Is old Proceed AVP-S still any good?
 

Hi,

I see quite some amount of those units for sale on Ebay and on lists with dramatic price drops down to $500-$700 in average.
Is this once considered quite remarkable unit still good for a setup with 2channel and sub?

I have 3 digital sources plus Sony dvp-s7700 that I want to use as a transport, amp is rotel rb1080 and speakers are b&w 805s connected by monster mcx-2s and audioquest type 4, sub is JBL L8400P.

Currently as a pre-amp I use old yamaha rx-v795a. Store owner who sold me that Rotel amp told me to be quite accurate in my assumptions about pre-amps since most budget and initial quality integrated units may not be dramatically better (I assume it was his politically correct way to say - your incompetent years will hear no difference whatsoever) so I was thinking about getting something in (reasonably) better class to have 2 coax and 2 optical inputs and use this pre-amp mostly as a DAC conected via balanced outputs to rotel rb1080.

So, how good old 6-8 years old Proceed AVP-S for abstract $700 will be compared to Yamaha`s DAC? On paper it is still the same 24 bit 96kHz.

What is it in the reality? Or should I, say, bite the bullet and get something like upcoming Parasound C3? I am quite open minded, but do not really want to spend a fortune - all I want is a modestly priced relatively decent system I can enjoy without any extra hype.

I do not care about video much, but an ability to use equipment with new standards is always a welcome - I have heard that new blue-ray and any DVD players with hdmi 1.3 will be quite common soon and dvp-s7700 will not live forever, right?

Please advice, it is an extremely difficult for me to navigate in all those piles of new stuff.

Re: Is old Proceed AVP-S still any good?
 

Anybody?

Re: Is old Proceed AVP-S still any good?
 

It is a very good pre/pro, it doesn't do many modern things the new breed do, such as the new codecs, and I am not sure but think it is 7.1 capable. I think the real steal is the Proceed PAV/PDSD that was $10,000 retail, but can often be seen going for less than a grand.... you can even work this one to have a 5.1 analog input, but it ain't easy.

many older pre/pro's are much more difficult to set up, and do remember a general rule (obviously, it has exceptions) is to only expect ~10 years from a piece of AV gear, and the AVP is, well over ten years old.....

Re: Is old Proceed AVP-S still any good?
 

Thanks, it was also my way of mind, I was just quite puzzled with idea that $5K unit can now be obtained for $500. Or $10K for $1K. Not all the brands go down in price so badly.

Speaking about 10 years lifespan - do you refer to just technological standpoint like supported formats or to hardware issues - like capacitors going out of shape, etc?

Formats wise I have a huge CD collection so all I want probably is a decent DTS and 24bit DAC in a good pre-amp and I hoped to find a confirmation that, say, Proceed AVP-S does in a fact have a decent DAC. Sometimes it is quite a tricky topic - you can look at a $xxxxx unit to find that in fact it was built on same cheap internals as $200 Technics. :)

Thanks for a good answer, anyway. I appreciate it.

Re: Is old Proceed AVP-S still any good?
 

Packaging, Marketing and HUGE profit margins that is what highend Audio still is! Video is going the way of the comodity business like computers!

Re: Is old Proceed AVP-S still any good?
 

It is a ten year old unit there has been a lot of progress made I think it's not worth it