2. home-theater
  3. 995307559

Good used surround processors??

I just split up my system--taking the high-end two channel section and moving it to my new living room, and taking what's left (with which i used a tape looped fosgate pro logic processor) and re-assemblling a mid-fi home theater in my new family room. As two channel listening isn't critical (at all) to the theater system, I don't want to spend the farm on a processor, but I do want to make the jump to digital surround.

As I'm sure digital surround sound processors are changing (and hopefully improving) more than probably any other component, I need a 101 guide on the pre-requisites to look for in a used processor, and features that don't really matter. Also, if I am looking for, say, a two year old mid-fi surround processor, what are some worthy candidates? In other words, should I avoid the Rotel, and look for a B&K or Parasound processor? I throw these arbitrarily as examples, but hopefully you get the idea.

Thanks in advance.


Ho
bismarck1f4ad

Showing 1 response by drew_eckhardt

drew_eckhardt
394 posts
 
1. Get a Lexicon DC-1 THX AC-3 DTS v4 for $1200-$1700 or a DC-2 for $2000-$2500. Logic 7 is a substantial improvement over the stock AC-3/DTS/Prologic decoding algorithms especially if you run both side and rear surround speakers (I really recommend this). The DC-1 was also a pleasant step up from the DACs in my $700 Adcom GCD700 CD player and DC-2/MC-1 owners suggest similar quantum improvements from the DC-1 are possible.

2. Many digital surround sound processors lack an (accessable - you can rig up a switch box on the Lexicons to use the analog zone 2 outputs) analog pass-through; so if you use an external DAC you'll be converting digital to analog to digital to analog.

3. If you have the shelf space, I think stereo amplifiers are a fine idea. On paper, many two-channel amplifiers are biased hotter than their multi-channel brethern and should therefore avoid cross-over distortion.
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