I want a new Pre-Pro. Any good reason to wait for the next Outlaw over this--

http://www.ultimateavmag.com/surroundsoundpreampprocessors/308onkpro/

?

The concern I would have about the Onkyo/Integra pre/pros is their inability to handle the new dts ma hd format. I have been following a thread over at avs and it seems that said pre/pros as well as yamaha, have an issue decoding dts ma. They have been calling this the "bit stream bomb" it will at some time with certain blue ray titles, sound like a gun shot. Brian

Here's the thread.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1008620

It doesn't happen with every disc and they've started a list of what is and isn't affected. It's interesting.

If you needed an HDMI v1.3 processor today and didn't want to buy a receiver to use as a pre-amp, the Onkyo 885 and Integra 9.8 are pretty much the only game in town. I hadn't been keeping a real close eye on them, but have heard mention of the "bitstream bomb" in some discussion of my Blu-ray player (BD30) at AVS.

The Denon AVP-A1HDCI also available but way to many $$$$$$$

I could be wrong, but I understood that both Onkyo and Yamaha have come up with a firmware fix for this issue.

There's been a firmware fix, but Onkyo has only released theirs in europe at the moment. They've had no comment for US customers.

The Denon is certainly a beast, but with an MSRP of $7K, I think most of us ID purchasers will pass. I really think you'd have to be smoking crack to buy that piece of equipment, unless money doesn't matter. - my2¢

It looks like discussion of the "bitstream bomb" has been picking up at AVS lately. One more thing for Outlaw to worry about as they develop their own HDMI v1.3 products...

Some of Denon's chosen price points lately have struck me as a bit odd. There's the $7,000 surround processor, the $2,000 Blu-ray player that lacks DVD-A/SACD support, the $1,000 Blu-ray transport that lacks DVD-A/SACD support and any outputs except HDMI - and neither BD player is profile 2.0. I hope those prices are helping finance some good R&D for less expensive products.

Denon is a classic example of a company that soaks the early adopters. They always seem to hit the market with super expensive products then a few months later bring out models at half the price with more features.

Hopefully they won't have to worry about it since they're using the newer Cirrus chip instead of the TI chip that Onkyo/Integra and Yamaha used. Even worse, they can't be upgraded to profile 2.0 since they lack an ethernet port. But hey, what do you expect for $2K?

Upcoming Panasonic and Sony players are supposed to be profile 2.0 "ready", with ethernet connections and whatever internal hardware is needed, basically waiting on a firmware upgrade whenever the BDA finishes hammering out the 2.0 spec.