are with you.

But I am not sure of streaming movies. Though, yes, NetFlix is working, but they are at a resolution of 720P or around that. When you are talking about 1080P and above, the file sizes are huge - 50GB currently and will touch 200GB by 2011. Ultimately whether you see online or you buy a disc is all about economics. If you have to spend 10$ to see a movie once, and the same 10$ to have the same movie permanently with you, which will you prefer? For example, I will not hesitate to pick up Star Trek, X-Men, Die-Hard Series, X-Files, some Discovery Channel Episodes, etc. I am sure each one of us will have a set of movies/TV Serials we love. BTW, in the US, Blu-Ray movies are around 15$ today and will touch 10$ very soon.

It again depends upon the compression system used. If you actually check the UDF filesystem of a bluray disc on a computer, you'd find that the real movie is at most 20-25GB and not more with vc1 compression and uncompressed audio.

Again on existing internet connections, it mostly needs to be downloaded and watched and not streamed. However I'm sure within a couple of years, things will definitely change. Plus you can always download and dump it on your hard drive with certain services and maybe even backup the content.

As of now there are tonnes of different kinds of draconian copy protection on downloaded content. I do believe though that the content will become free of this sooner or later as it happened with most music sites serving music files.

 

[marsilians]

hi , has anyone heard/auditioned the new Marantz 7003/8003 CD/SACD player? also is there any audible difference in performance from the older 7001?

Here is my unscientific review also I dont own or work for Marantz.


I have heard both and the 8003 is very different (and better) than the 7003 though it will cost a bunch. The major enhancements are the newer Cirrus chip, separate circuits for power and analogue circuits and shorter signal path - designs taken from the reference series line. I heard regular CDs and some SACDs (not a big fan of redbook CDs). It sounds very good esp. for the mids and lows but has a bit of roll of at the top end. The CDs which sounded gorgeous were John McLaughlin Floating Point, Pat Metheny Group, Grateful Dead Without a Net, Particia Barber Verse, Natalie Cole - Best of (Vol 1).


I tried some Yash Raj songs and they sounded terrible because this is not a player that forgives bad mastering techniques.

setup consisted of Monitor Audio GR 20 and B&W 784
amp : Aragon Ultra 2, PS Audio HCA/2, Musical Fidelity A5 Integrated


So bottom line is if you have a fair bit of money, excellent recordings and very good speaker system then it makes a good buy.

 

[subhash]

Here is my unscientific review also I dont own or work for Marantz.


I have heard both and the 8003 is very different (and better) than the 7003 though it will cost a bunch. The major enhancements are the newer Cirrus chip, separate circuits for power and analogue circuits and shorter signal path - designs taken from the reference series line. I heard regular CDs and some SACDs (not a big fan of redbook CDs). It sounds very good esp. for the mids and lows but has a bit of roll of at the top end. The CDs which sounded gorgeous were John McLaughlin Floating Point, Pat Metheny Group, Grateful Dead Without a Net, Particia Barber Verse, Natalie Cole - Best of (Vol 1).


I tried some Yash Raj songs and they sounded terrible because this is not a player that forgives bad mastering techniques.

setup consisted of Monitor Audio GR 20 and B&W 784
amp : Aragon Ultra 2, PS Audio HCA/2, Musical Fidelity A5 Integrated


So bottom line is if you have a fair bit of money, excellent recordings and very good speaker system then it makes a good buy.

thanks a lot for the information marsilans, actually i dumped the idea of going for the BLUray as of now and wanted to up my cdp from 5001(marantz) to say 7003/8003, but again sourcing one of these is dificult ,any idea where to get the 7003 from? they say 8003 is not launched here in india as yet