The real benefit of firewire with DVD-Audio and SACD (the reason that people have been chomping at the bit for it or some other standard digital interface) is that it lets you consolidate all digital processing (bass management, signal processing, and what-not) and D/A conversion in one place (the reduction in cabling is a plus, too, but mostly from a convenience standpoint). With DVD-A and SACD decoding restricted to the player, you need two sets of high-quality DACs -- one in the player for DVD-A/SACD and one in the receiver or pre/pro for everything else (video DVD's, CD's, cable or satellite, etc.). Whether firewire or analog connection will sound better depends (as with most things) in the components you choose -- firewire to a receiver with a mediocre digital engine could end up not sounding as good as analog from a good player to a receiver or pre/pro with a decent analog section.

It's still too early to tell for sure about the 1070, but I suspect that it will offer an excellent alternative to the super receivers even without adding outboard amplification. The trusty old 1050 was rated at 65Wx6 (albeit not with all channels driven at once), and it was widely praised for packing more power than the rating suggested.

THX covers a lot of ground, and it is separate from DTS. DTS is a 5.1 digital audio format that competed with Dolby Digital in the 1990's when the DVD format was defined. Think of it as a cousin of Dolby Digital. THX, on the other hand, is first and foremost a quality assurance license. To carry the THX logo, a product has to meet a set of requirements set forth by THX (the company that George Lucas established back in the 1980's in order to provide some means of establishing quality control for movie theaters) and then be tested by THX. In addition to this quality control, THX offers some processing modes. There's THX Surround EX, which is a home theater derivative of the movie theater Dolby Digital EX format created in the late 1990's and used in Episode I and Episode II of Star Wars. For several years, THX EX was the only way to get EX processing in a home theater, but in late 2001 Dolby began to license Dolby Digital EX for home theater gear. There is still a set of THX processing modes licensed as part of the THX program. These include re-equalization, adaptive decorrelation (to help with managing mono signals), and some requirements for bass management (THX dictates an 80Hz crossover, which is intended to guarantee proper performance with THX-approved speaker systems). Think of THX as an overlay for Dolby Digital or DTS decoding - you get the 5.1 channels, and then THX handles the final processing. Years ago, the processing provided by THX was a big deal. Today, most or all of the processes included in THX processing are considered essential parts of any surround processor (pre/pro or receiver).

That description of THX may seem sort of long-winded, but it's actually pretty abbreviated. There's a lot about THX that I haven't mentioned. If you are interested in finding out more, you might skim through THX's site or even doing a search through old posts here in the forum - there have been some discussions about the need (or lack thereof) for THX processing that included comments from some very knowledgeable folks.

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