For a dual purpose Roon and 2.0 TV setup in my new apartment I’m looking for an amplifier.
It will be placed in a closed off cabinet, but with some ventilation (custom cabinet with a ‘chimney’ behind the tv wall). Fancy screen etc is not really needed.
Speakers to drive: Audiovector SR1 Arrete
Sensitivity: 87,5dB / Max power handling 200W
What am I looking for in the amplifier?
It will be used for Roon and for watching TV, so HDMI (e)ARC. Spotify connect, Airplay 2, bluetooth etc. are nice to haves
It has to sound good, duh
It has to be user friendly. I don’t want to manually start up devices and switch inputs etc.
Start-up / wake-up time not too long etc.
Auto wake up and auto input select for both Roon (ethernet) and HDMI.
HDMI (e)ARC can’t have any noticeable latency / delay (for tv and movie)
It has to be reliable. Don’t want to spend my time on buggy firmware and troubleshooting etc.
Room correction: no experience with it and I think it is a nice to have, but if it adds latency for video it looses it’s value. On the left side the room will be open and on the right side there will be a huge glass window.
The devices I have found so far that are ‘affordable’, +/- 2500 euro (to max 3000)
(I prefer to buy used with warranty or score a nice deal).
Arcam SA30: apparently HDMI has too much latency to be usable
Lyngdorf 1120: good reviews, but will this drive my speakers well (enough)?
NAD M10 V2: read about some issues with HDMI
Cambridge EVO 150: plenty of power, no room correction
My questions to you:
What would you do?
Devices to avoid in regards to my ‘requirements’? (bugs, hardware issues…)
Other alternatives I am not yet aware of?
Any new/updated devices arriving in the near future I am not aware of? I will move in +/- February '23, so I still have time.
At this moment, it is between the power of the Evo 150 and the room correction of the Lyngdorf.
Those are the devices with the least problems (that I have read about so far).
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
2
I just ordered a NAD C 3050 LE, about $2000. Roon Ready, Dirac Live for room correction, HDMI input for TV hookup, phono preamp for turntable, all mod cons. Ships in December.
A good friend owns this unit as an “all in one” solution and he is very satisfied, beautiful sound. He uses B&W 702 S2 speakers. But it has no HDMI output
I have the nad m10. It’s been great for me except hdmi. It works as long as you don’t want it to constantly auto switch to hdmi even if auto is off in settings while the tv is on. I often like to watch sport and listen to music and this hasn’t been possible for me as the freakin’ thing switches back to tv sound. Otherwise it’s fab, I now route the tv through optical but this can be a bit quiet.
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
7
Thanks for the replies everyone.
Now I’m also looking at the NAD C399 + MDC2 module.
It’s relatively new, has plenty of juice, has DIRAC AND measures better than the others.
Anyone knows if BluOS is good with auto wake-up, auto input select etc?
I have the Arcam SA30, but used only for Roon and love it for that. I have not tried the HDMI but I did plug in the Optical from my TV (I have an Onkyo 7.1 AV solution taking the HDMI) just to test and it appears that Dirac Live causes Lag on output and I turned that off.
Having played the TV out to both at the same time as a test the Onkyo is definitely ahead of the Arcam in output speed. But I like to keep my AV and music separate so not an issue.
Just an FYI for anyone who stumbles upon this thread:
BluOS devices have an undefeatable 50ms delay built in for grouping purposes. This will cause lip sync problems with a TV image if you are unable to correct for it elsewhere in your chain. Madness that they don’t offer a way to bypass this if you have no interest in grouping.
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
13
I’m not seeing this problem with an HDMI connection from my television’s eARC port to my NAD 3050 (MDC2).
50ms is two frames @25fps and pretty noticeable although my other half seems to not. I am sensitive to lip sync as it’s part of my job to spot stuff like this. That said I never had issues with my T778 and it used BluOs module for hdmi inputs. I believe there is a delay for analogue inputs as part of the a2d for multiroom it is noted it affects all inputs. Even if it does distance from speakers and the tvs image processing lag may help cancel it out. A lot of TVS have a lot of picture lag compared to audio which is why most have a delay function for the audio to keep it in sync. If the image is after audio though without the ability to drag it back you’re stuck. Happens with a lot of digital broadcasts I find.
In isolation the 50ms would be difficult to spot unless you are very sensitive to lip sync issues. It’s more that it’s an additional 50ms on top of any delay already created by your TV and other devices in the chain. The combined amount could well be very obvious.
