i personally hate these 'one box does everything' pre/pros.

i can't imagine playing some stupid game on my rptv. my coat hanger gets 10 stations. i don't use the pre/pro for video switching and i was over the stereo cd format years ago.

i'd rather have a top notch uni player with excellent dacs, decoders and video playback that has balanced analog outs to a 7.2 analog preamp/master crossover and lfe crossover with balanced outs to active speakers.

all multi-channel formats...with or without picture. 1 remote for the player and monitor.

46 position pots on the preamps, individual 6 inch increment delay control, selectable, fixed point HP/LP corner freqs, 360 degree phase control and selectable filter slopes with color-coded I/O...ANALOG.

player: $1000
preamp: $1500
tuner: none
speaker cables: none
learning curve: 15 minutes
sound: excellent

...and DEFINITELY no remote/cell phone/e-mail/lighting/thermostat controller with a 95 page manual.

As long as you're dreaming why not a all digital signal chain, right out to the active speakers?

I was leaning that way myself except for two things. A lack of titles for the newer formats (though it is improving). The discovery of upsampling with my new Philips SVD-963sa. If you haven't tried an upsampling DAC or player you should really give one a listen, you may be surprised, I was.

Like Meridian, if you have the bucks.

You beat me to it, Morphsci, I was gonna say-- if you have a few extra bucks, Meridian will fix you right up charlie! I figure Outlaw ought to be able to deliver us something along the same lines for -- say-- $1995??

What I actually had in mind was an open standard, not an end to end solution. Thanks anyway

Yeah, I know-- I wish more manufacturers would dream along the same lines as you.

Me too, but someone has to start the ball rolling, although at the present time it doesn't appear to be rolling very fast (or even in the right direction).

[QUOTE]Originally posted by charlie:
As long as you're dreaming why not a all digital signal chain, right out to the active speakers?[/QUOTE

because i object to the digital processing of the signals before d/a conversion.

all that's required to process digital multi-channel formats after decoding is preamplification for unity gain to any amplifier, high and low pass filters, slopes, phase control and delay. d to a conversion has to happen eventually in any case. i prefer the conversion first and the processing to be
done in analog.

digital processing, as it exists, is based on a flawed system, is in it's infancy and doesn't impress me.

analog filters, delay, preamplification and routing on the other hand, are easy to precisely design and predict in conjunction with active speakers.

Amen. 24/192 PCM and DSD get you closer to analog, but analog is still the goal.