Just Upgraded from the 950 to the Onkyo PR-SC5007

I pulled the trigger on a processor upgrade from my Outlaw 950, with the new Onkyo 5507. I have been a loyal Outlaw fan since 2003 but didn't see the cost/benefit to upgrading with the subsequent Outlaw processors. They all seemed just incrementally better than the 950. I have followed the travails of the 997, and viewed the addition of the Onyko 886 as good move/endorsement of the best available processor in today's market.

I wanted to buy the 997, but also wanted to upgrade my system now, not down the road. I bought an Oppo 983 blu ray player recently as well, (upgrading from the 981HD).

I will say the 5507 is pretty amazing. The connection options are over the top, given I am pretty much only using the Oppo at this point. The sound quality through my Outlaw 750 and M 200 amps is great, and I have not had any issues with "slow signals."

The question I have for you all is which video processor to use? I am using the Oppo processor now via HDMI to the Onkyo to my Sharp 10000 projector with 1080i processing. So the question is which processor wins in the cage match, the Reon or the Anchor Bay?

Thoughts gents? I know I could tweak this and find out myself, but before I do this, I thought I would get some feedback from the other Outlaws.

Additionally, I have a now 7 year old Denon 2900 DVD/CD/SACD player that I could put in the mix, with an analog or optical connection. The DACs in the Onkyo have been great so far with SACD and DVD Audio discs coming out of the Oppo via HDMI. Again, I know I could hook this up and test it for myself, but I thought I would get some opinions on whether the you all feel the Denon would hold up versus the Oppo in the sound quality department.

Finally, I have Paradigm Studio 60's v2 upfront, a Studio CC front and rear center, Studio ADP's on the sides, and Paradigm Servo 15 subwoofer in a 6.1 configuration for informational purposes.

Thanks in advance for the input all.

Gary

I am in the same situation but with my old Outlaw friend Model 1050. I want (ed ???) the 997,...but I questioning myself to give it more time. It is time to upgrade my 1050

I'd start out by bypassing the Onkyo's processing and letting it pass the BDP-83's video straight to your projector.

I'd use the BDP-83 for that, as well. What might be entertaining is to hook the BDP-83 up with multichannel analog as well as the HDMI cable to see how the two compare. The BDP-83 has a mighty fine analog section.

Thanks Gonk. I am currently bypassing the Onkyo processing. The Oppo sounds great via HDMI so I will probably leave well enough alone. Thought I would open the thread for the conjecture...

Interestingly, I called Oppo to get their recommendation on which BDP-83 to order, the regular or SE, and they recommended the regular model given the processor I was going to use. I thought this was great customer service and they did not try to up-sell me to more expensive model. What I'd love to know is how the SE sounds vs. the regular model? It sounds like they are coming with a more basic model player in the near future as well.

Now if I could only afford a 7 channel balanced amp...

If you use HDMI output, it would be indistinguishable. As for how the analog outputs sound, I don't know but I've heard lots of good things about the SE.

Should be arriving soon, from what I hear. I'm looking forward to seeing the reaction to it.

I give up (waiting for the 997) where can I buy a Onkyo PR-SC5007

Google it. The places which actually have them in stock are mostly on line retailers or places like Sound Advice.

You can get it from ProAcoustics and GGvideo both claim to be Onkyo Pro Authorized dealers, but I went with Markertek Video Supply. They matched GGvideo's price and I know they are reputable. Proacoustics was out of stock and GGvideo was very low on stock. Not sure about Markertek. You need to call them. They do not show the 5507 on their website.

GGvideo Website

http://www.ggvideo.com/onk_prsc5507p.php

Merkertek

http://www.markertek.com/

So have you set the 5007 to "through" with the Oppo? I recently purchased the 5507 which they say is nearly identical and I have my resolution with the Oppo set to 1080p for the dvd/bd HDMI input on the 5507 and was wondering if I need to change that to take full advantage of the Oppo processing. thanks.

The cleanest signal path would be to have the 5507 set to "Through" for the BDP-83 unless you have the BDP-83 set to "Source Direct." You've already got an excellent video processor, so ideally the processor should just pass the signal through with little or no additional manipulation.

thanks, gonk. I will make the change tonight along with my other tweaks. And even though I felt a twinge of regret buying the Onkyo, my 950 will continue to do its amazing job because my sister is going to buy it for her basement along with my old speakers. The 950 was the best investment I ever made in HT equipment up to when my upgraditis hit. Glad it will still be making Outlaw proud of it's workmanship.

I read this and was wondering what people think?
"Personally, I consider video scaling/deinterlacing to be one of the main functions that should be performed by a digital AV prepro, in a single location in your system, along with a handful of others such as sound decoding. So in theory, the 5507 should be set to output 1080p and all the video sources should be set to output their equivalent of "native". If you configure this way, then all video scaling and deinterlacing will occur in the 5507 using its processor. It makes sense to have a single device do all the video scaling/deinterlacing rather than have 5 devices each with their own video processors. It should cost less and allow a nicer scaler in that single location. Also it should involve less setup complexity, variability in video quality, debugging issues, etc."
I have my 5507 Monitor Out set to "Source". This, in turn, lets me set my OPPO's (BDP-83 and 983H) to "through" in the source setup menu since I love the way the two players upscale to my Panny 65" plasma, creating what you talked about, the cleanest signal path using both players excellent video processors. Now the 5507 is using the Teranex HQV Reon-VX video processing with 1080p video upscaling (just repeating what's in the unit's description) so I would assume (since I'm not familiar with the Reon and haven't tried testing to see how it looks on my display, that it boils down to a matter of what looks good to you. So right now everything seems to be doing what it's supposed to do and looks great. Just wanted to throw that out for people to chew on. thanks.

I've compared the 885's Reon (same chip as the 5507 with an older implementation) to the 983H and BDP-83's ABT. I prefer the ABT a bit, but the differences are subtle.

Again, I'm no expert, but I value your opinion and many others that post here and having followed your recommendations and a few others, I quite happy with what I'm seeing (and hearing). Sometimes with a variety of ways to reach the same destination it gets too confusing for people like me with a limited amount of knowledge about these things. In a million years, I wouldn't see subtle differences with my set-up.

Certainly when the options are Reon or ABT processing, neither choice is a bad one. As for the paragraph you quoted previously, the approach described is a pretty reasonable recommendation to make when the associated hardware is not known. I think that, in your case, what you have already done is a very good approach.