rishiguru
Well-Known Member
After a lot of wandering of will I or will not, finally I thought to spare an hour or two from my hectic schedule to write a little bit about the advent of Uber AV amplifier era which lasted from 2000 to 2007. This personal write up depicted below is my own view regarding how the AV amplifier industry evolved in the last ten to twelve years.
Before one starts reading, let me firmly stress that ones own opinions may vary and I do respect with outmost sincerity every ones own perspectives & views. It will be of great help if he/ she express his/her own views regarding the topic in this post.
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THE BEGINING OF UBER AV AMPLIFIER ERA
Year 2000 marked the 90th anniversary of Denon and its parent company, Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd. To celebrate its anniversary, Denon launched the worlds first DTS-ES Discrete AV amplifier, AVC-A1SE, which quickly became a landmark in AV amplifier history and was rightfully called the Uber AV amplifier with an equally staggering US $4,000 price tag.
Denon AVC-A1SE [Released: 2000]
It really took the world by storm and questions began to rise as of how an AV amplifier can cost $4,000? These questions were soon answered as the so called renowned audiophile companies started selling AV separates (processor + amplifiers) costing twice that of AVC-A1SE at heavily discounted prices!!! Denon created this Uber AV amplifier segment with just one motive, to provide sonic performance rivaling separates costing two times its price.
Denon AVC-A1SE Internal View (Just look at the size of those heatsinks!!!)
This 28 kilo beast of an AV amplifier had an excellent audio amplifier section resulting in great sound quality and overall performance. With its seven channels of unrivalled 170 watts @ 8 ohms power; it simply blurred the line that existed before between separates and the average mass-market AV amplifier. Denons competitors were also hit. Suddenly the just released Top Of The Line (TOTL) AV amplifiers from Yamaha, Pioneer & Onkyo seemed out of place & mundane in comparison to this Denon flagship.
Mr Izumi Ozeki, the technical head and AV guru of Yamaha Audio realized Denon had raised their game to a whole new level, an uncharted territory for Yamaha and something completely new in terms of design approach & philosophy were required from their part in order to create the true AVC-A1SE challenger. His own original design sketched a decade ago for DSP-A1000 TOTL A/V amplifier had reached the limit of its performance level with each successive release of DSP-A2070 in 1992, DSP-A3090 in 1995, DSP-A1 in 1997 & DSP-AX1 in 1999. Any further evolution of the same design followed for the past decade was not going to create the true AVC-A1SE challenger.
Yamaha DSP-A1000 aka AVX-2000DSP in Japan [Released: 1990]
Every manufacturing company follow the process of evolution with the successive models of a benchmark product for a certain period of time until:
1) The technology implemented in the benchmark product becomes obsolete.
2) The desired product has hit its performance peak due to design limitations and any more evolution with further refinements/ features will not improve the product.
3) Its competitor in the market has released a new product raising the performance bar to a whole new level which is unattainable with their current product.
All AV companies follow this evolution process in order to save huge development costs required in sketching a completely new AV amplifier and then designing it from scratch. It takes huge effort, time and money. New designs are made to make a revolution, and designing & developing revolutions take time, and time is money. After that comes the gestation period of testing phases which requires further redesigning and redevelopment to smooth the rough edges of the product requiring more time and a solid development budget.
At Yamaha Audio, with the final nod from the board of directors to create the true AVC-A1SE challenger, Mr Ozeki with his handpicked group of elite engineers went on to design & develop a completely new and revolutionary AV amplifier from 2000 onwards for a lengthy period of four years by AV market standards.
While Denon sold thousands of AVC-A1SEs and reaped huge profits, Yamaha just could not sit idle between 1999 released DSP-AX1 TOTL A/V amplifer and to be released AVC-A1SE challenger in 2004 with their hands folded, newer TOTL models need to be released no matter what for every two years, in the ever evolving AV market so that customers remain happy and most importantly the money keeps flowing into the company to keep the company afloat.
Yamaha DSP-AX1 [Released: 1999]
With almost all the engineer's busy in creating the AVC-A1SE challenger in Yamaha R&D labs, what they did for an interim solution with minimum effort was to take the DSP-AX1 internals, paint the heatsinks in anodized black color for better thermal heat dissipation and shove it in a new box, a truly aesthetically beautiful casing with new face & side panels and pump the power output levels a little more towards self destruction and rename it DSP-AZ1. This TOTL A/V amplifier is a living example of how much a decade old but potent design architecture can be stretched beyond its performance capabilities and then somehow manage to resist itself for self annihilation. More of this in the next post.
Yamaha DSP-AZ1 [Released: 2001]
As anticipated DSP-AZ1s release was not greeted with the usual fanfare and big enthusiasm shown over TOTL amps by the AV enthusiasts and media in 2001, Denon stealing the show with their newly released and truly awesome AVC-A1SE Uber AV amplifier. Media & enthusiasts said DSP-AZ1 is a good AV amp completely justifying its US $2,800 price tag, but being dated in terms of new technology compared to AVC-A1SE and more or less the same as DSP-AX1 in a new box. In terms of internal audio amplifier performance and SQ, the AVC-A1SE swallowed the DSP-AZ1 and did not even burp.
A closer look below revels identical internal hardware components where used in DSP-AX1 & DSP-AZ1:
Yamaha DSP-AX1 Internals
Yamaha DSP-AZ1 Internals
Yamaha never indented to challenge Denons TOTL flagship with this model, their target where those customers who did not have enough moolah to cough up $4,000 for AVC-A1SE, and rather settle for the DSP-AZ1 which was undoubtly good and essentially keep money flowing into the company. In 2002, Denon introduced DENON LINK technology and the first product to incorporate the new DENON LINK was the AVC-A1SR, which was the same AVC-A1SE with this added feature along with new anodized black heatsinks for better heat dissipation capabilities thus increasing the mass by 1 kilo to scale 29 kilos.
Denon AVC-A1SR [Released: 2002]
Two years further in 2004, Denon massaged the proven AVC-A1SR with newer Dolby Pro Logic IIx, Denon Link 3 and HDCD decoding features and introduced the final version of this AV amplifier, the AVC-A1SRA.
Denon AVC-A1SRA [Released: 2004]
In the meantime after a long wait of nearly four years Yamaha finally introduced their revolutionary and long awaited Denon AVC-A1SE/ AVC-A1SR/ AVC-A1SRA challenger which incorporating many of AV industries firsts. The model name was Yamaha DSP-Z9 where 9 meant nine channels of amplifications, two more than AVC-A1SRA at 170 watts @ 8 ohms for the main seven channels and two 50 watts @ 8 ohms front presence channels at much lower THD levels than Denon ever managed. And yes, it was truly a quantum leap by Yamaha AV amplifier standards not only in power output capability but also in sound quality which became quite evident as it immediately won the coveted Best Home Theater High-End Component award from EISA straight away in 2004. Weighing 30 kilos and burning a black hole of US $4,500 in the owners pocket it was a true challenger of the gladiatorial AVC-A1SRA, finally winning the epic battle. This time AVC-A1SRA had to admit defeat in front of DSP-Z9's might.
Yamaha DSP-Z9 [Released: 2004]
DSP-Z9 was so good in terms of sound quality, product quality, genuinely usable feature sets and its herculean ability to drive 4 ohm loads on all channels simultaneously (which AVC-A1SRA failed) under full load conditions partly due to its class leading 1500VAC toroidal transformer and partly for a power amplifier section with dedicated 16 pairs of power transistors (instead of 9 pairs) for its nine channels.
This time Denon was forced to follow Yamahas route to design & develop a new hulk of an AV monster amplifier from scratch just like Yamaha did for its DSP-Z9, realizing that even their mighty AVC-A1SRA base design was no match for the herculean DSP-Z9. This time though their intentions were not just to win back the coveted crown from Yamaha but to usurp its competitors and shake their very foundations. The result was the Denon AVC-A1XV released in 2006, weighing 44 kilos, costing a whopping $6,000 and thankfully ending all wars between A/V manufactures once and for all.
Denon AVC-A1XV [Released: 2006]
With AVC-A1XV, Denon did not create a gladiator like the former AVC-A1SRA but a HULK monster which simply decimated its opposition to near oblivion with ten channels of 170 watts @ 8 ohms amplification. It also permitted DVI video signal input to HDMI video output and vice versa, but video up-scaling was limited to analog component video out using the same DSP-Z9s Faroudja DCDi Scaling Chip (480p/720p/1080i). Unfortunately the AVC-A1XV had the same persistent weakness of its predecessor, the inability to drive 4 ohm loads on all channels simultaneously under full load conditions.
Technically speaking, those few knowledgeable people who had serviced these Denon monsters often say the AVC-A1SE/ AVC-A1SR/ AVC-A1SRA & their almighty successor the AVC-A1XV were the best AV amps Denon ever made. With time and newer Denon models, power output stages got smaller, power supply sections started shrinking where as number of audio channels went on increasing. People started to forget that AV amplifiers are more about audio amplification and its sonic performance rather than video up-scaling, how many stickers are there for different supporting formats, HDMI and most importantly acceptance of USB & iPod dock!!!
With HDMI becoming the norm in audio/ video digital standard, AV manufactures started devoting more & more of their synergy and development budget into acceptance of this standard, a huge part of their energy and development cost went in creating proper HD audio/ video decoding circuits and all importantly, seamless integration with iPod, network and USB devices.
In the new HDMI era an AV amplifier isnt just an AV amplifier. Its a series of diplomatic handshakes. Sure, manufacturers developed some of the technologies that go into their products, but they also licensed a lot of these technologies paying huge sums to other outfits which enhance their products, increase the face value and acceptability en masse.
Before the HDMI era, video processing on an AV amplifier was an "added" feature and not the primary objective of these units. The primary object was the audio amplifier section and its objective was to deliver sonic bliss. Opening the cabinet of any TOTL AV amplifier before HDMI era, one ended up searching for processing circuit boards among those humongous power supply and power amplifier sections. In the current HDMI era its just the opposite, you look out for the audio amplifier sections among those huge HDMI & different third part audio/ video processing/ decoding circuit boards.
In short AV amplifiers became AV gadgets, sacrificing all important sound quality for ease of use. Nothing to complain here, just that customer mindsets have changed, now they love gadgets with more accessing facility than ever and the AV industry is following this trend due to demand.
It's great that DSP-Z9 and AVC-A1XV had the ability to perform up & down video conversions, and that alone put them ahead of most AV amps of that time in terms of video switching capabilities. There were so much more in these AV amps that justified their cost beyond HDMI audio/ video processing abilities.
In result when the TOTL successors of the DSP-Z9 & AVC-A1XV where released in 2007, the Yamaha DSP-Z11 & Denon AVC-A1HD respectively, they had very good audio amplifier sections against those excellent ones of their predecessors, 30 watts or even less power output capability per channel, much higher THD levels and much less current available to the drive low impedance speakers under full load conditions resulting in a somewhat sacrificed sound quality, power output & drive capability.
Yamaha DSP-Z11 [Released: 2007]
Look at the dramatic increase of encoding/ decoding circuit boards:
Denon AVC-A1HD [Released: 2007]
But this time full 1080p video up-scaling with all important HDMI and complete HD encoding/ decoding facilities were supported. iPod, USB & network connectivity where the pluses which increased the usability of these AV amplifiers to a great level.
Just for comparison if one looks at the Denon AVC-A1SRA internals below, it shows an all space engulfing huge power amplifier sections with those huge anodized heatsinks and an equally big power supply section with a dedicated 1200VA toroidal transformer supplemented with big can sized power capacitors.
Denon AVC-A1SRA Internals
Four years on their new flagship Denon AVC-A1HD had a much smaller power supply with equally small power amplifier section while a dramatic increase in encoding/ decoding circuit boards can be seen all over the place.
Denon AVC-A1HD Internals
According to many so called A/V pundits this era lasting from 2000 to 2007 was of AV amplifier war, resulting in some landmark products that etched their names in gold in the AV industry.
THE END OF UBER AV AMPLIFIER ERA
With recession creeping in resulting an end of AV amplifier war, AV manufacturers stopped creating any more new TOTL A/V amps from 2007 onwards, projecting their complete focus on creating new model lineups having huge flexibility in inputs and acceptance of every possible audio/ video formats known to man.
What was sacrificed was the audio amplifier section and its sound quality which from excellent ones of pre HDMI era to very good ones with the advent of HDMI era became just good ones from 2000 and later releases. This was most evident from the rapid reduction in weight of these amps, for example 2007 released DSP-Z11 weighed 34 kilos where as the current Yamaha Aventage series range topper RX-A3010 weighs just half of DSP-Z11 at 18 kilos.
Yamaha Aventage RX-A3010
The new trend of audio/video decoding circuit board invasion over minuscule audio amplifier sections can be found even on flagship models like RX-A3010:
Still today if you have at around INR 4 lakhs to spare you can still get a DSP-Z11 from Yamaha India or an AVC-A1HD from ProFX at INR 3.8 lakhs. For sure they will lack some newer features & encoding/ decoding formats but rest assured you will get jaw dropping sound quality along with thundering power output capability, you might have thought only dedicated separates (processor + multi channel power amplifier) setups were only capable of. And if you are lucky enough to land your hands on the AVC-A1HD predecessor, the almighty AVC-A1XV in a seconds sale, then this hulk will gulp the entire current Denon receiver lineup and will not even burp.
In my next post I will try to describe the design philosophy and the goals set by Mr Ozeki in designing his masterpiece, the DSP-Z9. Later more about the differences between DSP-Z11 and DSP-Z9. Hope I can spare time for all this.
Thanks for reading!!!
Before one starts reading, let me firmly stress that ones own opinions may vary and I do respect with outmost sincerity every ones own perspectives & views. It will be of great help if he/ she express his/her own views regarding the topic in this post.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE BEGINING OF UBER AV AMPLIFIER ERA
Year 2000 marked the 90th anniversary of Denon and its parent company, Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd. To celebrate its anniversary, Denon launched the worlds first DTS-ES Discrete AV amplifier, AVC-A1SE, which quickly became a landmark in AV amplifier history and was rightfully called the Uber AV amplifier with an equally staggering US $4,000 price tag.
Denon AVC-A1SE [Released: 2000]
It really took the world by storm and questions began to rise as of how an AV amplifier can cost $4,000? These questions were soon answered as the so called renowned audiophile companies started selling AV separates (processor + amplifiers) costing twice that of AVC-A1SE at heavily discounted prices!!! Denon created this Uber AV amplifier segment with just one motive, to provide sonic performance rivaling separates costing two times its price.
Denon AVC-A1SE Internal View (Just look at the size of those heatsinks!!!)
This 28 kilo beast of an AV amplifier had an excellent audio amplifier section resulting in great sound quality and overall performance. With its seven channels of unrivalled 170 watts @ 8 ohms power; it simply blurred the line that existed before between separates and the average mass-market AV amplifier. Denons competitors were also hit. Suddenly the just released Top Of The Line (TOTL) AV amplifiers from Yamaha, Pioneer & Onkyo seemed out of place & mundane in comparison to this Denon flagship.
Mr Izumi Ozeki, the technical head and AV guru of Yamaha Audio realized Denon had raised their game to a whole new level, an uncharted territory for Yamaha and something completely new in terms of design approach & philosophy were required from their part in order to create the true AVC-A1SE challenger. His own original design sketched a decade ago for DSP-A1000 TOTL A/V amplifier had reached the limit of its performance level with each successive release of DSP-A2070 in 1992, DSP-A3090 in 1995, DSP-A1 in 1997 & DSP-AX1 in 1999. Any further evolution of the same design followed for the past decade was not going to create the true AVC-A1SE challenger.
Yamaha DSP-A1000 aka AVX-2000DSP in Japan [Released: 1990]
Every manufacturing company follow the process of evolution with the successive models of a benchmark product for a certain period of time until:
1) The technology implemented in the benchmark product becomes obsolete.
2) The desired product has hit its performance peak due to design limitations and any more evolution with further refinements/ features will not improve the product.
3) Its competitor in the market has released a new product raising the performance bar to a whole new level which is unattainable with their current product.
All AV companies follow this evolution process in order to save huge development costs required in sketching a completely new AV amplifier and then designing it from scratch. It takes huge effort, time and money. New designs are made to make a revolution, and designing & developing revolutions take time, and time is money. After that comes the gestation period of testing phases which requires further redesigning and redevelopment to smooth the rough edges of the product requiring more time and a solid development budget.
At Yamaha Audio, with the final nod from the board of directors to create the true AVC-A1SE challenger, Mr Ozeki with his handpicked group of elite engineers went on to design & develop a completely new and revolutionary AV amplifier from 2000 onwards for a lengthy period of four years by AV market standards.
While Denon sold thousands of AVC-A1SEs and reaped huge profits, Yamaha just could not sit idle between 1999 released DSP-AX1 TOTL A/V amplifer and to be released AVC-A1SE challenger in 2004 with their hands folded, newer TOTL models need to be released no matter what for every two years, in the ever evolving AV market so that customers remain happy and most importantly the money keeps flowing into the company to keep the company afloat.
Yamaha DSP-AX1 [Released: 1999]
With almost all the engineer's busy in creating the AVC-A1SE challenger in Yamaha R&D labs, what they did for an interim solution with minimum effort was to take the DSP-AX1 internals, paint the heatsinks in anodized black color for better thermal heat dissipation and shove it in a new box, a truly aesthetically beautiful casing with new face & side panels and pump the power output levels a little more towards self destruction and rename it DSP-AZ1. This TOTL A/V amplifier is a living example of how much a decade old but potent design architecture can be stretched beyond its performance capabilities and then somehow manage to resist itself for self annihilation. More of this in the next post.
Yamaha DSP-AZ1 [Released: 2001]
As anticipated DSP-AZ1s release was not greeted with the usual fanfare and big enthusiasm shown over TOTL amps by the AV enthusiasts and media in 2001, Denon stealing the show with their newly released and truly awesome AVC-A1SE Uber AV amplifier. Media & enthusiasts said DSP-AZ1 is a good AV amp completely justifying its US $2,800 price tag, but being dated in terms of new technology compared to AVC-A1SE and more or less the same as DSP-AX1 in a new box. In terms of internal audio amplifier performance and SQ, the AVC-A1SE swallowed the DSP-AZ1 and did not even burp.
A closer look below revels identical internal hardware components where used in DSP-AX1 & DSP-AZ1:
Yamaha DSP-AX1 Internals
Yamaha DSP-AZ1 Internals
Yamaha never indented to challenge Denons TOTL flagship with this model, their target where those customers who did not have enough moolah to cough up $4,000 for AVC-A1SE, and rather settle for the DSP-AZ1 which was undoubtly good and essentially keep money flowing into the company. In 2002, Denon introduced DENON LINK technology and the first product to incorporate the new DENON LINK was the AVC-A1SR, which was the same AVC-A1SE with this added feature along with new anodized black heatsinks for better heat dissipation capabilities thus increasing the mass by 1 kilo to scale 29 kilos.
Denon AVC-A1SR [Released: 2002]
Two years further in 2004, Denon massaged the proven AVC-A1SR with newer Dolby Pro Logic IIx, Denon Link 3 and HDCD decoding features and introduced the final version of this AV amplifier, the AVC-A1SRA.
Denon AVC-A1SRA [Released: 2004]
In the meantime after a long wait of nearly four years Yamaha finally introduced their revolutionary and long awaited Denon AVC-A1SE/ AVC-A1SR/ AVC-A1SRA challenger which incorporating many of AV industries firsts. The model name was Yamaha DSP-Z9 where 9 meant nine channels of amplifications, two more than AVC-A1SRA at 170 watts @ 8 ohms for the main seven channels and two 50 watts @ 8 ohms front presence channels at much lower THD levels than Denon ever managed. And yes, it was truly a quantum leap by Yamaha AV amplifier standards not only in power output capability but also in sound quality which became quite evident as it immediately won the coveted Best Home Theater High-End Component award from EISA straight away in 2004. Weighing 30 kilos and burning a black hole of US $4,500 in the owners pocket it was a true challenger of the gladiatorial AVC-A1SRA, finally winning the epic battle. This time AVC-A1SRA had to admit defeat in front of DSP-Z9's might.
Yamaha DSP-Z9 [Released: 2004]
DSP-Z9 was so good in terms of sound quality, product quality, genuinely usable feature sets and its herculean ability to drive 4 ohm loads on all channels simultaneously (which AVC-A1SRA failed) under full load conditions partly due to its class leading 1500VAC toroidal transformer and partly for a power amplifier section with dedicated 16 pairs of power transistors (instead of 9 pairs) for its nine channels.
This time Denon was forced to follow Yamahas route to design & develop a new hulk of an AV monster amplifier from scratch just like Yamaha did for its DSP-Z9, realizing that even their mighty AVC-A1SRA base design was no match for the herculean DSP-Z9. This time though their intentions were not just to win back the coveted crown from Yamaha but to usurp its competitors and shake their very foundations. The result was the Denon AVC-A1XV released in 2006, weighing 44 kilos, costing a whopping $6,000 and thankfully ending all wars between A/V manufactures once and for all.
Denon AVC-A1XV [Released: 2006]
With AVC-A1XV, Denon did not create a gladiator like the former AVC-A1SRA but a HULK monster which simply decimated its opposition to near oblivion with ten channels of 170 watts @ 8 ohms amplification. It also permitted DVI video signal input to HDMI video output and vice versa, but video up-scaling was limited to analog component video out using the same DSP-Z9s Faroudja DCDi Scaling Chip (480p/720p/1080i). Unfortunately the AVC-A1XV had the same persistent weakness of its predecessor, the inability to drive 4 ohm loads on all channels simultaneously under full load conditions.
Technically speaking, those few knowledgeable people who had serviced these Denon monsters often say the AVC-A1SE/ AVC-A1SR/ AVC-A1SRA & their almighty successor the AVC-A1XV were the best AV amps Denon ever made. With time and newer Denon models, power output stages got smaller, power supply sections started shrinking where as number of audio channels went on increasing. People started to forget that AV amplifiers are more about audio amplification and its sonic performance rather than video up-scaling, how many stickers are there for different supporting formats, HDMI and most importantly acceptance of USB & iPod dock!!!
With HDMI becoming the norm in audio/ video digital standard, AV manufactures started devoting more & more of their synergy and development budget into acceptance of this standard, a huge part of their energy and development cost went in creating proper HD audio/ video decoding circuits and all importantly, seamless integration with iPod, network and USB devices.
In the new HDMI era an AV amplifier isnt just an AV amplifier. Its a series of diplomatic handshakes. Sure, manufacturers developed some of the technologies that go into their products, but they also licensed a lot of these technologies paying huge sums to other outfits which enhance their products, increase the face value and acceptability en masse.
Before the HDMI era, video processing on an AV amplifier was an "added" feature and not the primary objective of these units. The primary object was the audio amplifier section and its objective was to deliver sonic bliss. Opening the cabinet of any TOTL AV amplifier before HDMI era, one ended up searching for processing circuit boards among those humongous power supply and power amplifier sections. In the current HDMI era its just the opposite, you look out for the audio amplifier sections among those huge HDMI & different third part audio/ video processing/ decoding circuit boards.
In short AV amplifiers became AV gadgets, sacrificing all important sound quality for ease of use. Nothing to complain here, just that customer mindsets have changed, now they love gadgets with more accessing facility than ever and the AV industry is following this trend due to demand.
It's great that DSP-Z9 and AVC-A1XV had the ability to perform up & down video conversions, and that alone put them ahead of most AV amps of that time in terms of video switching capabilities. There were so much more in these AV amps that justified their cost beyond HDMI audio/ video processing abilities.
In result when the TOTL successors of the DSP-Z9 & AVC-A1XV where released in 2007, the Yamaha DSP-Z11 & Denon AVC-A1HD respectively, they had very good audio amplifier sections against those excellent ones of their predecessors, 30 watts or even less power output capability per channel, much higher THD levels and much less current available to the drive low impedance speakers under full load conditions resulting in a somewhat sacrificed sound quality, power output & drive capability.
Yamaha DSP-Z11 [Released: 2007]
Look at the dramatic increase of encoding/ decoding circuit boards:
Denon AVC-A1HD [Released: 2007]
But this time full 1080p video up-scaling with all important HDMI and complete HD encoding/ decoding facilities were supported. iPod, USB & network connectivity where the pluses which increased the usability of these AV amplifiers to a great level.
Just for comparison if one looks at the Denon AVC-A1SRA internals below, it shows an all space engulfing huge power amplifier sections with those huge anodized heatsinks and an equally big power supply section with a dedicated 1200VA toroidal transformer supplemented with big can sized power capacitors.
Denon AVC-A1SRA Internals
Four years on their new flagship Denon AVC-A1HD had a much smaller power supply with equally small power amplifier section while a dramatic increase in encoding/ decoding circuit boards can be seen all over the place.
Denon AVC-A1HD Internals
According to many so called A/V pundits this era lasting from 2000 to 2007 was of AV amplifier war, resulting in some landmark products that etched their names in gold in the AV industry.
THE END OF UBER AV AMPLIFIER ERA
With recession creeping in resulting an end of AV amplifier war, AV manufacturers stopped creating any more new TOTL A/V amps from 2007 onwards, projecting their complete focus on creating new model lineups having huge flexibility in inputs and acceptance of every possible audio/ video formats known to man.
What was sacrificed was the audio amplifier section and its sound quality which from excellent ones of pre HDMI era to very good ones with the advent of HDMI era became just good ones from 2000 and later releases. This was most evident from the rapid reduction in weight of these amps, for example 2007 released DSP-Z11 weighed 34 kilos where as the current Yamaha Aventage series range topper RX-A3010 weighs just half of DSP-Z11 at 18 kilos.
Yamaha Aventage RX-A3010
The new trend of audio/video decoding circuit board invasion over minuscule audio amplifier sections can be found even on flagship models like RX-A3010:
Still today if you have at around INR 4 lakhs to spare you can still get a DSP-Z11 from Yamaha India or an AVC-A1HD from ProFX at INR 3.8 lakhs. For sure they will lack some newer features & encoding/ decoding formats but rest assured you will get jaw dropping sound quality along with thundering power output capability, you might have thought only dedicated separates (processor + multi channel power amplifier) setups were only capable of. And if you are lucky enough to land your hands on the AVC-A1HD predecessor, the almighty AVC-A1XV in a seconds sale, then this hulk will gulp the entire current Denon receiver lineup and will not even burp.
In my next post I will try to describe the design philosophy and the goals set by Mr Ozeki in designing his masterpiece, the DSP-Z9. Later more about the differences between DSP-Z11 and DSP-Z9. Hope I can spare time for all this.
Thanks for reading!!!
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