Originally Posted By: casey01
Originally Posted By: gzubeck
Gonk,

Don't laugh but I'm still using a Hitachi rear projection TV That I bought 7 years ago. I am using a Kenwood 8004 Trio Amp that I replaced $100 worth of Electrolytic parts for my Two front Channels (Using Two Polyglass Vifa Drivers with a Seas Aluminum/Mag Tweater). I am using another European/Japanese Sony 500 ES amp for my surrounds for a pair 15 year old B&W 600 Speakers. I Bought the Outlaw 970 preamp 2 years ago to replace my older sony DA-50ES Receiver which finally died. Now mind you this is no slouch of a receiver because it was made before Sony started cutting corners. I am currently running this in a quad speaker configuration with a phantom center channel. I thought I was seriously going to have to upgrade all of our equipment due to all the new HDMI requirements. Guess what...for Christmas we got a new panasonic Bluray player that Changed everything. We hooked up the Blu-ray player and the DTS signals were processed extremely well...so much so that now the speakers basically disappear when we put in the higher fidelity Bluray (A very immersive sound field emerges) as well as even better picture quality with greater control over the aspect ratio. We had to buy an external HDTV tuner for the older HDTV. We are currently using all Component video connections. After hearing about all the failure rates of the newer plasmas and huge costs of going LED LCD we are sitting on the sideline because the picture quality of my old Hitachi TV can only be exceeded by the Very best of the new LED TVs. To make a long story short the older Outlaw 970 has done an admirable job in decoding audio signals using the optical digital cable and we are in no rush to buy any new equipment until the Hitachi dies. Basically, I'm saying we can now live with what we got with a $150 Bluray player that improved our entire system. Everything shined with an improvement of just one component in our system. Amazing really. :>)


As a matter of fact I own a ten year old Toshiba 1080i RPCRT that is still working beautifully and until it dies, I have no interest whatsoever in any of the new technologies. As far as the restrictions of component video related to HDMI, there is a solution to this issue. You might want to check out the following websites: "HDFury.com" and/or "Moomecard.com". It would mean ordering either of them from Taiwan, however, either of these allow an HDMI to component connection to your monitor PLUS the added advantage of you now being able to use the HDMI connection out of your Blu-Ray player to maximize its video processing capabilities and upscaling of standard DVDs not available through a component connection. Also should your monitor continue to work and you desire to upgrade your AVR/Pre-Pro to attain (Dolby TruHD and DTS Master Audio) through the AVR, either of these will enable you to do this as well.



For now I think I will stick with the component connections. I like the Aspect ratio correction that puts a black mat around the available space on my 4X3 Hitachi. I don't have a widescreen Hitachi so there are very light grey bars on the top and bottom for the 1080i signal. When it comes in 480p using the entire screen I get to use the Bluray player's optional aspect correction. Thanks anyway for the info because it could be useful down the road if I need an HDMI to component output to my Hitachi TV with a new preamp or receiver. The Picture quality is still very good (better than DVD) with 480p output sitting 8 feet away from the screen. The biggest improvement is by far the Lossless DTS signal the bluray puts out. The 970 sounds a notch better when an improved signal is sent to the 970 preamp. I wonder at what bitrate the 970 decodes the Bluray DTS signal cause whatever its doing it sounds very life like (not cool or warm sounding).